The decade-long "learning recession"

[Anonymous]

The reading books thing is ridiculous. Im doing a summer reading list for my kid and how dafu6 is that not a thing anymore? I remember getting a 2 page list and being told to read minimum 10 books.
I read most of the Nancy Drew series over 2-3 summers because I was with my grandparents and had very few friends to play with except my brother and whatever kids were visiting that week at the beach houses around us. I averaged a book a day, sometimes more. Also, my grandparents used to get the Reader's Digest hardcover books and there were lots of short stories in them.
I read 2-3 hours a day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The biggest problem isn't students tuning into tech it's too many parents tuning out on their kid's education and expecting the schools to teach their kid everything, including manners. Too many parents are MIA. You deal with it all, teacher. I'm too busy doing me.

My kid's K teacher wouldn't even read actual books to the class. Instead she would show animated YouTube videos about books. The massive screen in every classroom is a problem. My kid's behavior dramatically improved after we took away her iPad at home. Teachers should experiment with doing the same in their classrooms to the extent possible. Daily screen time in kindergarten is not necessary.

It's the only way some of teachers believe they can offer differential learning. It's hard to teach reaching when you kindergartners who don't know their letters and kindergartners reading chapter books, so they have the advanced readers read to Amira on their ipads and focus on the struggling readers. I hate to say it's a good idea to create cohorts that young, but unless you default to technology for some kids, how else can you teach a class of 20+ kids who are at very different places entering kindergarten depending on parental involvement and quality of preschool?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The reading books thing is ridiculous. Im doing a summer reading list for my kid and how dafu6 is that not a thing anymore? I remember getting a 2 page list and being told to read minimum 10 books.
I read most of the Nancy Drew series over 2-3 summers because I was with my grandparents and had very few friends to play with except my brother and whatever kids were visiting that week at the beach houses around us. I averaged a book a day, sometimes more. Also, my grandparents used to get the Reader's Digest hardcover books and there were lots of short stories in them.
I read 2-3 hours a day.

Right. Then you go back to school in a classroom with some kids who haven't touched a book all summer. What is a single classroom teacher to do with you, or with them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The biggest problem isn't students tuning into tech it's too many parents tuning out on their kid's education and expecting the schools to teach their kid everything, including manners. Too many parents are MIA. You deal with it all, teacher. I'm too busy doing me.

My kid's K teacher wouldn't even read actual books to the class. Instead she would show animated YouTube videos about books. The massive screen in every classroom is a problem. My kid's behavior dramatically improved after we took away her iPad at home. Teachers should experiment with doing the same in their classrooms to the extent possible. Daily screen time in kindergarten is not necessary.

It's the only way some of teachers believe they can offer differential learning. It's hard to teach reaching when you kindergartners who don't know their letters and kindergartners reading chapter books, so they have the advanced readers read to Amira on their ipads and focus on the struggling readers. I hate to say it's a good idea to create cohorts that young, but unless you default to technology for some kids, how else can you teach a class of 20+ kids who are at very different places entering kindergarten depending on parental involvement and quality of preschool?

I call BS. Schools have never tracked kids in kindergarten. By their nature kindergarteners are always going to have different reading abilities. We used to be able to have kindergarten without screens and we still can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What grade would you expect kids to start reading a classroom chapter book? Mine had reading groups where each kid in a group read the same chapter book but they never finished the book. The next grade the teacher did a whole book for the whole class but she did it as a read aloud where the kids just listened. When do kids read a whole book with pages assigned every night with a book report or something at the end?

I don't leave these things to the school anymore. My youngest is reading chapter books at the end of First Grade. What they were teaching versus what she is capable of reading just didn't align. We are working through the Ivy and Bean and she gets a big prize if we can finish book 12 by the end of the summer.

Same with math. Not happy with school math - they have zero differentiation in first grade for kids who are ahead, so we are doing Beast Academy, and we are doing a mixture of online and books. She likes online better because she likes the videos, so this is an example of how technology and Ed Tech can be helpful. I'm blown away by how much mental math she's learned on Level One - she can add and subtract 2-digit numbers in her head, fast. Per their strategy, I haven't even taught her the algorithm yet for carrying and borrowing.

It just takes an hour every evening, and we make it fun. School is for art, PE, recess, socializing, music. One hour of homework is for learning.

I did this for 7 years and it was exhausting. It was such a relief to switch my kids to a private school where there was learning during the out-of-the-house block, so I wasn't trying to take exhausted kids and cram the multiplication tables in their head through some sort of game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not just smart phones and social media. A lot of these losses are happening among elementary age kids who don't have access to either. But the reliance on Ed Tech to teach math and reading is a big problem. Blaming screens at home doesn't make sense because kids have been watching screens at home for decades, that's not something that started in 2015.

What shifted for kids is they went from mostly using books, paper, and pencil in the classroom to using 1:1 devices and ed tech software. That's true for kids who were get zero screen time at home, and it's true for kids who get hours of screen time at home every day.

Go back to physical books, handwriting, and working out math problems with pencil and paper. Studies show that children retain information better and longer when they learn it from physical media instead of digitally.

