Lucy Calkins alarmists

[Anonymous]

It’s based one fake research. What more could you need to know?

Listen to sold a story, read any of the articles, form your own opinion….

As a parent, former teacher, curriculum specialist there’s no way I would want my kids at a school that uses this approach. It’s likely a huge part of why we see so many young adults who are failure to launch kids and why we see so many kids unprepared for college and career. Kids of all kinds need direct instruction!

[Anonymous]

You can’t love reading if you can’t read the words on the page

[Anonymous]

My kid went through writers workshop and by 4th grade I could see that it was an absolute failure. I switched him to a middle school that did intense writing remediation in 5th grade, and the difference was like night and day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The important piece is that the youngest children (K-2) are also having phonics-based instruction. I heard Lucy Calkins adapted her curriculum to include phonics - is that accurate?

The issue is that phonics isn't the only thing wrong with the curriculum. It is all based on theory that kids will teach themselves because everyone is intrinsically a reader, which is total nonsense. You can't do a short phonics lesson, hand a kid a book, and expect them to teach themselves to read. It's awful, even with a phonics add on.

Different kids need different things. But no one can get anything different so everyone must get the same thing so no one will get what they need.

They've done studies. Something like 5-10% of kids can learn to read using LC. I'm sure a few more can make progress with some additional phonics. But the curriculum still assumes kids teach themselves, and that is a recipe for failure for most kids.

More parent used to read to their kids and teach them at home. Expecting school to teach your kid to read is a recipe for failure for most kids.

I expect schools to teach my kids to read and they have. I don’t know why you think parents stopped reading to their kids. My kids went to preschool and i read to them from day one, went to libraries, book stores, puzzles, games, they were prepared for school. Kids don’t teach themselves on their own. They are surrounded by the written language since they were born. Schools start formal reading.

Some kids have dyslexia and will need extra help, probably in all subjects. Other forms of learning disabilities will also require specialized help beyond classroom work. Phonics is the best way for schools to teach early reading.

1. Reading to your kids is nice but proven to have zero effect on their reading and writing ability.
2. Schools were invented to teach kids because parents could not - because they either didn't know or were busy working. That hasn't changed.

+1 seriously, my mom did not speak much English when I was learning to read and certainly didn't teach me. There was zero expectation that she should teach me to read. She also didn't really read to me. My DH had a similar situation growing up

Schools exist in large part to teach kids to read. The notion that if kids don't learn it is because they have bad parents is gross and probably a little bit racist since we all know which parents some of y'all have in mind. Stop blaming the parents when you fail at the basic thing you are paid to do.

DP. Parent. It's not blaming to indicate that parents should play a role in early literacy. Used books are some of the cheapest used items you can buy. At my local library you can buy 3-4 for the price of a candy bar. And there are charities that give them out or mail them to your house. And schools often give them out and quietly look after allowances for kids without pocket money at book fair time. The schools usually send home material that suggests what the parents can do to help. So in this kind of environment, it seems like intentional disregard to leave all the work to the schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s based one fake research. What more could you need to know?

Listen to sold a story, read any of the articles, form your own opinion….

As a parent, former teacher, curriculum specialist there’s no way I would want my kids at a school that uses this approach. It’s likely a huge part of why we see so many young adults who are failure to launch kids and why we see so many kids unprepared for college and career. Kids of all kinds need direct instruction!

https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-a-call-for-rejecting-the-newest-reading-wars/

Critics have said Sold A Story is overly pushing phonics alone. They say if you teach phonics and bring in supplementary material, Calkins, writers workshop, F&P can be great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The important piece is that the youngest children (K-2) are also having phonics-based instruction. I heard Lucy Calkins adapted her curriculum to include phonics - is that accurate?

The issue is that phonics isn't the only thing wrong with the curriculum. It is all based on theory that kids will teach themselves because everyone is intrinsically a reader, which is total nonsense. You can't do a short phonics lesson, hand a kid a book, and expect them to teach themselves to read. It's awful, even with a phonics add on.

Different kids need different things. But no one can get anything different so everyone must get the same thing so no one will get what they need.

