APS Lucy Calkins- how does this happen?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please read “The Knowledge Gap” by Natalie Wexler. Lucy Calkins is HORRIBLE. I can’t believe teachers go along with this.

Every teacher and school administrator should read this book. I doubt many of them have.

It’s basically an opinion piece. All of my kids learned to read by me via whole language. All were reading at a 3rd grade level upon entering K. Head sprout (if it’s still around) was also part of my mom curriculum. Re phonics - You are teaching kids to read laugh and write it as laf. Why would anyone want their child to learn phonics in K? I still remember the K teacher “correcting” my DCs spelling/phonics test. Laugh was marked wrong and corrected as Laf. School was Skool. My poor DC came home crying. I had to schedule a conference and explain that DC DRA was a 36 and to stop teaching DC phonics.

Your teacher was an idiot, but if you understood phoneme/ morpheme correspondence you would know that kids don’t typically master the gh pattern until later than kindergarten. Check the neuroscience research.

Some kids can learn to read without phonics, but they tend to start to struggle after the 3rd grade when there aren’t any more pictures and they have to decode unknown words. It is better and more efficient to teach effective reading to all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please read “The Knowledge Gap” by Natalie Wexler. Lucy Calkins is HORRIBLE. I can’t believe teachers go along with this.

Every teacher and school administrator should read this book. I doubt many of them have.

It’s basically an opinion piece. All of my kids learned to read by me via whole language. All were reading at a 3rd grade level upon entering K. Head sprout (if it’s still around) was also part of my mom curriculum. Re phonics - You are teaching kids to read laugh and write it as laf. Why would anyone want their child to learn phonics in K? I still remember the K teacher “correcting” my DCs spelling/phonics test. Laugh was marked wrong and corrected as Laf. School was Skool. My poor DC came home crying. I had to schedule a conference and explain that DC DRA was a 36 and to stop teaching DC phonics.

That's not how I was taught phonics . . .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please read “The Knowledge Gap” by Natalie Wexler. Lucy Calkins is HORRIBLE. I can’t believe teachers go along with this.

Every teacher and school administrator should read this book. I doubt many of them have.

It’s basically an opinion piece. All of my kids learned to read by me via whole language. All were reading at a 3rd grade level upon entering K. Head sprout (if it’s still around) was also part of my mom curriculum. Re phonics - You are teaching kids to read laugh and write it as laf. Why would anyone want their child to learn phonics in K? I still remember the K teacher “correcting” my DCs spelling/phonics test. Laugh was marked wrong and corrected as Laf. School was Skool. My poor DC came home crying. I had to schedule a conference and explain that DC DRA was a 36 and to stop teaching DC phonics.

That's not how I was taught phonics . . .

Me either. I learned via Open Court at private school in the era of whole language. Open Court was (maybe still is, it’s still around) great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please read “The Knowledge Gap” by Natalie Wexler. Lucy Calkins is HORRIBLE. I can’t believe teachers go along with this.

Every teacher and school administrator should read this book. I doubt many of them have.

It’s basically an opinion piece. All of my kids learned to read by me via whole language. All were reading at a 3rd grade level upon entering K. Head sprout (if it’s still around) was also part of my mom curriculum. Re phonics - You are teaching kids to read laugh and write it as laf. Why would anyone want their child to learn phonics in K? I still remember the K teacher “correcting” my DCs spelling/phonics test. Laugh was marked wrong and corrected as Laf. School was Skool. My poor DC came home crying. I had to schedule a conference and explain that DC DRA was a 36 and to stop teaching DC phonics.

Some kids learn with whole language. A huge percentage don’t. Those kids are left behind. The majority of kids can learn using phonics based instruction. The kindergarten teacher you mentioned correcting your child is not using phonics based instruction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I keep asking - who makes the curriculum decisions? Is it at the principal or district level?

And now the Calkins is getting lots of negative attention from parents who are seeing the lack of instruction first hand, her organization is talking about “rebalancing”. They have been denying the science of reading for years. This is just a craven attempt to keep market share.

District picks several different acceptable curriculums. School can choose one of the curriculums district picked. Majority of schools picked Calkins. Now more schools are switching away from Calkins. I believe that as a whole, APS is moving away from whole reading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My APS ES kid has phonics instruction every day. I'm not sure about in K because it was just a "language arts" block, but in 1st had both phonemic awareness and phonics, and in 2nd phonics. DC is a strong reader so admittedly haven't paid much attention, but now I'm curious if it's not really phonics, or if there are differences between schools?

It varies with the school. Most APS schools choose Calkin but there are a few that don’t.

Mi thought all of APS switched. We are at nottingham and they are using Orrin Gilligham this year thank goodness. Mynolder kids has one heck of a time leading to read, and one is still struggling.

Principles got to pick so Lucy Culkins faked some fake a$$ phonics and McK pick that one b/c CB is a dumba44.

