Tell me about the schools in Herndon/Chantilly - Crossfield, Oak Hill, Navy, Fox Mill, Lees Corner
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Anonymous
+1 this sounds like quantity over quality. What is the point of reading 40 books if they aren’t discussed or written about in any way? Teacher has no idea if kids even understand the books. This sounds like something that looks good to clueless parents. |
Anonymous
Brown is new to 5th AAP this year. I’m curious how she knows what most AAP kids do. She taught 6th advanced math last year for PBL and apparently assigned inappropriate amounts of packets upon packets of math homework. |
Anonymous
The point of reading books is to enjoy a story. I can't speak for the teacher, but I assume that the goal is to get kids into the habit of reading at home for pleasure. Their classroom reading is separate and comes with the assignments you are referencing. So count me in as a clueless parent because I'm thrilled that my DC chooses to read for fun and explore different genres as part of the 40 book challenge. If your kids are only reading for the purpose of doing well on a book report or class discussion, then that's too bad. You should encourage them to read more often. |
Anonymous
| OP here - do these schools assign homework? One downside of our current school is no homework/accountability. |
Anonymous
Your child can read for fun without tracking a number of books. If the Teacher wants them to explore different genres while reading for fun maybe come up with a list of 10 books for a variety of genres and encourage kids to read 2 of the 10. I always participated in the summer reading programs at the library. We earned an ice cream cone or something for every X number of books that we read. I remember picking the thinnest books that Librarian would accept in order to maximize my ice cream cones. I read a ton of books but none of them stretched me or made me enjoy reading more. I did like the free ice cream cones though. I would look for a better way of encouraging reading for fun then tallying 40 books a year. Mind you, my kid would hit that number easily because he enjoys reading already and reads chapter books and graphic novels. He reads chapter books for his 30 minutes of reading at home because we don't count the graphic novels and will read a 300 page book in a week. He comes out and discusses what he is reading as well, like he shared with me an anti-counterfeiting tip he picked up from a Hardy Boys book and then checked on all of his own bills, so we know he is paying attention and comprehending what he is reading. Fox Mill has book club in second, third, and fourth where the kids read a book and write a very short book report. More like a few sentences and then draw a picture. The kids who participate get a special treat when they meet during lunch to discuss the book. I am a bit bummed that it is not happening in fifth grade because there were books included that DS would not have read otherwise. It also introduced us to a bunch of new series that DS enjoyed. I would far prefer something like that to a challenge to read 40 books. |
Anonymous
At Fox Mill it depends. DS is in JI and had homework in first and second (reading and writing, a bit of math, and then memorizing the hiragana and katakana for Japanese). It wasn't particularly onerous for our child. I will say that the Japanese practice is the main reason why kids end up transferring to the Gen Ed class. Third grade was distance learning so I have no clue what a normal year looks like. Fourth grade has a social studies assignment pretty much every week, some ST Math, and reading. Kids also brought home any work they did not complete in class to complete at home so the amount of work depended on the kid. The reading was on Lexia and they had a number of minutes they were supposed to do, 45 a week, and the Teacher sent home a certificate at the end of the week telling parents how many minutes their child completed. I hated the ST Math, mainly because the graphics are so slow that it took far longer then it should have to complete. I liked the Lexia. It introduced a literary concept, then read a short story with that concept, and then the child answered questions focused on the concept. I was actually impressed with the program. Fifth grade has not had much homework. It sounds like it is all work that kids don't complete at school and that has not affected DS. He has had a few writing assignments that he choose to work on a bit more at home and that we gave some feedback on, mainly reminders to capitalize Proper Nouns and the like. So it is very much kid dependent. |
Anonymous
I think you're going to find that's true at most FCPS schools. At Navy, in the 6th grade there is daily math homework. That's the only class where it's consistent. Otherwise it's usually things that weren't completed during the school day, as opposed to true homework. |
Anonymous
| First 10 books are free choice, the for second set 10 books teacher assigned 12 different genres. My DC reads more than asked and I picked the books ( on or above grade levels) and asked DC to choose. Even if they read books below grade level so what? Like another poster said, reading is supposed to be fun. It’s hard job to be teachers especially when some people try to judge critically and to pick on them on purpose. |
Anonymous
+1 Plus a LA tutor |
Anonymous
+1 This exactly. My child is a great reader and always has a book. We don’t need to tally it up for some pointless assignment all in the name of making the teacher look good to parents. I want more substance in class. FYI, third grade gen Ed also had the same 40 book challenge assignment. Completely pointless. |
Anonymous
I have. My child reads a ton without the “40 book challenge.” My child needs more in class instructions with novels though- book clubs, comprehension questions, etc. they should be responding in some way to the literature. The kids should learn how to use textual evidence to support their thinking, but they don’t. They should learn about foreshadowing, and developing characters. But they don’t. They literally do nothing with books. The teacher doesn’t even meet with a book club when a book club is done. The groups all meet on the same day which makes zero sense. |
Anonymous
I am a parent at a different ES. My child does the 40 Book Challenge and I have no problem with it. It takes no class time and is a way to get the reluctant readers excited to read more. The teacher keeps track weekly and even gave the records made from last class. My kid is also reading other stuff in class and learning how to give evidence and everything you referenced above. |
Anonymous
Precisely. Encouraging quantity over quality is extraordinarily problematic. An AAP fifth grader should be reading books much more challenging than the I Survived series or other such novellas. My AAP fifth grader is currently reading Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, which has conjured an interest in learning more about the Holocaust and the plight of Jews in Amsterdam. She is now voraciously researching these spin-off topics. I strongly prefer she read the way she currently is-- challenging herself and following her interests-- than to read a large number of books far below her reading level merely to reach some arbitrary goal a teacher has set. In fact, should a teacher ever criticize the small number of books my daughter has read in a prescribed amount of time, we would need to have words. |
Anonymous
Yes! |
Anonymous
We had Brown a few years ago for math and the homework was ridiculous. I am all for some daily math homework but 40 problems of the same genre is not necessary. I would often draw a line after about 20 and say my kid wasn't doing them. |