Are your middle and high schoolers required to read books?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:7th grade FCPS, NO assigned reading books. Just Lexia and being a book to read in class. It’s bad.

Why is that bad? I'm assuming your child is also reading assigned short stories, poems, and articles?

I have two kids in 7th grade, one in AA and one in a co-taught class.. Both have done Lexia, both have read the same short story and article. The AA class has read a poem that the co-taught class has not, and the co-taught class has read an article that the AA class has not. They both also have to,read a book independently.

There has been lots of writing instruction and practice which is good because both kids got practically zero writing instruction in elementary school.

It’s awful because you can count on one hand the few passages that they have read in the past 7 weeks. There is no emphasis on reading a novel. There is no grammar, again! There are no Greek roots or Latin prefixes anymore (they at least had them in elementary). There are no more weekly passages for comprehension. There are no more questions assigned after reading their novels(because there are no novels assigned). There are no sets of vocabulary words coming home. They have never learned the parts of speech or sentence diagramming. It’s just not rigorous.

Weekly passages for comprehension? Sets of vocabulary words? Both of those are not at all aligned with best practices. Children do not learn vocabulary through lists of isolated words.

There absolutely should be grammar instruction. So far, they should've had a minimum of four grammar topics covererd.

There should be instruction in breaking down words into recognizable parts (roots, prefixes, and suffixes), but not just random lists of roots and affixes.

Sure they do, its called spanish, french, latin, german, or chinese class.

[Anonymous]

what is going to happen when you have like 10% of kids who are reading at/above grade level (from mostly middle class+ homes), and everyone else like 6 grade levels behind?

Equity type practices make things worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:7th grade FCPS, NO assigned reading books. Just Lexia and being a book to read in class. It’s bad.

Why is that bad? I'm assuming your child is also reading assigned short stories, poems, and articles?

I have two kids in 7th grade, one in AA and one in a co-taught class.. Both have done Lexia, both have read the same short story and article. The AA class has read a poem that the co-taught class has not, and the co-taught class has read an article that the AA class has not. They both also have to,read a book independently.

There has been lots of writing instruction and practice which is good because both kids got practically zero writing instruction in elementary school.

It’s awful because you can count on one hand the few passages that they have read in the past 7 weeks. There is no emphasis on reading a novel. There is no grammar, again! There are no Greek roots or Latin prefixes anymore (they at least had them in elementary). There are no more weekly passages for comprehension. There are no more questions assigned after reading their novels(because there are no novels assigned). There are no sets of vocabulary words coming home. They have never learned the parts of speech or sentence diagramming. It’s just not rigorous.

Weekly passages for comprehension? Sets of vocabulary words? Both of those are not at all aligned with best practices. Children do not learn vocabulary through lists of isolated words.

There absolutely should be grammar instruction. So far, they should've had a minimum of four grammar topics covererd.

There should be instruction in breaking down words into recognizable parts (roots, prefixes, and suffixes), but not just random lists of roots and affixes.

Of course kids can learn a list of vocabulary words, they can learn how to spell them, how to write them into sentences, what synonyms and antonyms exist for the words, what Greek root exists for the word, how to apply the words in word play scenarios, etc. And, tell the state of Virginia that reading passages are useless for comprehension because that’s what is loaded into the annual SOLs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:7th grade FCPS, NO assigned reading books. Just Lexia and being a book to read in class. It’s bad.

Why is that bad? I'm assuming your child is also reading assigned short stories, poems, and articles?

I have two kids in 7th grade, one in AA and one in a co-taught class.. Both have done Lexia, both have read the same short story and article. The AA class has read a poem that the co-taught class has not, and the co-taught class has read an article that the AA class has not. They both also have to,read a book independently.

There has been lots of writing instruction and practice which is good because both kids got practically zero writing instruction in elementary school.

It’s awful because you can count on one hand the few passages that they have read in the past 7 weeks. There is no emphasis on reading a novel. There is no grammar, again! There are no Greek roots or Latin prefixes anymore (they at least had them in elementary). There are no more weekly passages for comprehension. There are no more questions assigned after reading their novels(because there are no novels assigned). There are no sets of vocabulary words coming home. They have never learned the parts of speech or sentence diagramming. It’s just not rigorous.

Weekly passages for comprehension? Sets of vocabulary words? Both of those are not at all aligned with best practices. Children do not learn vocabulary through lists of isolated words.

There absolutely should be grammar instruction. So far, they should've had a minimum of four grammar topics covererd.

There should be instruction in breaking down words into recognizable parts (roots, prefixes, and suffixes), but not just random lists of roots and affixes.

Of course kids can learn a list of vocabulary words, they can learn how to spell them, how to write them into sentences, what synonyms and antonyms exist for the words, what Greek root exists for the word, how to apply the words in word play scenarios, etc. And, tell the state of Virginia that reading passages are useless for comprehension because that’s what is loaded into the annual SOLs.

Or at least make the reading comprehension passages based on topics that the kids are required to learn throughout the year or books/articles they are required to read, so that they already know the appropriate vocab. I bet the reading SOL scores would skyrocket if they did that.