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Is DCPS tanking?
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Anonymous
Not really. What Juel’s study showed was that readers who tested in the bottom quartile for their grade level on a standardized test of reading comprehension at the end of 1st grade remained in the bottom quartile of readers at the end of 4th grade. This finding was based on a couple dozen kids at a single low-income school in the late 1980s. It's a big leap from there to the suggestion that anyone who chooses to send their kid to pre-K at DCPS is setting the DC up for irreversible academic harm. 19:04's right that it's hard to tell who's speaking at any time and, as a result, sometimes the sum of the parts adds up to a whole that no one speaker intends, but there's an alarmist quality to this thread that seems really overblown. |
Anonymous
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I'm 19:04 and the last thing I was suggesting was an alarmist need to run for the hills (or the MoCo border) before enrolling your child in DCPS Pre-K. Actually my entire P.O.V. was really anti-alarmist in that I'm a great believer in reason, logic, and data as your friends.
If you think your child can't learn to read in a DCPS school, then I suggest the problem is you. |
Anonymous
I followed this link and what it said was that if you identify kids who are at risk when they enter kindergarten and do additional small group with them during kindergarten, then you can put them on a trajectory for being at least average readers through 3rd grade. No real data here about whether early reading is academically significant. |
Anonymous
Au contraire. You're trying to shift the bar. #1 The claim - which has been validated - was not that early reading is academically significant, but rather that children who can't read by 3rd are at academic risk. #2 An interesting note of this particular study is the apparent finding that children who are on track by the end of K are on the trajectory for being at least average readers by 3rd. Several possibilities are extended implicitly from there. Among them for example, are the not unreasonable conclusions that the children who are reading above grade level at the end of K are on an even higher trajectory or are at even lower risk. #3 Your assertion, however, regarded your idea of the relative unimportance of early literacy. It's an interesting and thought-provoking claim, however you've provided nothing to support it. You did manage to posit that requests for data were asymmetrical, and yet the only asymmetry is that you have yet to substantiate this theory. What do you have to back this up, other than your personal opinion? |
Anonymous
I'm not shifting the bar. No disagreement (never has been any on this thread) that kids who aren't reading fluently by (the end of) third grade need help. The controversy, at least as I've seen/defined it based on multiple postings (not all of which, it seems are yours) is over whether it's important to read as early as possible and, once reading to maintain your edge over later readers. (Hence the discussions of whether it's a problem if kids are still being taught letters/sounds in K and/or if instruction isn't differentiated for early readers.) Perhaps you agree with me (and some others) that these aren't problems, in which case I think we're generally just talking past each other (and/or having a side conversation about how to interpret research). Re #2 -- only at-risk kids (i.e. kids who tested in the bottom 30% wrt reading) were studied. Earlier readers weren't part of the sample. What the study really means is that if, on entrance to K, you can identify the kids who are likely to be poor readers and through supplemental small group instruction that year overcome their risk factors (e.g. lack of familiarity with print) enough to have them testing in the normal range by the end of K, you can keep those kids on grade level through at least 3rd grade (by repeating the supplementation each year they need it, I think -- the abstract's a little ambiguous.) Conversely, the study also seems to suggest that the kids whom you can't bring up to speed in K through additional small group work are more likely to continue to have problems even with repeated intervention in subsequent years. Re data vs. studies. The two conclusions you've cited from studies are based on observations of a total of 65 kids at two schools from K-3 or K-4). Talk to experienced teachers you know who have seen a few classes go from K through elementary or beyond (or think back to your own school cohort or watch your kids' cohorts). That's at least as much (and more relevant) data as these two studies have. Are the early readers still ahead of everyone else once the vast majority of kids can read? (In other words, have they preserved their edge?) I'm done at this point. I don't really care if you agree. I just wanted to clarify what I thought was at issue. |
Anonymous
| So the answer is, NO. In fact you do not have anything to substantiate your assertion (other than the sound and fury of your own opinion). |
Anonymous
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New poster here. I think that 14:30 and her earlier posts raise valid points, interpret the data that is available usefully, and generally moved the analysis forward. Your sniping did not and, really, your analysis was not particularly thoughtful or helpful.