Agreed. The last decade was the rise of laptops and edtech.

I hate edtech so much. Doing math problems (multiple choice of course) to get stuff for your game is wild. My 1st grader averages 4-5 hours of screen time a day at school (I get reports).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The biggest problem isn't students tuning into tech it's too many parents tuning out on their kid's education and expecting the schools to teach their kid everything, including manners. Too many parents are MIA. You deal with it all, teacher. I'm too busy doing me.

My kid's K teacher wouldn't even read actual books to the class. Instead she would show animated YouTube videos about books. The massive screen in every classroom is a problem. My kid's behavior dramatically improved after we took away her iPad at home. Teachers should experiment with doing the same in their classrooms to the extent possible. Daily screen time in kindergarten is not necessary.

It's the only way some of teachers believe they can offer differential learning. It's hard to teach reaching when you kindergartners who don't know their letters and kindergartners reading chapter books, so they have the advanced readers read to Amira on their ipads and focus on the struggling readers. I hate to say it's a good idea to create cohorts that young, but unless you default to technology for some kids, how else can you teach a class of 20+ kids who are at very different places entering kindergarten depending on parental involvement and quality of preschool?

I call BS. Schools have never tracked kids in kindergarten. By their nature kindergarteners are always going to have different reading abilities. We used to be able to have kindergarten without screens and we still can.

Why shouldn't advanced readers learn something in kindergarten? Just because we failed them in the past, doesn't mean who shouldn't do better. Why should they sit in a classroom and be bored because the teacher has to teach to the bottom? I favor testing at the beginning of the year and splitting classrooms by ability level, but everyone else around here seems to hate that idea. So if not that, then maybe teachers can use technology to at least teach them something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What grade would you expect kids to start reading a classroom chapter book? Mine had reading groups where each kid in a group read the same chapter book but they never finished the book. The next grade the teacher did a whole book for the whole class but she did it as a read aloud where the kids just listened. When do kids read a whole book with pages assigned every night with a book report or something at the end?

I don't leave these things to the school anymore. My youngest is reading chapter books at the end of First Grade. What they were teaching versus what she is capable of reading just didn't align. We are working through the Ivy and Bean and she gets a big prize if we can finish book 12 by the end of the summer.

Same with math. Not happy with school math - they have zero differentiation in first grade for kids who are ahead, so we are doing Beast Academy, and we are doing a mixture of online and books. She likes online better because she likes the videos, so this is an example of how technology and Ed Tech can be helpful. I'm blown away by how much mental math she's learned on Level One - she can add and subtract 2-digit numbers in her head, fast. Per their strategy, I haven't even taught her the algorithm yet for carrying and borrowing.

It just takes an hour every evening, and we make it fun. School is for art, PE, recess, socializing, music. One hour of homework is for learning.

I did this for 7 years and it was exhausting. It was such a relief to switch my kids to a private school where there was learning during the out-of-the-house block, so I wasn't trying to take exhausted kids and cram the multiplication tables in their head through some sort of game.

Does your private school have a gifted program? The only reputable private within a 30-minute drive of our house does not believe in differential learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The reading books thing is ridiculous. Im doing a summer reading list for my kid and how dafu6 is that not a thing anymore? I remember getting a 2 page list and being told to read minimum 10 books.
I read most of the Nancy Drew series over 2-3 summers because I was with my grandparents and had very few friends to play with except my brother and whatever kids were visiting that week at the beach houses around us. I averaged a book a day, sometimes more. Also, my grandparents used to get the Reader's Digest hardcover books and there were lots of short stories in them.
I read 2-3 hours a day.

10 books in one summer?? I can’t imagine our elementary telling my student to read 10 books over the entire k-5 period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The biggest problem isn't students tuning into tech it's too many parents tuning out on their kid's education and expecting the schools to teach their kid everything, including manners. Too many parents are MIA. You deal with it all, teacher. I'm too busy doing me.

My kid's K teacher wouldn't even read actual books to the class. Instead she would show animated YouTube videos about books. The massive screen in every classroom is a problem. My kid's behavior dramatically improved after we took away her iPad at home. Teachers should experiment with doing the same in their classrooms to the extent possible. Daily screen time in kindergarten is not necessary.

It's the only way some of teachers believe they can offer differential learning. It's hard to teach reaching when you kindergartners who don't know their letters and kindergartners reading chapter books, so they have the advanced readers read to Amira on their ipads and focus on the struggling readers. I hate to say it's a good idea to create cohorts that young, but unless you default to technology for some kids, how else can you teach a class of 20+ kids who are at very different places entering kindergarten depending on parental involvement and quality of preschool?

I call BS. Schools have never tracked kids in kindergarten. By their nature kindergarteners are always going to have different reading abilities. We used to be able to have kindergarten without screens and we still can.