They've done studies. Something like 5-10% of kids can learn to read using LC. I'm sure a few more can make progress with some additional phonics. But the curriculum still assumes kids teach themselves, and that is a recipe for failure for most kids.

More parent used to read to their kids and teach them at home. Expecting school to teach your kid to read is a recipe for failure for most kids.

I expect schools to teach my kids to read and they have. I don’t know why you think parents stopped reading to their kids. My kids went to preschool and i read to them from day one, went to libraries, book stores, puzzles, games, they were prepared for school. Kids don’t teach themselves on their own. They are surrounded by the written language since they were born. Schools start formal reading.

Some kids have dyslexia and will need extra help, probably in all subjects. Other forms of learning disabilities will also require specialized help beyond classroom work. Phonics is the best way for schools to teach early reading.

1. Reading to your kids is nice but proven to have zero effect on their reading and writing ability.
2. Schools were invented to teach kids because parents could not - because they either didn't know or were busy working. That hasn't changed.

+1 seriously, my mom did not speak much English when I was learning to read and certainly didn't teach me. There was zero expectation that she should teach me to read. She also didn't really read to me. My DH had a similar situation growing up

Schools exist in large part to teach kids to read. The notion that if kids don't learn it is because they have bad parents is gross and probably a little bit racist since we all know which parents some of y'all have in mind. Stop blaming the parents when you fail at the basic thing you are paid to do.

DP. Parent. It's not blaming to indicate that parents should play a role in early literacy. Used books are some of the cheapest used items you can buy. At my local library you can buy 3-4 for the price of a candy bar. And there are charities that give them out or mail them to your house. And schools often give them out and quietly look after allowances for kids without pocket money at book fair time. The schools usually send home material that suggests what the parents can do to help. So in this kind of environment, it seems like intentional disregard to leave all the work to the schools.

No one has said that parents shouldn't work on reading and literacy with young kids to the extent they are able (which varies greatly). The complaint with LC is that it entirely left all reading and writing skills development to parents because it doesn't teach anything. It expects kids to divine the skills on their own. Some kids are helped when parents teach them skills. But the LC curriculum doesn't teach anything. It gives kids the opportunity to try reading and writing, but doesn't *teach* reading or writing. Schools need to teach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s based one fake research. What more could you need to know?

Listen to sold a story, read any of the articles, form your own opinion….

As a parent, former teacher, curriculum specialist there’s no way I would want my kids at a school that uses this approach. It’s likely a huge part of why we see so many young adults who are failure to launch kids and why we see so many kids unprepared for college and career. Kids of all kinds need direct instruction!

https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-a-call-for-rejecting-the-newest-reading-wars/

Critics have said Sold A Story is overly pushing phonics alone. They say if you teach phonics and bring in supplementary material, Calkins, writers workshop, F&P can be great.

PP. The truth is that good teachers can rise above bad curriculums to a surprising degree...if they are allowed to use their judgment and they have administrative support and a reasonably-sized classroom of well-behaved kids to teach. Those are a lot of preconditions.

I mentioned my kids went through this curriculum. I have more regrets on the math curriculum side where a best practices "Singapore Math" curriculum had to be ripped out and a new one put in. I've spent $$$$ remediating that curriculum plus pandemic effects and all the tutoring really does is assign problem sets and monitor the kid working through them. Exactly like what they would do in school if teachers had infinite time to give personal attention to every student.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s based one fake research. What more could you need to know?

Listen to sold a story, read any of the articles, form your own opinion….

As a parent, former teacher, curriculum specialist there’s no way I would want my kids at a school that uses this approach. It’s likely a huge part of why we see so many young adults who are failure to launch kids and why we see so many kids unprepared for college and career. Kids of all kinds need direct instruction!

https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-a-call-for-rejecting-the-newest-reading-wars/

Critics have said Sold A Story is overly pushing phonics alone. They say if you teach phonics and bring in supplementary material, Calkins, writers workshop, F&P can be great.

Sold a Story is from a few years ago. It's important because it largely broke the story, but is far from the last word. There's been more research since then that has identified more serious issues with the LC curriculum, including a lack of vocabulary instruction, a lack of spelling and grammar instruction, a lack of writing instruction, a lack of rigor, a lack of instructional content, etc. It's terrible. And you're hearing directly from parents on this thread that I own it failed their kids. No link will overcome our first hand experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s based one fake research. What more could you need to know?

