APS How many novels are read in fifth grade?
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Anonymous
Can you elaborate more? What will there be a greater emphasis on? |
Anonymous
| I have a reluctant 4th grade reader. We listen to an audio book for 30-60 minutes a night because I broke down and got sick of fighting with him over reading. It's better than nothing, but his spelling and grammar are not good, and I think it's because he hates to read so much. |
Anonymous
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Talk to your school librarian. Tell them a bit about your child's interest and books they have enjoyed in the past. I am certain they would be happy to chat with your child and pull three to five books for them to try out.
If that does not work, they can make more suggestions. Ideally you want your child to get excited about a book series such as The Terrible Two, Wings of Fire, Wild Robot, Amulet.... There are so many great books out there. |
Anonymous
If it helps my 4th grader LOVES to read (like he is never without a book). His spelling also sucks. I also love to read and my spelling sucks. Sometimes spelling just doesn't click for folks. |
Anonymous
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DD's 5th grade class read, IIRC, 3 separate books in small groups in 5th grade. In addition, her teacher always had a novel going that she read to the entire class daily as part of the built-in circle time that is common in elementary.
6th grade Reading class was a semester long and they didn't actually read a single thing. Complete waste of time. From what I can tell they've also only read one book in Language Arts so far. Thank goodness she is a voracious and proficient reader, since APS certainly isn't supporting that development. |
Anonymous
I hope high school AP English is different; but otherwise PP is right that the APS curriculum doesn't include a lot of reading of novels - and even less writing of anything more than 3-5 paragraphs. TJ middle school used to have a fabulous reading program for 6th graders that was divided up into different types of reading: fiction, non-fiction, genres, etc. It exposed kids to a variety of types of reading and was intended to develop the various type of reading skills they would need - academic reading v fiction, for example. Other middle schools did not have this same program and I don't know if TJ still does. I hope it does. Still, other than that, don't expect your kid to get to read a lot of full novels via the APS general and even intensified ELA curriculum. We have two high schoolers. Our junior read "To Kill a Mockingbird" as a freshman and part of "The Odyssey" and part of other books. They were about to start "Romeo and Juliet" when the original COVID shutdown came. No new material was allowed to be taught, so they've never read R&J. Our second child is a freshman taking intensified English. They have completed R&J and are reading The Odyssey now. I believe they may have read another novel earlier in the year before R&J. But it definitely isn't like when I was in high school and we read 6-12 complete novels throughout the year (and wrote full length papers on each one). |
Anonymous
| If you want writing you go private. Public is about STEM. |
Anonymous
Oh, this is a pet peeve of mine! Our kid wasn't being read aloud to in class, but the high school teachers kept telling them not to read ahead. Hey, if my kid was actually interested enough to want to read ahead, LET HIM! Encourage him! But my bigger issue is with all the post-it notes they make them use and giving them specific questions to answer/things to look for AS they read each chapter for the first time. I hate that. That makes them read just to find the answers, missing out on the overall story and writing. It does not let them read for themselves and get what they get out of it on their own first, then get a broader and deeper understanding via meaningful class discussions - which develops the ability to see broader themes and deeper meanings for themselves when they read another book. But OP is asking about elementary school still. The APS way is to just encourage reading of anything that interests them. Generic assignments to just "read" every night is the main focus of homework (until even that goes away). At that level, it should be about developing a love for (and ability to) read. And yes, teachers might still read a book aloud to the class even in 5th grade. So what? Hearing someone else read can be very helpful to those learning to read or having difficulty with reading. If you're constantly struggling over words, you don't really get as much out of what you're reading because you're so focused on figuring out individual words. The teacher reading aloud exposes them to more sophisticated writings and everyone can benefit from hearing a proficient reader read with expression. Adults listen to books on tape; so what's wrong with kids listening to teachers read a book? |
Anonymous
| For every public school that gloats about being a “lover of reading” there is almost no reading being done in Public Schools. |
Anonymous
| I have a strong memory of my 5th grade teacher (in the 80's!) reading "The Boxcar Children" to my class. That was definitely a book I could have easily read on my own (I was an avid and early reader throughout school). But we were transfixed and I probably wouldn't have sought out the book on my own. Reading aloud to children improves their independent reading ability. There is research to back this up. Why poo-poo this concept? |
Anonymous
The post-it notes!!! YES! They did that in elementary too, and it totally kills any love of reading. |