When will DC area privates dump Lucy Calkins curricula ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Calkins has BA in Liberal Arts from Williams.

That's interesting.

The Sold a Story episode on Calkins goes a little into her background.

"The Superstar" https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/

Lacey Robinson, who is interviewed as part of this episode, is now CEO of an education non-profit. She is local to the DMV. I think she is fantastic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC independent school educator here:
1) LC curriculum and the F&P assessment systems are not unique to independent schools. Thousands of public and charter schools across the country also use them.
2) "Curriculum" and "educational philosophy" are not the same thing.
3) "Sold a Story" shares a lot of valuable information, AND is an extremely biased perspective.
4) The adoption of a new curriculum is a huge endeavor for a school. It actually shouldn't happen overnight. If schools are taking some time to conduct an audit and explore alternatives, that's a good thing because it would be awful to jump ship into a program that is also problematic.
5) Instead of speculating through an anonymous forum, approach your school (admin and ELA coach/specialist) with curiosity, explain your concerns, and ask about next steps.

A “huge endeavor” oh please. Sounds like laziness and complacency to me.

+1000

Have an efficient process and decision-making process and do it. We all do at our day jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC independent school educator here:
1) LC curriculum and the F&P assessment systems are not unique to independent schools. Thousands of public and charter schools across the country also use them.
2) "Curriculum" and "educational philosophy" are not the same thing.
3) "Sold a Story" shares a lot of valuable information, AND is an extremely biased perspective.
4) The adoption of a new curriculum is a huge endeavor for a school. It actually shouldn't happen overnight. If schools are taking some time to conduct an audit and explore alternatives, that's a good thing because it would be awful to jump ship into a program that is also problematic.
5) Instead of speculating through an anonymous forum, approach your school (admin and ELA coach/specialist) with curiosity, explain your concerns, and ask about next steps.

A “huge endeavor” oh please. Sounds like laziness and complacency to me.

+1000

Have an efficient process and decision-making process and do it. We all do at our day jobs.

Exactly. It’s called doing what one was hired to do. It’s not moving mountains.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Potomac LS uses a Calkins/Orton-Gillingham hybrid.

Ours too but why???? Why not dump Caulkins?

Everyone heard "Lucy Calkins" and thinks "bad bad bad!" But if you actually read the research there are very specific issues with Units of Study that can be addressed through the use of Orton Gillingham. There are positives to a reader's workshop model. (To further muddy the waters, many schools use the term "reader's workshop" in ways that don't specifically refer to the Units of Study curriculum.) I'm not associated with Potomac but these programs can be used together in a thoughtful way. That's why you should look into what your school is specifically doing instead of throwing around buzzwords.

This is NOT true. The problems with Units of Study extend well beyond phonics/foundational skills. The whole curriculum is problematic because it lacks a coherent scope and sequence for everything (vocab, knowledge-building, writing, you name it) and eschews direct instruction. This philosophy works okay in affluent schools because many of the kids already have large vocabularies and a lot of knowledge about history and science (and wealthy parents can supplement with tutoring), but it’s a disaster in less affluent communities.

The workshop model is based on the flawed premise that if you give kids choice and space and independence that they will learn how to become joyful readers and writers. I wish this is how it worked, but it turns out it’s hard to be joyful about writing when you don’t know how to write a sentence or a paragraph.

And you know this how? Because you read it in a blog?

Lol I’m a former teacher/school administrator, who runs a literacy non-profit, where I work with expert literacy teachers everyday.

[Anonymous]

This is really disturbing to me, as someone with a 1st grader who is very smart, but who is struggling in reading and writing.

She’s in speech and reading tutoring and we are having her tested for any underlying issues. If it turns out it’s all because of poor instruction, I’m going to be livid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is really disturbing to me, as someone with a 1st grader who is very smart, but who is struggling in reading and writing.

She’s in speech and reading tutoring and we are having her tested for any underlying issues. If it turns out it’s all because of poor instruction, I’m going to be livid.

I’m really sorry. What curriculum is her school using?