Listen to sold a story, read any of the articles, form your own opinion….

As a parent, former teacher, curriculum specialist there’s no way I would want my kids at a school that uses this approach. It’s likely a huge part of why we see so many young adults who are failure to launch kids and why we see so many kids unprepared for college and career. Kids of all kinds need direct instruction!

https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-a-call-for-rejecting-the-newest-reading-wars/

Critics have said Sold A Story is overly pushing phonics alone. They say if you teach phonics and bring in supplementary material, Calkins, writers workshop, F&P can be great.

Sold a Story is from a few years ago. It's important because it largely broke the story, but is far from the last word. There's been more research since then that has identified more serious issues with the LC curriculum, including a lack of vocabulary instruction, a lack of spelling and grammar instruction, a lack of writing instruction, a lack of rigor, a lack of instructional content, etc. It's terrible. And you're hearing directly from parents on this thread that I own it failed their kids. No link will overcome our first hand experience.

Wow you are very hyped up about this reading war thing. While balanced literacy has some bad points, I found it my job to supplement at home. Both of my kids read in Kindergarten and we used hooked in phonics at home with whatever the school used at school. Isn’t that our job as parents? It is not in my ethos to think a school will do all the educating of my children and I don’t relate to parents who believe they shouldn’t have to parent their kids.

Using phonics or balanced literacy doesn’t change that we as parents need to support our kids through school. There always will be holes in mass education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s based one fake research. What more could you need to know?

Listen to sold a story, read any of the articles, form your own opinion….

As a parent, former teacher, curriculum specialist there’s no way I would want my kids at a school that uses this approach. It’s likely a huge part of why we see so many young adults who are failure to launch kids and why we see so many kids unprepared for college and career. Kids of all kinds need direct instruction!

https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-a-call-for-rejecting-the-newest-reading-wars/

Critics have said Sold A Story is overly pushing phonics alone. They say if you teach phonics and bring in supplementary material, Calkins, writers workshop, F&P can be great.

PP. The truth is that good teachers can rise above bad curriculums to a surprising degree...if they are allowed to use their judgment and they have administrative support and a reasonably-sized classroom of well-behaved kids to teach. Those are a lot of preconditions.

I mentioned my kids went through this curriculum. I have more regrets on the math curriculum side where a best practices "Singapore Math" curriculum had to be ripped out and a new one put in. I've spent $$$$ remediating that curriculum plus pandemic effects and all the tutoring really does is assign problem sets and monitor the kid working through them. Exactly like what they would do in school if teachers had infinite time to give personal attention to every student.

What kind of math curriculum was put in place to replace Singapore?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s based one fake research. What more could you need to know?

Listen to sold a story, read any of the articles, form your own opinion….

As a parent, former teacher, curriculum specialist there’s no way I would want my kids at a school that uses this approach. It’s likely a huge part of why we see so many young adults who are failure to launch kids and why we see so many kids unprepared for college and career. Kids of all kinds need direct instruction!

https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-a-call-for-rejecting-the-newest-reading-wars/

Critics have said Sold A Story is overly pushing phonics alone. They say if you teach phonics and bring in supplementary material, Calkins, writers workshop, F&P can be great.

Sold a Story is from a few years ago. It's important because it largely broke the story, but is far from the last word. There's been more research since then that has identified more serious issues with the LC curriculum, including a lack of vocabulary instruction, a lack of spelling and grammar instruction, a lack of writing instruction, a lack of rigor, a lack of instructional content, etc. It's terrible. And you're hearing directly from parents on this thread that I own it failed their kids. No link will overcome our first hand experience.

This sounds like our first elementary school. How do I found out if our specific curriculum is based on Calkins? I’ve never heard of the curriculum we follow as it’s just based on an educational approach book and not a set of actual curriculum, workbooks, and work. Buzz words I’ve heard are studio literacy, readers workshop and writers workshop. But there is no work sent home for me to see what the writing instruction is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s based one fake research. What more could you need to know?

Listen to sold a story, read any of the articles, form your own opinion….

