Language art vs math curriculum

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Eureka has 29 consecutive lessons on ratios and rates and percents, each with 5-10 homework problems.

And the "consecutive" is surely part of the problem. Cram, cram, cram on one topic and then drop it for a year, instead of covering all topics each quarter and then cycling back.

Sounds like a digital version of Kumon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I think language art is challenging because they ask 2nd grader to determine key events and central message in a reading article. They also ask for novel study and write something after reading. My kid can read above grade level book, but it is challenging for him to write down summary and key important things. As I say, I am not from here. It seems like it requires a kid to grasp the main idea, supporting idea etc , remind me the style of writing a journal or essay or summarization not at my ES years.

PP here. This is not unusual at all. Be grateful your child is getting this type of instruction! If they are struggling now, know that they will get better with more exposure and practice. This is only ES. Go to your local library and consult with the librarian in the kids section: get books with reading comprehension questions in the back. This will give your kid more practice to read critically. The goal is to pick up a text and to read critically, and to communicate the reader's thoughts clearly. It is a process, and you have to be patient with the kids. They will eventually get it.

What books are commended for these?

OP - Here is a list of books that have comprehension questions with them: https://risetoreading.com/resources/comprehension-questions/all-books/. Don't know what your child is interested in or at what level, but you will likely find something that interests them on this list. One thing that works on some kids is to pick find a book that has a series. They get pleasure out of seeing how the characters continue to evolve, and it provides them with a sense of accomplishment in reading x number of books.

[Anonymous]

For those looking for more reading activities to do at home, check out Common Lit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those looking for more reading activities to do at home, check out Common Lit.

Commonlit.org is good (we used it with a tutor during covid), but it is pricey. There are many other free resources on the Internet (like in the above link) or inexpensive workbooks on Amazon, or at the public library, that will do the same thing. They are good to give parents an idea of what types of discussions to have about a text. This is especially important for parents who may not have had this type of parenting when they were growing up. But, this type of active reading is how children should learn language arts -- a fundamental skill for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Also, if parents want their kids to have good language arts skills, do this: Read. To. Them. Everyday, without fail. And, have a quick discussion about the text afterwards. This was so important for my kids' success in ES, MS, and HS now. They all lean towards STEM now, but the sense of curiosity and easy facility of engaging critically with a text I think comes, in part, from those family reading sessions. Take the time to do it now, and they will thank you later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the emphasis is on bringing reading up to speed early because it’s the foundation of all other learning. It’s difficult to teach science, history, even more advanced math if students aren’t strong readers. Math can more easily be accelerated in later grades for students who are capable of a faster pace.

And there’s some evidence that a slower pace in early grades sets a strong foundation for more complex tasks. People complain about their children being taught multiple ways to solve a simple arithmetic problem, but the intent is to help students also understand the underlying concepts when they memorize those facts. And many of those seemingly repetitive approaches come into play again later, in more advanced ways, so it’s helpful to have that grounding from earlier work. My high school student isn’t a math whiz, but a solidly advanced student, and they’ve been surprised over the years to realize there was actually a reason for some of those hated elementary-school lessons like matrices.

Yep. Second grade is horridly boring and repetitive in Eureka math but there is a reason for the long slog.

Second grade is currently doing multiple methods of skip counting.🤣

[Anonymous]

Maybe I'm the rogue one here, but I'd actually say the ELA expectations in elementary are way too low. Obviously there needs to be wraparound support first and foremost, all the way up, to generate the strongest possible reading from everyone.

But regardless of achievement level, they should all be reading skill-appropriate text (including as many actual books as possible) in school All. The. Time. At every possible moment. And constantly practicing first accurately representing words, then following directions, then summarizing, then finding main ideas, then looking for meaning and motivation, then comparing different texts with one another. Every last paragraph they encounter should be approached this way, including in social studies and science, and especially in grades 4 and 5. Reading, as other have pointed out here, is the single skill without which nothing else is possible. We shouldn't waste a single moment without doing it thoughtfully and well.

At the moment I count at least two hours in DC's school day that are not related to instruction. Roughly one of those is lunch and recess, but the other often gets used for homeroomy things. Personally I'd rather see that dedicated to small-group reteaching while everyone else READS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, if parents want their kids to have good language arts skills, do this: Read. To. Them. Everyday, without fail. And, have a quick discussion about the text afterwards. This was so important for my kids' success in ES, MS, and HS now. They all lean towards STEM now, but the sense of curiosity and easy facility of engaging critically with a text I think comes, in part, from those family reading sessions. Take the time to do it now, and they will thank you later.

This is nowhere near enough for ELA skills.