Another common issue I observe is that kids will get decent interventions/tutoring, but they end up being undermined by the general classroom instruction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is really disturbing to me, as someone with a 1st grader who is very smart, but who is struggling in reading and writing.

She’s in speech and reading tutoring and we are having her tested for any underlying issues. If it turns out it’s all because of poor instruction, I’m going to be livid.

I’m really sorry. What curriculum is her school using?

Another common issue I observe is that kids will get decent interventions/tutoring, but they end up being undermined by the general classroom instruction.

From what I can tell, a combination of LC and Orton-Gillingham.

[Anonymous]

Previous posters are wrong. Beauvoir uses Orton Gillingham along with its own syncretic workshop approach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Potomac LS uses a Calkins/Orton-Gillingham hybrid.

Ours too but why???? Why not dump Caulkins?

Everyone heard "Lucy Calkins" and thinks "bad bad bad!" But if you actually read the research there are very specific issues with Units of Study that can be addressed through the use of Orton Gillingham. There are positives to a reader's workshop model. (To further muddy the waters, many schools use the term "reader's workshop" in ways that don't specifically refer to the Units of Study curriculum.) I'm not associated with Potomac but these programs can be used together in a thoughtful way. That's why you should look into what your school is specifically doing instead of throwing around buzzwords.

I'm the PP Potomac parent. We've been very happy with the reading instruction our DC has received at Potomac. Although the approach is a hybrid model, it is very heavy on phonics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Previous posters are wrong. Beauvoir uses Orton Gillingham along with its own syncretic workshop approach.

Have you asked them? You know “workshop” is Calkins right? I’ve asked - nothing official has been changed. So if they’ve changed in the last 3 weeks since school started and not told anyone kudos - but nothing formal has been announced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Potomac LS uses a Calkins/Orton-Gillingham hybrid.

Ours too but why???? Why not dump Caulkins?

Everyone heard "Lucy Calkins" and thinks "bad bad bad!" But if you actually read the research there are very specific issues with Units of Study that can be addressed through the use of Orton Gillingham. There are positives to a reader's workshop model. (To further muddy the waters, many schools use the term "reader's workshop" in ways that don't specifically refer to the Units of Study curriculum.) I'm not associated with Potomac but these programs can be used together in a thoughtful way. That's why you should look into what your school is specifically doing instead of throwing around buzzwords.

I read the research and your paraphrase above really is not consistent with what I read.

Beyond that, even Columbia U. now acknowledges that the LC curricula (plural) do not work. That is a huge come down for an Ivy to acknowledge publicly. I am sure they did not take those steps frivolously.

[Anonymous]

As near as I can tell, the Catholic schools never used LC, too expensive among other reasons. Montessori has always been Phonics-focused for reading, so those schools also avoided the LC curricula.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Previous posters are wrong. Beauvoir uses Orton Gillingham along with its own syncretic workshop approach.

Have you asked them? You know “workshop” is Calkins right? I’ve asked - nothing official has been changed. So if they’ve changed in the last 3 weeks since school started and not told anyone kudos - but nothing formal has been announced.

Sorry, Caulkins did not parent the word workshop, nor does Beauvoir use that word, it’s my description of their curriculum.

Beauvoir may draw a phrase and a concept or two from Caulkins, but it prides itself on developing its own approach to curriculum in reading and math. As I said in PP they draw from many different approaches to develop their own. Look up the word syncretic.

You seem to be pushing an anti-Caulkins agenda and assume knowledge of Beauvoir.

I have children who attended Beauvoir who emerged terrific readers and writers, and are now thriving academically in highly competitive schools so I am quite happy with their syncretic curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Patent, not parent, the word workshop

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Patent, not parent, the word workshop

These are different things. Just because your children ended up “fine” with this approach doesn’t mean what Beauvoir is doing is out dated and needs to change and hasn’t yet change. The methods the school has been using are based on Calkins and F&P don’t work for the MAJORITY of children. There is no assumption made- Lucy Calkins was and is all over their current program.