The question I have after reading all of this is what does "on grade level" mean for K, what is the standard? Does that mean reading or simply knowing your letters and sounds? |
Anonymous
That's the $64,000 question. On one level, you could see it as a moving target, depending on what's being taught (state/district standards) and/or on what's being learned (what the cohort can do). And K's a little bit ambiguous (beginning vs. end). Developmentally, the conventional answer has been that reading readiness is what a kid should have by the end of K. That includes knowing letters and sounds but also a variety of other things like knowing when a book is right-side up, and that we read from left to right and front to back. Here's a cite that does a pretty useful job of breaking it down in more detail: http://www.ade.state.az.us/standards/language-arts/bygradelevel/RdgGrK.pdf It's from AZ, but it's fairly standard-issue (just less jargony than other examples I found in a quick search). And it's not out of line with expectations I've seen locally, including at well-regarded private schools. |
Anonymous
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You can look here too:
http://www.k12.dc.us/Dcps/Standards/k.htm |
Anonymous
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And a couple of local private school examples (since the concern is whether DCPS has sufficiently high standards):
GDS: http://www.gds.org/lib/forms/courseofstudy.pdf (see page 6) Sidwell: Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten Four and five year olds develop language skills through active learning experiences. Children engage in imaginative play. They create puppet shows, build block structures, invent games, and shape sand castles. They care for pets and gardens and observe nature. They learn to listen thoughtfully, and to share ideas, questions, and information during group discussions. Books are everywhere. Children listen to stories and poems read aloud every day. Children begin to tell their own stories. They learn to organize ideas and to present events and information sequentially. Classroom poetry recitations, plays, and concerts give even our youngest students opportunities to participate in a variety of performances. Fluent language, a burgeoning vocabulary, and thoughtful listening build the foundation for reading and writing. Pre-kindergarteners learn to recognize and identify letters in signs, labels, lists, calendars, charts, and graphs around their classroom and throughout the school. Letter-sound associations are presented in many ways. Charts, poems, a morning message, the daily schedule, and predictable Big Books are read aloud with the help of a few children at a time, or with the whole class in chorus. Letters, repeated words, phrases, and rhymes are highlighted to help students learn about print. Children continue their investigation of letters and sounds as they write their names, captions, or simple messages, and dictate stories. Kindergarteners deepen and refine their understanding of letters and sounds, words and phrases. Predictable stories, poetry, literature, simple non-fiction, and a wealth of reference books are part of each classroom’s library. Children take home short reading books each week to share with their families. Kindergarteners have many opportunities to write. They make signs for the block area, labels, and short sentences for pictures and paintings. They offer thoughts, impressions, compose notes and messages, and write about their experiences. Writing may be a collaborative effort or a solitary pursuit. Invented spelling is encouraged. Students “write what they hear” with the understanding that a story can be edited with the help of a teacher when they are ready to produce a completed work. Children look forward to publishing their own stories and proudly read their finished books to friends, teachers, and partners in other classes. PK Reading Phonemic awareness through rhyming words, blends, and syllables Phonic skills with upper case letters and initial consonants Sight read familiar names Appreciate and understand picture books, books read aloud, and books browsed Writing Write and spell familiar names Use drawings to express ideas Tell and dictate stories K Reading Phonemic awareness through substituting and blending sounds Identify sounds in words Recognize and name lower case letters Read words with short vowel sounds Match final consonant sounds with letters Use phonics to read unknown words Read common classroom words Read predictable books Read own dictation, class dictation, familiar songs and poems Read high-frequency words Expand sight vocabulary through independent reading Choose an appropriate book for independent reading Discuss and recommend books to peers Writing Use magic spelling to write simple words and messages Tell and dictate stories Establish correct pencil grip Print with proper orientation to the page Print words with proper spacing Print upper case letter |
Anonymous
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my child will be entering pre-k in the fall, so i don't know from experience. but it would seem to me that your average DCPS would meet the sidwell standards posted above. i say this because my pre-schooler can already do a good portion of the what is spelled out in the pre-k curriculum, seemingly by osmosis. her current pre-school is play-based and not particularly focused on academics and we do some letters and writing at home, but not in an organized or systematic way.
