Community Review of K-6 Reading Materials

[Anonymous]

There is a kiddie version of The Borrowers.

[Anonymous]

I went to willow oaks and looked at the resources. They are terrible. There is no choice. It's either we going to use Benchmark or Benchmark. I put in a community feedback form but as many things in FCPS, it seems like they have already made their decision. I am trying to be cautiously optimistic as Wiley Bevins helped write them but it is not engaging at all. I think the bigger question is the implementation. Is this going to be THE resource or A resource. Schools have had a lot of autonomy in what resources they use so I will be interested to see how that is messaged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:See what kind of - as far as I can tell meh - curriculum FCPS is looking at here: https://www.fcps.edu/node/36853

Weigh in your strong support of anything that's backed by the science of reading (according to Colorado it's not Benchmark, which is what FCPS plans to buy), clear and specific instruction on letter formation in K-2, grammar, real spelling based on phonics, and all the other good stuff here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe6jNE_7EAHKbjvUoFDIVhT735SCnsUX9MdBYqHs6_dUyxOtA/viewform.

I also want materials that help ground and sustain a lifelong interest in reading and develop ongoing critical reflection/comprehension. My kids could both read before K--I want options that don't bore them to death. That's not reflected in the science.

You should consider home schooling. Your children aren't going to be reading Dickens in Kindergarten, PP.

I don't need them to read Dickens (they would hate that!), just something roughly at their level and not have to endure phonics lessons they don't need and get some meaningful instruction at their level between K-2 in language arts. They LIKE age appropriate books (current K kid is devouring Ivy+Bean and Borrowers' series right now)--just have seen how my older kid who was similarly advanced in reading suffered through reading instruction in K-2 and dreading what it will be like for my younger one if they add even more phonics in and remove more of the writer's workshops/readers' workshops which were the only thing he liked. I wish there was more differentiation in K-2 as that's where the developmental differences in reading really show up and that's where kids form their attitudes towards school, learning etc.

I can understand how it would be frustrating if your kid was reading Borrowers (which is not a kindergarten book by any stretch, main character is 13 and it's more an upper ES book though content-appropriate for any age). However have a little thought for the 60% of kids who will be at risk of not reading well (with a huge gradient of what "not well" means) if they don't get phonics instruction. I had to work like crazy to get one of my kids out of the habit of "look at the picture and guess" so she didn't end up with an incorrect dyslexia label down the road.

Writer's workshop is horrible for actually teaching writing. Maybe your kid is as good at intuiting sentence structure, paragraph structure, spelling, and the like as they are at reading complex material, but your kid is not the norm. You're basically asking for multiplication in kindergarten, but from language arts.

I absolutely support some phonics instruction and agree that it's needed and important for reading. But there are a diversity of kids' abilities in K-2, with a fairly high percentage of strong readers in FCPS, and given all the tests/screeners they are given there could be meaningful differentiation based on results. I don't think they have to meet exactly at my kids' level, but at least just let them read and talk about books with other readers and do open-ended writing prompts with feedback etc. while others are doing phonics support. I think it's just as important to develop voice, expression of ideas early on as it is to spell accurately and write grammatically. The latter are important and easier to measure, but the former need to be supported also. It's easy to get overly reductive with reading/writing instruction.

They ARE doing this. They have independent reading time, and they have "reading buddies" and reading groups, even in Kindergarten. Maybe your child hasn't told you about this, but it's happening.

No, I know they are doing this (I have a 4th grade kid too so I've been through it before also). I was just advocating that this kind of differentiation continue--and even expand--with the consideration of new curriculum, because it's the only thing that keeps the advanced readers hanging on through K-2. I think people think advanced readers are okay with anything--but we have to fight them getting an early anti-school attitude.

[Anonymous]

Ant-school attitude is right. What about when your kid is always the only one in their reading group?

[Anonymous]

Anti-

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to willow oaks and looked at the resources. They are terrible. There is no choice. It's either we going to use Benchmark or Benchmark. I put in a community feedback form but as many things in FCPS, it seems like they have already made their decision. I am trying to be cautiously optimistic as Wiley Bevins helped write them but it is not engaging at all. I think the bigger question is the implementation. Is this going to be THE resource or A resource. Schools have had a lot of autonomy in what resources they use so I will be interested to see how that is messaged.