[Anonymous]

Calkins is very popular in NoVa. Not sure why, but it's no different than most of the other curriculums and methods. It's considered "balanced literacy," which is really a new name for whole language, as most teachers today have never learned how to teach phonics.

Teachers have absolutely no choice about what kind of method to use. When I was a teacher they would come into the classroom randomly and if you weren't following whatever the flavor of the month reading fad was, then you got written up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please read “The Knowledge Gap” by Natalie Wexler. Lucy Calkins is HORRIBLE. I can’t believe teachers go along with this.

Every teacher and school administrator should read this book. I doubt many of them have.

It’s basically an opinion piece. All of my kids learned to read by me via whole language. All were reading at a 3rd grade level upon entering K. Head sprout (if it’s still around) was also part of my mom curriculum. Re phonics - You are teaching kids to read laugh and write it as laf. Why would anyone want their child to learn phonics in K? I still remember the K teacher “correcting” my DCs spelling/phonics test. Laugh was marked wrong and corrected as Laf. School was Skool. My poor DC came home crying. I had to schedule a conference and explain that DC DRA was a 36 and to stop teaching DC phonics.

That's not how I was taught phonics . . .

That's not phonics. It's "invented writing" which is more of a whole language thing. It was originally meant to let kids write before they could really spell, but sounds like someone's teacher turned it into something stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I keep asking - who makes the curriculum decisions? Is it at the principal or district level?

And now the Calkins is getting lots of negative attention from parents who are seeing the lack of instruction first hand, her organization is talking about “rebalancing”. They have been denying the science of reading for years. This is just a craven attempt to keep market share.

It’s the district. If you’re so passionate about this do your research. You don’t get to be outraged and also demand we spoon feed you info on why you’re outraged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please read “The Knowledge Gap” by Natalie Wexler. Lucy Calkins is HORRIBLE. I can’t believe teachers go along with this.

Omg don’t blame the curriculum a whole district buys and says teachers have to use on the teachers. How much say do you have over how your leadership tells you to do elements of your job?

It’s interesting that you (teachers) can band together for so many things, like keeping schools shut down, but when it comes to what you teach, you don’t have a voice. OhhhhhhK.

The problem is, enough teachers think that current methods and curricula are good. Morons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please read “The Knowledge Gap” by Natalie Wexler. Lucy Calkins is HORRIBLE. I can’t believe teachers go along with this.

Omg don’t blame the curriculum a whole district buys and says teachers have to use on the teachers. How much say do you have over how your leadership tells you to do elements of your job?

I’m a nurse and you’d better believe that if my coworkers and I were instructed to do things that consistently led to bad outcomes, we would speak up and demand change.

WTH?? You’re ok with accepting the failing state of education? I seriously have to question your integrity if you’re ok with continuing to operate this way. Jesus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please read “The Knowledge Gap” by Natalie Wexler. Lucy Calkins is HORRIBLE. I can’t believe teachers go along with this.

Omg don’t blame the curriculum a whole district buys and says teachers have to use on the teachers. How much say do you have over how your leadership tells you to do elements of your job?

It’s interesting that you (teachers) can band together for so many things, like keeping schools shut down, but when it comes to what you teach, you don’t have a voice. OhhhhhhK.

The problem is, enough teachers think that current methods and curricula are good. Morons.

You are clueless and an a-hole. Not a good combination.

[Anonymous]

Calling is doing the absolute bare minimum to preserve her market share. Unfortunately, too many of the teachers were trained with whole language approaches and won’t notice or adjust based on these minor differences. And APS will continue to underperform.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please read “The Knowledge Gap” by Natalie Wexler. Lucy Calkins is HORRIBLE. I can’t believe teachers go along with this.

Omg don’t blame the curriculum a whole district buys and says teachers have to use on the teachers. How much say do you have over how your leadership tells you to do elements of your job?

It’s interesting that you (teachers) can band together for so many things, like keeping schools shut down, but when it comes to what you teach, you don’t have a voice. OhhhhhhK.

The problem is, enough teachers think that current methods and curricula are good. Morons.

You are clueless and an a-hole. Not a good combination.

Maybe an a-hole, but certainly not clueless. Teachers are spineless if they continue to accept things as they are. And, our schools will continue to fail, producing students that can’t cut it in the more difficult college majors. So, what will they choose? Yup - elementary education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please read “The Knowledge Gap” by Natalie Wexler. Lucy Calkins is HORRIBLE. I can’t believe teachers go along with this.

Omg don’t blame the curriculum a whole district buys and says teachers have to use on the teachers. How much say do you have over how your leadership tells you to do elements of your job?

It’s interesting that you (teachers) can band together for so many things, like keeping schools shut down, but when it comes to what you teach, you don’t have a voice. OhhhhhhK.

The problem is, enough teachers think that current methods and curricula are good. Morons.

We aren’t shutting schools down OR to blame for curriculum you don’t like. Shut up.