This is a good argument for private - teaching reading

[Anonymous]

Oh come on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child in private K went in knowing her ABCs and a handful of sight words and that’s it. She is now sounding out words well with a phonics-based approach and reading fairly well. My neighbor’s kid in public K who comes over a lot had about the same level of preparedness is not able to sound out words and kind of guesses. This child is not SN or anything, it’s quite possible they are naturally more intelligent than my child, but they are simply not being taught the right techniques.

I think many of the people who are happy with public are either putting in a lot of effort themselves at home or else sending to Kumon.

So glad things are going well for your kid. Unfortunately most of the private schools do not have the phonics based approach that you are describing and that is why there is so much backlash to your post.

[Anonymous]

Who needs to teach or instruct for reading? Just give the children some picture books each day, read to them in library class and they’ll figure it on. Whole language baby!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Listening to "Sold a Story" and seeing that MCPS has once again put out an RFP for reading programs for implementation next year are both certainly influencing my decision making regarding private school.

Everyone should listen to this podcast. I'm incredibly thankful that we lucked into a preschool that taught phonics, because the whole language/cueing/Lucy Calkins stuff sounds insane to me (and I had no idea it existed when my kids were young). And for the PP who says that it all evens out and every kid learns to read eventually, the thing is, it doesn't and they don't. Sure, anyone reading the DCUM private school forum can probably pay enough to get their child caught up, but there are plenty of people who don't have those resources. What's especially hard is that parents are being told that their kid is on track and learning fine, and it can be a year or more later when they find out that their kid doesn't in fact actually know how to read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listening to "Sold a Story" and seeing that MCPS has once again put out an RFP for reading programs for implementation next year are both certainly influencing my decision making regarding private school.

Everyone should listen to this podcast. I'm incredibly thankful that we lucked into a preschool that taught phonics, because the whole language/cueing/Lucy Calkins stuff sounds insane to me (and I had no idea it existed when my kids were young). And for the PP who says that it all evens out and every kid learns to read eventually, the thing is, it doesn't and they don't. Sure, anyone reading the DCUM private school forum can probably pay enough to get their child caught up, but there are plenty of people who don't have those resources. What's especially hard is that parents are being told that their kid is on track and learning fine, and it can be a year or more later when they find out that their kid doesn't in fact actually know how to read.

This is a BIG issue in DC area lower schools. And they had better not blame Covid, when they also slashed their daily teaching hours and stayed on zoom. That coupled with an ineffective curricula is terrible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who needs to teach or instruct for reading? Just give the children some picture books each day, read to them in library class and they’ll figure it on. Whole language baby!

Oh gawd that’s what our school used to do, for our older child. Younger child had it a bit better but still who knows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child in private K went in knowing her ABCs and a handful of sight words and that’s it. She is now sounding out words well with a phonics-based approach and reading fairly well. My neighbor’s kid in public K who comes over a lot had about the same level of preparedness is not able to sound out words and kind of guesses. This child is not SN or anything, it’s quite possible they are naturally more intelligent than my child, but they are simply not being taught the right techniques.

I think many of the people who are happy with public are either putting in a lot of effort themselves at home or else sending to Kumon.

What school is this?

[Anonymous]

My private K kid can't read or sound out words. All of my neighborhood public K kids can. So, nothing. Such a tiny example for you to draw a sweeping conclusion. Hopefully, you are not a scientist.

[Anonymous]

Very happy to hear some local privates are still teaching Phonics and decoding words. Which school was this ?

Sadly, as the other threads (Lucy Calkins) in this forum observe, many many local privates are teaching reading using curricula and methods which now are widely discredited.

Some publics get this right and others get it wrong, in all fairness to the public schools.

[Anonymous]

Americans are nuts about starting early for everything! It's never how you start. I think that age 5 is still young. I get academically you have to get up to par grade wise to keep up at any school but not reading well in K is truly NOT a big deal. My 2 kids in MD read great in K. One is fine but the other was t diagnosed with dyslexia until 5th grade! So just because he read well in K did not mean all will be well thereafter. My point is you gotta look at where a kid is at 6/7 to really figure out what's what and then there is still plenty of time to catch up. My dyslexia kid took years with hard work but is finally doing great. In Scandinavia they don't even worry about this stuff till after age 7.

[Anonymous]

Three words: Primary Day School.

Want your kid to get a solid foundation in math and reading? And if not, you get a full diagnostic on what needs help or assessment or testing for LDs?

Best, most informative report cards and teacher conferences we ever had. We regret not putting our older lifer pk-12 kids there- pivoted there when they could be open for Covid week three of Fall 2020.

Plus the monthly public speaking and performing and great community. We still kiss the school and it’s been a few years.

But we NEVER had to worry about its math or ELa pedagogy; they nailed it. Singapore math and its Phonivisual phonics. Plus with the homework a couple times a week we could see the weekly units and curriculum building.

[Anonymous]

*miss and kiss the school when driving by!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Americans are nuts about starting early for everything! It's never how you start. I think that age 5 is still young. I get academically you have to get up to par grade wise to keep up at any school but not reading well in K is truly NOT a big deal. My 2 kids in MD read great in K. One is fine but the other was t diagnosed with dyslexia until 5th grade! So just because he read well in K did not mean all will be well thereafter. My point is you gotta look at where a kid is at 6/7 to really figure out what's what and then there is still plenty of time to catch up. My dyslexia kid took years with hard work but is finally doing great. In Scandinavia they don't even worry about this stuff till after age 7.

Yeah so what? That’s foreign language dependent.
In China your kid memorizes 100 characters a week at age 4 onward.

Reading, writing and math facts are the goals of age 4-10 wherever you are. Then you can digest higher level materials and learn faster- by reading!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Back in the day, kids did not have to read until first grade, now it is kindergarten. Both my kids read before K and went all through public, and we had friends who went all through private, didn't read until later. Guess what? they all catch up and can read. Obviously, each kid is different and learn at a different pace.

That’s great.
But isn’t the question here HOW they were TAUGHT to read? At age 5 or 6 or 7 or 8?

Currently too many private and public schools don’t do much teaching on it.

They are also anti homework and worksheets and reading aloud to the class, thus the kids aren’t getting the reps in they need to master math facts or spelling combos or accuracy reading vocab and sentence structure.

Back before common core and NCLB we had Hooked on Phonics, leveled readings, spelling bees and tests, and actual lessons on phonics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many private schools are still using Lucy Calkin’s workshop models. There are no guarantees for public or private.

Not the Catholic schools. This is why the idea of using tried and true teaching methods is best. I wouldn't have it any other way for my kids.

All Catholic schools are different. Ours used Lucy Caulkins.