And screens are not helping those bottom half kids to reach the middle. Teach phonics and blends and spelling. Do it with pencil and paper and out loud.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reading books thing is ridiculous. Im doing a summer reading list for my kid and how dafu6 is that not a thing anymore? I remember getting a 2 page list and being told to read minimum 10 books.
I read most of the Nancy Drew series over 2-3 summers because I was with my grandparents and had very few friends to play with except my brother and whatever kids were visiting that week at the beach houses around us. I averaged a book a day, sometimes more. Also, my grandparents used to get the Reader's Digest hardcover books and there were lots of short stories in them.
I read 2-3 hours a day.

10 books in one summer?? I can’t imagine our elementary telling my student to read 10 books over the entire k-5 period.

But plenty of parents set goals like 10 books a summer, and their kids are the ones scoring in the upper 5-10%. Bribes work great for summer reading. I bribe with experiences - water park day with a friend, mani pedi for my daughter, a "yes" weekend (I have to say yes to anything she wants to do within reason), movie at the theater with a friend, etc. They are things we'd probably do anywhere but they make for good incentives.

[Anonymous]

Kids might be more interested in reading if the schools didn't insist on picking only DEI books. My 15/16 yr old had shown me a list of books they had to choose from, and they were all about the African American or Hispanic experience. I'm sorry but that sounds super boring to a 15/16 yr old (and to me honestly).

In their AP class they read Handmaid's Tale, Macbeth, and they enjoyed those books.

My kids used to love reading, but the school district killed their love of reading by insisting on reading boring books.

[Anonymous]

An hour of structured supplemental learning every day for a 7 year old? I understand having them read books, but a whole hour of worksheets, Beast Academy, spelling lists or whatever every day is just not doable. If you have two working parents, let’s say 1 can get home early and pick up the child after school. Have them complete their 10minutes of school homework or have a snack. Then you might go to a sport practice or game (that’s two days per week at this age), or make dinner. Then you eat dinner and it’s 6:30 and everyone cleans until 6:40p. In my house we think music is important so 15 minutes of piano practice takes you to 7pm. And that’s not accounting for younger child tantrums or needs, parent working late or having to have staggered dinner times, school performances, play dates, after school clubs or activities like dance, art, or tae kwon do. If you’re adding an hour of supplementation, where are we supposed to get family time in, let the child rest and play, do bedtime routine, and have them get enough sleep (11-12 hours at this age)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reading books thing is ridiculous. Im doing a summer reading list for my kid and how dafu6 is that not a thing anymore? I remember getting a 2 page list and being told to read minimum 10 books.
I read most of the Nancy Drew series over 2-3 summers because I was with my grandparents and had very few friends to play with except my brother and whatever kids were visiting that week at the beach houses around us. I averaged a book a day, sometimes more. Also, my grandparents used to get the Reader's Digest hardcover books and there were lots of short stories in them.
I read 2-3 hours a day.

10 books in one summer?? I can’t imagine our elementary telling my student to read 10 books over the entire k-5 period.

But plenty of parents set goals like 10 books a summer, and their kids are the ones scoring in the upper 5-10%. Bribes work great for summer reading. I bribe with experiences - water park day with a friend, mani pedi for my daughter, a "yes" weekend (I have to say yes to anything she wants to do within reason), movie at the theater with a friend, etc. They are things we'd probably do anywhere but they make for good incentives.

My son reads for hours without bribes, but I don’t see it helping his reading test scores one bit. In 3rd grade he tested in the 60%ile. Actual comprehension is fine but I’m guessing he doesn’t know how to answer reading comprehension questions because he hasn’t yet been taught what they are asking. I am assuming they will teach this in 4th and 5th before the middle school years but I wish they started sooner, maybe 2nd grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What grade would you expect kids to start reading a classroom chapter book? Mine had reading groups where each kid in a group read the same chapter book but they never finished the book. The next grade the teacher did a whole book for the whole class but she did it as a read aloud where the kids just listened. When do kids read a whole book with pages assigned every night with a book report or something at the end?

I don't leave these things to the school anymore. My youngest is reading chapter books at the end of First Grade. What they were teaching versus what she is capable of reading just didn't align. We are working through the Ivy and Bean and she gets a big prize if we can finish book 12 by the end of the summer.

Same with math. Not happy with school math - they have zero differentiation in first grade for kids who are ahead, so we are doing Beast Academy, and we are doing a mixture of online and books. She likes online better because she likes the videos, so this is an example of how technology and Ed Tech can be helpful. I'm blown away by how much mental math she's learned on Level One - she can add and subtract 2-digit numbers in her head, fast. Per their strategy, I haven't even taught her the algorithm yet for carrying and borrowing.

It just takes an hour every evening, and we make it fun. School is for art, PE, recess, socializing, music. One hour of homework is for learning.

I did this for 7 years and it was exhausting. It was such a relief to switch my kids to a private school where there was learning during the out-of-the-house block, so I wasn't trying to take exhausted kids and cram the multiplication tables in their head through some sort of game.

Does your private school have a gifted program? The only reputable private within a 30-minute drive of our house does not believe in differential learning.

Not exactly, but they track in math starting in 5th and each of my kids is where they need to be. They just track by accelerating kids to the next grade, though. Worked for us.