perhaps the actual standards at sidwell are higher (in practice) than those stated here. |
Anonymous
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At our upper NW DC school only a few years ago, the skills posted by 10:10 as "preK" were not taught until K. The K skills were not taught until 1st grade. This was because there were many kids coming into preK who did not even recognize/know the alphabet letters, so much of preK was spent on simply learning to identify the alphabet, and phonic associations were left until K. Any true "reading," i.e. the blending, expanded sight vocab, etc. did not occur until 1st grade.
It did not matter that many preKers came into our DCPS already knowing the alphabet and many phonetic associations and showing ready readiness; all kids in the class were taught uniformly w/o differentiation as to skill level or readiness, as if none of them knew the alphabet in preK. |
Anonymous
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>>(Hence the discussions of whether it's a problem if kids are still being taught letters/sounds in K and/or if instruction isn't differentiated for early readers.)<<
To clarify my position (I posted about moving out of the District bz my kid's K class didn't differentiate) -- I don't have a dog in the fight, so to speak, about whether or not early reading is critical to success or a predictor of future academic prowess. I don't think my kid needs to "maintain an edge" of any sort. Our catalyst was that our kid started coming home from school unhappy. Boredom and a lack of interest in education at age 5 isn't something I can roll with. There are plenty of ways to engage a kid who's already reading (that's what I'm alluding to by using the word differentiation). Not all of those engagement strategies have to be hardcore academics. I would love to have my child develop a lifelong love of learning. I'm sure we will face this question again over the years, and I'm not suggesting that MoCo is some magic panacea. But as a parent who cares deeply about whether or not my kid's love of learning is being fostered (not whether or not we're tracking said child into an Ivy) I had to act. Not trying to be alarmist. Also, my mom taught 1st grade for 30 years and says that early readers are no different than late readers. She says they all catch up - it's not a sign that your kid's a Mensa (hence my unambiguous stance that we want our kid's needs met, not for the kid to get some special status). FWIW, since the original question was "are DCPS schools tanking" - I think the answer is no. I think teachers are certainly feeling like they are working in crisis mode (Rhee's done a lot of firing and is proposing to hold teachers to high standards), which may explain the OP's friends' burnout. I do hope that Rhee starts to support teachers even as she's holding people's feet to the fire. In response to 14:08 -- I feel ya. My kid's PK was phenomenal. But K parent-teacher conferences have consisted of our kid's teacher telling us, "Oh, you don't need to worry. (testing=ok) I am really focusing all of my energy on getting the bottom tier to get the skills they need." Lowest common denominator teaching isn't inspiring.... |
Anonymous
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With you 100% (except my Mom taught elementary special ed for 30 years and said the same thing).
One problem with anonymous (vs pseudonymic) posting is that opinions aggregate in fluky and unintended ways. So thanks for laying out your POV, 14:33! In retrospect, "groupthink" was probably the wrong label for what was going on in this discussion -- I do see it elsewhere on DCUM (e.g. "Big Three"), but in this case, I suspect that posters have various constellations of opinions on, what are, after all, distinct questions (is DCPS tanking, at what age should kids read, does early reading matter, etc.). |
Anonymous
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So, is DCPS tanking? Another DCPS teacher and WTU supporter here. Right now, I am teaching in a better school and things are going pretty well there. Rhee and her team like to come in every now and then and tear us apart, but on the most part we are doing what they are asking of us. Our lessons are standards based, we collaborate, and yes, we try to differentiate (even in K). Readers (and pre-readers) are assessed and placed in appropriate groups depending on reading level. Informal assessments are ongoing and groups change often. I feel like we are on the right track. Is this because of Rhee? It's hard to say because I've only been at a better school for 3 years.
Is WTU beating us down? No way. Did it get us performance pay? No. Do I care about performance pay? No, because I've been in DCPS for a few years and I know that promises are made that are often broken, especially when it comes to money. |