[Anonymous]

I have my own theory about ELA vs math in US. I'm in DC, but I also noticed this pushing ELA much more than math. I went though MA EC program and how to teach math wasn't in the program.
I spent a year in K classroom here in DC as an aide. The teacher was master of ELA and greatly enjoyed it. Math was a different story. She followed the curriculum, but didn't go beyond like she did in ELA. Any time there was extra time, books were pulled out. It was never taking out individual white boards for math.
Also, ELA is all over the math. Kids have to know how to read to do math. It's hardly ever the other way around.
Few math teachers or enthusiasts end up elementary classroom teacher, but so many who love anything ELA, were in the classroom.
In Soviet Union, we had the opposite. ELA offers the chance for fantasy and ideas- something nobody really cared for in SU. The books they may have written, were never going to be published.
Math on the other hand was in every elementary school looking to find the next genius to help them to the moon again. My best math teacher wasn't even math teacher, but even her own math education was good enough to teach us.
My on DC who ranks ca 9th in his class out of seventy kids in math and ELA, got 4 in ELA and 5 in math in Parcc. This tells me that ELA test was harder this year - pushing ELA again- or math was easy, or both. DC got really close to the max in math within the 5 range. DC was far from reaching max for 4.
Also, any time there was a helper/reading instructor in the classroom, they were all there for ELA. The tutoring I saw by the teacher before school was also ELA, not math or science. Just my thoughts/experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have my own theory about ELA vs math in US. I'm in DC, but I also noticed this pushing ELA much more than math. I went though MA EC program and how to teach math wasn't in the program.
I spent a year in K classroom here in DC as an aide. The teacher was master of ELA and greatly enjoyed it. Math was a different story. She followed the curriculum, but didn't go beyond like she did in ELA. Any time there was extra time, books were pulled out. It was never taking out individual white boards for math.
Also, ELA is all over the math. Kids have to know how to read to do math. It's hardly ever the other way around.
Few math teachers or enthusiasts end up elementary classroom teacher, but so many who love anything ELA, were in the classroom.
In Soviet Union, we had the opposite. ELA offers the chance for fantasy and ideas- something nobody really cared for in SU. The books they may have written, were never going to be published.
Math on the other hand was in every elementary school looking to find the next genius to help them to the moon again. My best math teacher wasn't even math teacher, but even her own math education was good enough to teach us.
My on DC who ranks ca 9th in his class out of seventy kids in math and ELA, got 4 in ELA and 5 in math in Parcc. This tells me that ELA test was harder this year - pushing ELA again- or math was easy, or both. DC got really close to the max in math within the 5 range. DC was far from reaching max for 4.
Also, any time there was a helper/reading instructor in the classroom, they were all there for ELA. The tutoring I saw by the teacher before school was also ELA, not math or science. Just my thoughts/experience.

How can you say l lower score means "pushing it more"? Maybe it means "teaching it less and accepting worse work in class".

Math assessment is an IQ test far more than a test or any specific studying or content. Kids score high or low uncorrelated to teaching.

USSR gave kids low grades in math for bad handwriting or not showing work in the official format, decades before "Common Core" and "Eureka" .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, if parents want their kids to have good language arts skills, do this: Read. To. Them. Everyday, without fail. And, have a quick discussion about the text afterwards. This was so important for my kids' success in ES, MS, and HS now. They all lean towards STEM now, but the sense of curiosity and easy facility of engaging critically with a text I think comes, in part, from those family reading sessions. Take the time to do it now, and they will thank you later.

This is nowhere near enough for ELA skills.

It is obviously just a start and is meant to be built upon, and is not meant to be a substitute for school. Sheesh!

[Anonymous]

Aside from the fact that math is a form of mental calisthenics, I don't think anyone outside a STEM field needs anything past precal, and most less than that. I got a 5 on the BC Calc exam, walked out, and literally never did math again except for percentages and ratios. Still don't.

STEM career? Entirely different story. But I fail to see why this arms race of mathematics acceleration does any real good for everyone else except that it checks off graduation requirements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would not cal Benchmark challenging. I think they could do more more on ELA.

Benchmark in general is not good, but I'd call it challenging in the sense that the Benchmark "books" I've seen often exceed the average reading level in that grade, especially compared to the decodables that get sent home. Maybe out of step is a better term. RGR has been great for my kid but this is a problem with piecing a curriculum together rather than using one with a solid phonics component already built in.

I think the only good thing about benchmark is it includes a unit test at the end where student practice SAT/SAT2/AP type of questions of inference, summarizing, identifying etc multiple choices questions. These testing skill were not emphasized pre common core 2.0 where teachers used leveled books/paper worksheets for most of the ELA teaching. But I do find it annoying that everyone regardless reading level is reading the same booklet, where you see the below are struggling and the above are bored and only maybe 25% are actually on level. And the curriculum is really time demanding so there is no time for helps or enrichment.