As a parent, former teacher, curriculum specialist there’s no way I would want my kids at a school that uses this approach. It’s likely a huge part of why we see so many young adults who are failure to launch kids and why we see so many kids unprepared for college and career. Kids of all kinds need direct instruction!

https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-a-call-for-rejecting-the-newest-reading-wars/

Critics have said Sold A Story is overly pushing phonics alone. They say if you teach phonics and bring in supplementary material, Calkins, writers workshop, F&P can be great.

Sold a Story is from a few years ago. It's important because it largely broke the story, but is far from the last word. There's been more research since then that has identified more serious issues with the LC curriculum, including a lack of vocabulary instruction, a lack of spelling and grammar instruction, a lack of writing instruction, a lack of rigor, a lack of instructional content, etc. It's terrible. And you're hearing directly from parents on this thread that I own it failed their kids. No link will overcome our first hand experience.

Wow you are very hyped up about this reading war thing. While balanced literacy has some bad points, I found it my job to supplement at home. Both of my kids read in Kindergarten and we used hooked in phonics at home with whatever the school used at school. Isn’t that our job as parents? It is not in my ethos to think a school will do all the educating of my children and I don’t relate to parents who believe they shouldn’t have to parent their kids.

Using phonics or balanced literacy doesn’t change that we as parents need to support our kids through school. There always will be holes in mass education.

This thread isn't about phonics and reading workshop, but about the terrible writers' workshop curriculum. I assume you're also working on writing with your kids daily to teach them to write? Because if they use writers workshop at your school, your kids aren't learning to write at school.

I expect schools to teach. I'll fill in holes where my kid needs extra help, but this is a curriculum that isn't serving any students well. It's a total dud and so bad it's negligent to continue to use it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s based one fake research. What more could you need to know?

Listen to sold a story, read any of the articles, form your own opinion….

As a parent, former teacher, curriculum specialist there’s no way I would want my kids at a school that uses this approach. It’s likely a huge part of why we see so many young adults who are failure to launch kids and why we see so many kids unprepared for college and career. Kids of all kinds need direct instruction!

https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-a-call-for-rejecting-the-newest-reading-wars/

Critics have said Sold A Story is overly pushing phonics alone. They say if you teach phonics and bring in supplementary material, Calkins, writers workshop, F&P can be great.

Sold a Story is from a few years ago. It's important because it largely broke the story, but is far from the last word. There's been more research since then that has identified more serious issues with the LC curriculum, including a lack of vocabulary instruction, a lack of spelling and grammar instruction, a lack of writing instruction, a lack of rigor, a lack of instructional content, etc. It's terrible. And you're hearing directly from parents on this thread that I own it failed their kids. No link will overcome our first hand experience.

Wow you are very hyped up about this reading war thing. While balanced literacy has some bad points, I found it my job to supplement at home. Both of my kids read in Kindergarten and we used hooked in phonics at home with whatever the school used at school. Isn’t that our job as parents? It is not in my ethos to think a school will do all the educating of my children and I don’t relate to parents who believe they shouldn’t have to parent their kids.

Using phonics or balanced literacy doesn’t change that we as parents need to support our kids through school. There always will be holes in mass education.

It's so strange to see parents defend the curriculum saying they can just teach their kid at home. I've seen the difference after our schools switched to a better curriculum and it's night and day. My kids are less frustrated with reading and writing, learning more, more excited to go to school, and coming home with better written work product. Why should are you making excuses that it only "has some bad points" when there are really good options out there that serve students better?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s based one fake research. What more could you need to know?

Listen to sold a story, read any of the articles, form your own opinion….

As a parent, former teacher, curriculum specialist there’s no way I would want my kids at a school that uses this approach. It’s likely a huge part of why we see so many young adults who are failure to launch kids and why we see so many kids unprepared for college and career. Kids of all kinds need direct instruction!

https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-a-call-for-rejecting-the-newest-reading-wars/

Critics have said Sold A Story is overly pushing phonics alone. They say if you teach phonics and bring in supplementary material, Calkins, writers workshop, F&P can be great.

PP. The truth is that good teachers can rise above bad curriculums to a surprising degree...if they are allowed to use their judgment and they have administrative support and a reasonably-sized classroom of well-behaved kids to teach. Those are a lot of preconditions.