They are boring, that stinks. Do they at least teach reading as described by the poster talking about the reading rope above? Do they do explicit teaching of writing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to willow oaks and looked at the resources. They are terrible. There is no choice. It's either we going to use Benchmark or Benchmark. I put in a community feedback form but as many things in FCPS, it seems like they have already made their decision. I am trying to be cautiously optimistic as Wiley Bevins helped write them but it is not engaging at all. I think the bigger question is the implementation. Is this going to be THE resource or A resource. Schools have had a lot of autonomy in what resources they use so I will be interested to see how that is messaged.

They are boring, that stinks. Do they at least teach reading as described by the poster talking about the reading rope above? Do they do explicit teaching of writing?

I have many questions about the writing instruction....these kids need to learn how to write. It doesn't "just happen" as some schools like to say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to willow oaks and looked at the resources. They are terrible. There is no choice. It's either we going to use Benchmark or Benchmark. I put in a community feedback form but as many things in FCPS, it seems like they have already made their decision. I am trying to be cautiously optimistic as Wiley Bevins helped write them but it is not engaging at all. I think the bigger question is the implementation. Is this going to be THE resource or A resource. Schools have had a lot of autonomy in what resources they use so I will be interested to see how that is messaged.

They are boring, that stinks. Do they at least teach reading as described by the poster talking about the reading rope above? Do they do explicit teaching of writing?

I have many questions about the writing instruction....these kids need to learn how to write. It doesn't "just happen" as some schools like to say.

I totally agree. My second grader was working on a story for reflections and her knowledge of proper English extended to capitalizing the first letter of a sentence and an ending punctuation mark. It's pretty hard to read that. She has been read aloud to since birth and reads plenty herself, and quite well. Just having her read more isn't going to improve her usage of English. Someone needs to tell her what to do. I will continue working with her, but with these hour and a half or two hour language arts blocks it sure would be nice if there were some information on how to structure a paragraph built in. The private school we've been wishing to send the kids to for years has them doing five paragraph essays by the end of second grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to willow oaks and looked at the resources. They are terrible. There is no choice. It's either we going to use Benchmark or Benchmark. I put in a community feedback form but as many things in FCPS, it seems like they have already made their decision. I am trying to be cautiously optimistic as Wiley Bevins helped write them but it is not engaging at all. I think the bigger question is the implementation. Is this going to be THE resource or A resource. Schools have had a lot of autonomy in what resources they use so I will be interested to see how that is messaged.

They are boring, that stinks. Do they at least teach reading as described by the poster talking about the reading rope above? Do they do explicit teaching of writing?

I have many questions about the writing instruction....these kids need to learn how to write. It doesn't "just happen" as some schools like to say.

I totally agree. My second grader was working on a story for reflections and her knowledge of proper English extended to capitalizing the first letter of a sentence and an ending punctuation mark. It's pretty hard to read that. She has been read aloud to since birth and reads plenty herself, and quite well. Just having her read more isn't going to improve her usage of English. Someone needs to tell her what to do. I will continue working with her, but with these hour and a half or two hour language arts blocks it sure would be nice if there were some information on how to structure a paragraph built in. The private school we've been wishing to send the kids to for years has them doing five paragraph essays by the end of second grade.

Okay, but that's not age appropriate either. Clearly there is a healthy middle. I want my 2nd grader to write a coherent paragraph, not an essay, at age 7.

[Anonymous]

There is no way public school can be everything to everyone. Either we need to fight for more tracking so that teachers have more homogenous classes, or we need to accept that the highest kids are going to be bored. It is impossible for teachers to give 5 levels of readers what they need, and it's not fair that we ask them to or everyone is going to get haphazard, watered down instruction.

If you want your kid to get exactly what they need (looking at you, kindergarten borrowers reader), you need to homeschool. That's the only realistic way that can happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no way public school can be everything to everyone. Either we need to fight for more tracking so that teachers have more homogenous classes, or we need to accept that the highest kids are going to be bored. It is impossible for teachers to give 5 levels of readers what they need, and it's not fair that we ask them to or everyone is going to get haphazard, watered down instruction.

