Benchmark, almost one year done. How are people feeling about it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCUM: Textbooks, textbooks, textbooks! We want textbooks!

Also DCUM: My kid now hates language arts. It’s boring and the teacher doesn’t have time to individualize or do extensions.

We want textbooks in math, science and social studies. LA doesn’t need a textbook.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 5th grade AAP kid went from enjoying reading to telling me language arts is his least favorite part of the day

I don’t know if it’s the age, the teacher, the curriculum, but this year has been really rough.

+1 my 6th grader who was an advanced reader now absolutely hates reading and LA. She also is worried about how she will do in honors English next year. Her confidence has tanked.

And here's the issue - moms of "advanced kids" are starting to realize that their children were actually very far behind where they should be. Just because your child was getting high comprehension and fluency scores doesn't mean that she was actually an advanced reader and writer, PP. Benchmark is actually digging in to literacy which is something that the previous "curriculum" never did.

If you read the Benchmark reading selections for 6th grade, you would see that many of them are dull and uninteresting. The fiction selections are only one chapter, or part of a chapter, from a novel. Benchmark does not dig in. The questions and answers on the comprehension tests are not very well thought out. It's a case of the emperor having no clothes. Many people are being fooled because we're told that it aligns with the Science of Reading, so we think it's good. But the curriculum is poorly written and the selections are uninspired.

Yet your child's confidence in their reading abilities tanked? Hm. Sounds like you're making excuses, momma!

[Anonymous]

It’s a major upgrade from all the other crap that FCPS used to pretend was being taught. But, it is super boring and repetitive. For other subjects FCPS needs to go back to textbooks and get these poor kids off of their screens.

[Anonymous]

Is Benchmark the reason why the FCPS annual textbook budget jacked up from around 3m, 5m, or 20m, to suddenly over 120m over two years? If so, I hope its worth it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCUM: Textbooks, textbooks, textbooks! We want textbooks!

Also DCUM: My kid now hates language arts. It’s boring and the teacher doesn’t have time to individualize or do extensions.

We want textbooks in math, science and social studies. LA doesn’t need a textbook.

+1
Prior PP - didn’t you go to school ever? Textbooks for the stuff getting studied for content. BOOKS (real books/novels) and writing are what LA needs.

[Anonymous]

Agree, it's so much better than anything that has been taught in FCPS elementaries in the past 10 years. I am so glad we finally have a curriculum instead of cobbling things together from previous years and TpT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree, it's so much better than anything that has been taught in FCPS elementaries in the past 10 years. I am so glad we finally have a curriculum instead of cobbling things together from previous years and TpT.

Maybe lazy teachers like it because they don’t have to get creative. The lessons are canned and ready for them. The good LA teachers don’t like it. They want real novels. I’m sure the AAP teachers hate Benchmark.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure where parents are getting that their third graders should be reading novels in elementary schools - that's your job as a parent. My kids are literally sitting on the floor reading books this morning because they both woke up early and finished breakfast quickly. Do better, parents!

Reading chapter books in school was part of the balanced literacy, so that’s not returning anytime soon. It should be the parents responsibility to ensure that their students are reading novels.

There’s no time in school to get whole novels read and many students don’t do it on their own, so it should be the parents responsibility.

I went to a phonics-based school in the early 1990s (era of whole word language arts, the prior name of "balanced" literacy). We read whole books in school. Our phonics, spelling, and grammar units were separate from reading. It's not either-or. My kids left FCPS and now have the same thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCUM: Textbooks, textbooks, textbooks! We want textbooks!

Also DCUM: My kid now hates language arts. It’s boring and the teacher doesn’t have time to individualize or do extensions.

Ha, +1 million!

If you want to reduce learning gaps, direct instruction with a scripted curriculum has been proven to do so since the 1970s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCUM: Textbooks, textbooks, textbooks! We want textbooks!

Also DCUM: My kid now hates language arts. It’s boring and the teacher doesn’t have time to individualize or do extensions.

