If You Want to Get Away From Lucy Caulkins/Balanced Literacy For Reading

[Anonymous]

My kid uses fundations in an FCPS school- they didn’t do balanced literacy????

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Three-cuing" is another phrase to watch out for - anything geared towards getting the kids to guess what an unfamiliar word might be.

It just grinds me - it's so intuitively, obviously stupid to teach kids to guess before they even have the basic knowledge for context.

When in learning or life is guessing ever the right strategy? Argh.

To be fair, I actually didn’t know that this was the wrong way to go about it because so many teachers said it was the right way and I just trusted them.

Oops.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You know what one really, really useful reading skill is?

Looking words up in the dictionary.

Is it, though? I think everybody should know how to do that but I think that it is one of the less useful reading skills. I think the most important thing is decoding, then background knowledge, and in a distant third, context clues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DP. My DC told me in 1st grade that "Good readers look at the pictures."

Uh what? Good readers look at the letters/words.

Sure, but why not use other resources such as the pictures? If I read a word as “bag” instead of “box” in a sentence, and it doesn’t match the picture, why wouldn’t I use that picture and switch my reading to “box”? We can still work on the word but the picture helps me make the correction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DP. My DC told me in 1st grade that "Good readers look at the pictures."

Uh what? Good readers look at the letters/words.

Why would good readers ignore either one?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the parents of dyslexic children have been screaming about this for years and have been ignored. Glad to see the NAACP is taking up the issue. FCPS should be sued over their lack of a reading program that actually works.

NAACP, Fairfax-SEPTA and DD-VA are behind this push. With the addition of the NAACP, there is a critical mass to make it happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am an ES teacher. Honestly, I know very little about Lucy Caulkins.

Perhaps you do not know it by name, but if you know a colleague who uses the phrase “use your picture power” with the young kids learning to read (K-1)—THAT is the horrible Lucy Caulkins.

I HATE that phrase and my child’s teacher said it over and over and over and over and over. How about not using your picture power and instead, have the kids focus on the sight words, blends, digraphs, etc…? 🤯🤯🤯🤯

Another parent privileged enough to sign up with an O-G tutor once I realized FCPS’s (??) the teacher’s (??) method was crap.

DW and I teach elementary grades. Neither of us have ever heard “Use your picture power” or know what “UOS” is.

I would say, “Use picture clues”.

That is what messed up my DC, with undiagnosed dyslexia at the time, picture clues made it seem like he was reading when he was not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP. My DC told me in 1st grade that "Good readers look at the pictures."

Uh what? Good readers look at the letters/words.

Sure, but why not use other resources such as the pictures? If I read a word as “bag” instead of “box” in a sentence, and it doesn’t match the picture, why wouldn’t I use that picture and switch my reading to “box”? We can still work on the word but the picture helps me make the correction.

Because if you see “box” on the page and come up with “bag”, that’s a sign that you actually can’t read, and need help seeing the letters and connecting those letters to the sounds that they make. It’s a huge red flag that you need help learning to read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP. My DC told me in 1st grade that "Good readers look at the pictures."

Uh what? Good readers look at the letters/words.

Why would good readers ignore either one?

Reading involves looking at letters and converting them to sounds. Pictures are only in books for little kids. As they get older the pictures will go away and all they will be left with is letters. If they can’t connect them to sounds, they will have had a huge disservice done to them by letting them use pictures to avoid actually reading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP. My DC told me in 1st grade that "Good readers look at the pictures."

Uh what? Good readers look at the letters/words.

Sure, but why not use other resources such as the pictures? If I read a word as “bag” instead of “box” in a sentence, and it doesn’t match the picture, why wouldn’t I use that picture and switch my reading to “box”? We can still work on the word but the picture helps me make the correction.

Because if you see “box” on the page and come up with “bag”, that’s a sign that you actually can’t read, and need help seeing the letters and connecting those letters to the sounds that they make. It’s a huge red flag that you need help learning to read.

This!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP. My DC told me in 1st grade that "Good readers look at the pictures."

Uh what? Good readers look at the letters/words.

Sure, but why not use other resources such as the pictures? If I read a word as “bag” instead of “box” in a sentence, and it doesn’t match the picture, why wouldn’t I use that picture and switch my reading to “box”? We can still work on the word but the picture helps me make the correction.

Because if you see “box” on the page and come up with “bag”, that’s a sign that you actually can’t read, and need help seeing the letters and connecting those letters to the sounds that they make. It’s a huge red flag that you need help learning to read.

Who is saying the teacher wouldn’t still do this? Why does it have to be one or the other?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP. My DC told me in 1st grade that "Good readers look at the pictures."

Uh what? Good readers look at the letters/words.

Sure, but why not use other resources such as the pictures? If I read a word as “bag” instead of “box” in a sentence, and it doesn’t match the picture, why wouldn’t I use that picture and switch my reading to “box”? We can still work on the word but the picture helps me make the correction.

Because if you see “box” on the page and come up with “bag”, that’s a sign that you actually can’t read, and need help seeing the letters and connecting those letters to the sounds that they make. It’s a huge red flag that you need help learning to read.

Who is saying the teacher wouldn’t still do this? Why does it have to be one or the other?

But how would the teacher know this if the child is correcting themselves by looking at the picture and so the teacher never picks up the error!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP. My DC told me in 1st grade that "Good readers look at the pictures."

Uh what? Good readers look at the letters/words.

Sure, but why not use other resources such as the pictures? If I read a word as “bag” instead of “box” in a sentence, and it doesn’t match the picture, why wouldn’t I use that picture and switch my reading to “box”? We can still work on the word but the picture helps me make the correction.

Because if you see “box” on the page and come up with “bag”, that’s a sign that you actually can’t read, and need help seeing the letters and connecting those letters to the sounds that they make. It’s a huge red flag that you need help learning to read.

Who is saying the teacher wouldn’t still do this? Why does it have to be one or the other?

Well isn’t it just naturally one or the other? You are either teaching a child to sound out the words on the page to determine what the word is, or you aren’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP. My DC told me in 1st grade that "Good readers look at the pictures."

Uh what? Good readers look at the letters/words.

Why would good readers ignore either one?

Reading involves looking at letters and converting them to sounds. Pictures are only in books for little kids. As they get older the pictures will go away and all they will be left with is letters. If they can’t connect them to sounds, they will have had a huge disservice done to them by letting them use pictures to avoid actually reading.

This. The idea that pictures are somehow integral to learning to read is ridiculous. For generations, children learned to read from just regular books, often the family bible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP. My DC told me in 1st grade that "Good readers look at the pictures."

Uh what? Good readers look at the letters/words.

Sure, but why not use other resources such as the pictures? If I read a word as “bag” instead of “box” in a sentence, and it doesn’t match the picture, why wouldn’t I use that picture and switch my reading to “box”? We can still work on the word but the picture helps me make the correction.

Because if you see “box” on the page and come up with “bag”, that’s a sign that you actually can’t read, and need help seeing the letters and connecting those letters to the sounds that they make. It’s a huge red flag that you need help learning to read.

Who is saying the teacher wouldn’t still do this? Why does it have to be one or the other?

Because one is reading, and the other is not.