If you want your kid to get exactly what they need (looking at you, kindergarten borrowers reader), you need to homeschool. That's the only realistic way that can happen.

Well, yes, more tracking would obviously be better for all kids, and for teachers. But it was done away with because it wasn't equitable, and it's apparently more important that school be equitable than that it deliver the best possible education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no way public school can be everything to everyone. Either we need to fight for more tracking so that teachers have more homogenous classes, or we need to accept that the highest kids are going to be bored. It is impossible for teachers to give 5 levels of readers what they need, and it's not fair that we ask them to or everyone is going to get haphazard, watered down instruction.

If you want your kid to get exactly what they need (looking at you, kindergarten borrowers reader), you need to homeschool. That's the only realistic way that can happen.

Well, yes, more tracking would obviously be better for all kids, and for teachers. But it was done away with because it wasn't equitable, and it's apparently more important that school be equitable than that it deliver the best possible education.

But I think it can be done equitably with some foresight. We can't track forever, but if we would be okay with 1st grade teachers dividing and conquering (For reading, Mrs. A gets level 1 kids, Mrs. B gets level 2 kids, flip for math) then teachers only have to create two levels of workshop lessons instead of 4. Every quarter they can reassign kids to groups based on progress they made. Don't force them into advanced math or remedial writing for a whole year or a whole education, but for 9 weeks? Ugh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no way public school can be everything to everyone. Either we need to fight for more tracking so that teachers have more homogenous classes, or we need to accept that the highest kids are going to be bored. It is impossible for teachers to give 5 levels of readers what they need, and it's not fair that we ask them to or everyone is going to get haphazard, watered down instruction.

If you want your kid to get exactly what they need (looking at you, kindergarten borrowers reader), you need to homeschool. That's the only realistic way that can happen.

Well, yes, more tracking would obviously be better for all kids, and for teachers. But it was done away with because it wasn't equitable, and it's apparently more important that school be equitable than that it deliver the best possible education.

But I think it can be done equitably with some foresight. We can't track forever, but if we would be okay with 1st grade teachers dividing and conquering (For reading, Mrs. A gets level 1 kids, Mrs. B gets level 2 kids, flip for math) then teachers only have to create two levels of workshop lessons instead of 4. Every quarter they can reassign kids to groups based on progress they made. Don't force them into advanced math or remedial writing for a whole year or a whole education, but for 9 weeks? Ugh.

I think our ES actually does this a little with math in second. One of my kids reported that year that some kids left her class to go to a different teacher and some kids from another class came to her class. I couldn't think of a reason why that would be other than tracking. It was very transient.

[Anonymous]

^^^

Or rather ability grouping, not tracking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to willow oaks and looked at the resources. They are terrible. There is no choice. It's either we going to use Benchmark or Benchmark. I put in a community feedback form but as many things in FCPS, it seems like they have already made their decision. I am trying to be cautiously optimistic as Wiley Bevins helped write them but it is not engaging at all. I think the bigger question is the implementation. Is this going to be THE resource or A resource. Schools have had a lot of autonomy in what resources they use so I will be interested to see how that is messaged.

They are boring, that stinks. Do they at least teach reading as described by the poster talking about the reading rope above? Do they do explicit teaching of writing?

I have many questions about the writing instruction....these kids need to learn how to write. It doesn't "just happen" as some schools like to say.

I totally agree. My second grader was working on a story for reflections and her knowledge of proper English extended to capitalizing the first letter of a sentence and an ending punctuation mark. It's pretty hard to read that. She has been read aloud to since birth and reads plenty herself, and quite well. Just having her read more isn't going to improve her usage of English. Someone needs to tell her what to do. I will continue working with her, but with these hour and a half or two hour language arts blocks it sure would be nice if there were some information on how to structure a paragraph built in. The private school we've been wishing to send the kids to for years has them doing five paragraph essays by the end of second grade.

Okay, but that's not age appropriate either. Clearly there is a healthy middle. I want my 2nd grader to write a coherent paragraph, not an essay, at age 7.

yes agree...developmentally appropriate writing instruction.