Ha, +1 million!

If you want to reduce learning gaps, direct instruction with a scripted curriculum has been proven to do so since the 1970s.

You’re an idiot. Textbooks are necessary for fixed content like social studies, math and science. For LA you need actual novels and good literature, not a textbook. Benchmark is not good literature. lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree, it's so much better than anything that has been taught in FCPS elementaries in the past 10 years. I am so glad we finally have a curriculum instead of cobbling things together from previous years and TpT.

Maybe lazy teachers like it because they don’t have to get creative. The lessons are canned and ready for them. The good LA teachers don’t like it. They want real novels. I’m sure the AAP teachers hate Benchmark.

Are you a current FCPS teacher? You must not be becuase then you’d know we have spent hours on planning for this “canned curriculum “ and preparing to teach it.

[Anonymous]

My 6th grader said what they learned in benchmark didn’t help on SOL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 5th grade AAP kid went from enjoying reading to telling me language arts is his least favorite part of the day

I don’t know if it’s the age, the teacher, the curriculum, but this year has been really rough.

+1 my 6th grader who was an advanced reader now absolutely hates reading and LA. She also is worried about how she will do in honors English next year. Her confidence has tanked.

And here's the issue - moms of "advanced kids" are starting to realize that their children were actually very far behind where they should be. Just because your child was getting high comprehension and fluency scores doesn't mean that she was actually an advanced reader and writer, PP. Benchmark is actually digging in to literacy which is something that the previous "curriculum" never did.

If you read the Benchmark reading selections for 6th grade, you would see that many of them are dull and uninteresting. The fiction selections are only one chapter, or part of a chapter, from a novel. Benchmark does not dig in. The questions and answers on the comprehension tests are not very well thought out. It's a case of the emperor having no clothes. Many people are being fooled because we're told that it aligns with the Science of Reading, so we think it's good. But the curriculum is poorly written and the selections are uninspired.

Yet your child's confidence in their reading abilities tanked? Hm. Sounds like you're making excuses, momma!

I’m a 6th grade teacher and my students hate BM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 5th grade AAP kid went from enjoying reading to telling me language arts is his least favorite part of the day

I don’t know if it’s the age, the teacher, the curriculum, but this year has been really rough.

+1 my 6th grader who was an advanced reader now absolutely hates reading and LA. She also is worried about how she will do in honors English next year. Her confidence has tanked.

And here's the issue - moms of "advanced kids" are starting to realize that their children were actually very far behind where they should be. Just because your child was getting high comprehension and fluency scores doesn't mean that she was actually an advanced reader and writer, PP. Benchmark is actually digging in to literacy which is something that the previous "curriculum" never did.

If you read the Benchmark reading selections for 6th grade, you would see that many of them are dull and uninteresting. The fiction selections are only one chapter, or part of a chapter, from a novel. Benchmark does not dig in. The questions and answers on the comprehension tests are not very well thought out. It's a case of the emperor having no clothes. Many people are being fooled because we're told that it aligns with the Science of Reading, so we think it's good. But the curriculum is poorly written and the selections are uninspired.

Have you seen the curriculum that existed before this one? No, you haven't, because there wasn't one. This isn't perfect, but it is a thousand times better than the cobbled together bullshit we had before.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree, it's so much better than anything that has been taught in FCPS elementaries in the past 10 years. I am so glad we finally have a curriculum instead of cobbling things together from previous years and TpT.

Maybe lazy teachers like it because they don’t have to get creative. The lessons are canned and ready for them. The good LA teachers don’t like it. They want real novels. I’m sure the AAP teachers hate Benchmark.

You're not a teacher. This has been a really hard year for teachers, and we are working really hard with our teams and our leadership to ensure that we can adapt it to better suit our kids needs next year. It's been a long time since kids read novels as part of the curriculum - we've had book clubs, sure, but the curriculum has not centered around books like Charlotte's Web, etc., when we were kids in YEARS.