I mentioned my kids went through this curriculum. I have more regrets on the math curriculum side where a best practices "Singapore Math" curriculum had to be ripped out and a new one put in. I've spent $$$$ remediating that curriculum plus pandemic effects and all the tutoring really does is assign problem sets and monitor the kid working through them. Exactly like what they would do in school if teachers had infinite time to give personal attention to every student.

What kind of math curriculum was put in place to replace Singapore?

PP. The replacement of the elementary math curriculum just happened since the pandemic and my youngest was ending 5th grade at the beginning of the pandemic. So we haven't experienced it. The curriculum that was replaced was from a national publisher and the new one is from a different national publisher. My son says it's this for high school (so perhaps the same for K-8).:

https://www.mheducation.com/prek-12/program/microsites/MKTSP-GIP20M0.htm

Similar to the issues with Calkins, a lot of best practices lip service was given to math exploration with the previous curriculum. So that meant exploratory group work instead of direct instruction. It meant emphasis on manipulatives and models (coloring in those squares that help you understand place value), etc. Also, my school district doesn't have accelerated math until 6th grade unless secretly you are recognized as two years ahead of grade level. And the teachers were supposed to differentiate instruction within the classroom in K-5 but in reality there was almost no extra enrichment for kids that completed work early. So my kids weren't challenged and my younger son was bored a lot of the time. I wished I knew the 2 year accelerated skill level rule for enruchment - I could have prepped him to that level.

Now that I've paid a ton for late elementary-high school
math remediation, I'm much more in favor of direct instruction and drill and kill. I don't think explore and discover and draw models techniques work like they are supposed to. The Calkins debacle has me concerned about the rigor of claimed educational research. I also think Ed Tech in the classroom is mostly babysitting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The important piece is that the youngest children (K-2) are also having phonics-based instruction. I heard Lucy Calkins adapted her curriculum to include phonics - is that accurate?

The issue is that phonics isn't the only thing wrong with the curriculum. It is all based on theory that kids will teach themselves because everyone is intrinsically a reader, which is total nonsense. You can't do a short phonics lesson, hand a kid a book, and expect them to teach themselves to read. It's awful, even with a phonics add on.

Different kids need different things. But no one can get anything different so everyone must get the same thing so no one will get what they need.

They've done studies. Something like 5-10% of kids can learn to read using LC. I'm sure a few more can make progress with some additional phonics. But the curriculum still assumes kids teach themselves, and that is a recipe for failure for most kids.

More parent used to read to their kids and teach them at home. Expecting school to teach your kid to read is a recipe for failure for most kids.

I expect schools to teach my kids to read and they have. I don’t know why you think parents stopped reading to their kids. My kids went to preschool and i read to them from day one, went to libraries, book stores, puzzles, games, they were prepared for school. Kids don’t teach themselves on their own. They are surrounded by the written language since they were born. Schools start formal reading.

Some kids have dyslexia and will need extra help, probably in all subjects. Other forms of learning disabilities will also require specialized help beyond classroom work. Phonics is the best way for schools to teach early reading.

1. Reading to your kids is nice but proven to have zero effect on their reading and writing ability.
2. Schools were invented to teach kids because parents could not - because they either didn't know or were busy working. That hasn't changed.

+1 seriously, my mom did not speak much English when I was learning to read and certainly didn't teach me. There was zero expectation that she should teach me to read. She also didn't really read to me. My DH had a similar situation growing up

Schools exist in large part to teach kids to read. The notion that if kids don't learn it is because they have bad parents is gross and probably a little bit racist since we all know which parents some of y'all have in mind. Stop blaming the parents when you fail at the basic thing you are paid to do.

DP. Parent. It's not blaming to indicate that parents should play a role in early literacy. Used books are some of the cheapest used items you can buy. At my local library you can buy 3-4 for the price of a candy bar. And there are charities that give them out or mail them to your house. And schools often give them out and quietly look after allowances for kids without pocket money at book fair time. The schools usually send home material that suggests what the parents can do to help. So in this kind of environment, it seems like intentional disregard to leave all the work to the schools.

Parents have to read to their kids. Schools cannot produce strong readers and writers without home support