Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We left APS for Langley early in the pandemic, as our DD was struggling with the isolation of remote school and had trouble reading so much on the screen.

We have had a good experience at Langley, but it is quite expensive for us, DD misses her friends, and we would love to be part of a neighborhood school again.

Spouse believes reading and writing are underemphasized in APS, so can someone who has just finished 5th grade help me win this argument:

How many novels were assigned for 5th grade students to read on their own at home? Langley had DD read 5 novels, then write essays and do a quiz on them. Which spouse really appreciates since our DD is a reluctant reader, so having it "assigned" has made it much easier to get her to read independently.

Ha. You should be looking farther down the road than 5th grade. 5 novels is more than either of my kids read in their Arlington high school English classes.
And they don't even necessarily read the complete novel when they work on one. This is our experience from both general ed and intensified English classes.

Let me know overstate it, these were short novels like Long Walk to Water and Red Kayak. Something an adult reader would finish in a day or so.

Surely they are assigned at least that much reading by middle school? I want to sway my spouse and save this tuition!

Hate to tell you, OP... Here's a sample of the assigned high school reading from the experience of our two high schoolers:

First kid:
Freshman year general ed English: "To Kill a Mockingbird "(took over 8 weeks to get through - but at least they actually read the entire book). About to begin "Romeo and Juliet" when COVID shut everything down and APS determined "no new material."
Sophomore year general ed English: PART of "1984." Kid doesn't remember what else; but I can't recall other novels, either. This was COVID distance learning year (so there should have been PLENTY of time for reading!)
Junior year general ed English: "The Invisible Man" as independent reading only. "Every Day." Some other book my kid doesn't remember, though still not a "classic" - rather what my kid calls "a teenager book."

Second kid:
Freshman intensified English: short story "Rockinghorse Winner." PARTS of "The Odyssey." Teacher decided in the later part (after skipping a middle part in order to read the book chronologically rather than in the order it was written, to assign chapters and have students give presentations "instead of everybody having to read it all.") WATCHED "Romeo and Juliet" -- did not read a single chapter of it.
My freshman has learned from another kid they know in a different (general ed) English class that their class actually did 4 books, including "To Kill a Mockingbird" "R&J," "The Odyssey," and forgets the 4th. It is not clear, however, whether they actually read each one completely, or if those were just the works they covered. My child's intensified class spent a good deal of time on R&J, even though they never read a single page of it - hence "studied" it.

There are usually other short stories and poetry units each year as well, and maybe some "independent reading" for a reading log - the amount of that reading of course being dependent on the student. So there's more total reading than the list of novels indicates. Still, extremely light on reading complete books and relatively few books at all.

There was more reading at the middle school level than high school. And perhaps this is just our experience, or just the experience at one of the high schools. Maybe others can give you a sample of what their high school kids have had to read. Regardless, maybe you'll be fine for middle school; but you might want to return to Langley for high school unless the other Arlington high schools/programs are significantly different. I'm looking forward to AP English to see if there's a significant up-tick in expectations.

Wow. What an embarrassing dearth of reading for high school English. Good lord we are going to be basically doing a private reading curriculum to supplement. Won’t be the same as doing it as part of a class with discussion and essays. This is embarrassing for high school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And again, why can’t APS emphasize reading and writing in school?
I don’t think parents are unreasonable for asking for a rigorous English curriculum in school.

It’s a numbers game. It’s easy to check math problems for 30 kids; simply reading 30 essays is laborious, let along thoughtful commentary.

Anonymous wrote:
Well, OP here, we are active readers (well less so now since we spend so much time working and dealing with kids), but we have always prioritized reading to our kids, and our oldest is a voracious reader. But DD has always been a reluctant reader (we actually suspected dyslexia or some other processing issue but nothing revealed in testing), but loves listening to audiobooks and reading graphic novels. We have tried for years to encourage a 30 minute a day reading on her own, but she won't do it without major argument (she's tired, she's hungry, what not) -- unless we parallel read with her (we both have a copy and take turns reading chapters to each other).

But with our work and family life, parallel reading frequently on top of helping her with homework just isn't happening -- if its assigned reading for school, she reads it all on her own no problem (peer effects I guess?).

I guess one thing that will help is my understanding is that APS has no homework at all elementary or middle school, so if ALL we have to do is parallel read that should be a little more manageable? Though we personally did like having independent homework in the evening.

Anonymous wrote:My freshman read all of the Oddysey, all of R&J, all of To Kill a Mockingbird and something about a missing dog/

Anonymous wrote:OP: Think beyond 5th. Middle schools are not great in ARL right now.

Anonymous wrote:I have a 5th grader. How many novels were assigned to read at home: ZERO.

Anonymous wrote:25 years ago, 9th grade English in Arlington included The Odyssey, Catcher In the Rye, The Glass Menagerie, Black Boy, Romeo and Juliet, books by Zora Neale Hurston, etc. Existentialism was a big theme. Both Gen Ed and Intensified.

FGDaddio wrote:

Anonymous wrote:25 years ago, 9th grade English in Arlington included The Odyssey, Catcher In the Rye, The Glass Menagerie, Black Boy, Romeo and Juliet, books by Zora Neale Hurston, etc. Existentialism was a big theme. Both Gen Ed and Intensified.

My APS 9th grader this year has read Romeo and Juliet, Odyssey, Catcher, Night, and at least 2 more I can't recall off the top of my head. They are certainly reading books in 9th grade English.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a 5th grader. How many novels were assigned to read at home: ZERO.

I don't really understand the focus on how many novels are assigned in 5th grade. More appropro would be how many books are students encouraged to read on their own during down time in class, over the summer, at home, etc. When I was in elementary school, we were encouraged to read whatever books we chose from the library and then give a verbal presentation (summary) to the class for extra credit.

If I were OP, I'd be far more interested in the ELA curriculum in middle and especially high school. I wouldn't even be that concerned about # of novels in middle school, more concerned about the overall content and instruction and encouragement/incentives for reading. Unfortunately, our experience, and what I've read on here so far, indicate an extremely low production output in the high school curriculum. 4 seems to be the number to beat -- anyone? anyone?

If you look online for the Wakefield recommended summer reading lists for each rising grade level, your student will be encouraged to read any books of their choosing EXCEPT the listed books. Those listed pieces are apparently the pool of potential readings to be covered in an English class. "Potential pool" because they clearly do not read them all, do not even read half of them. That means these students are most likely to NEVER read MOST of the literary works designated for high school ELA curricula. Seems to me, that's the opposite of what you would want in preparing students for post-secondary education.

Unless some folks come on here and tell me the classes at their kids' high schools cover triple what's been indicated so far, and OP is in that school's attendance zone, I urge OP to stay at Langley. Save in any other areas of your budget you can.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a 5th grader. How many novels were assigned to read at home: ZERO.

I don't really understand the focus on how many novels are assigned in 5th grade. More appropro would be how many books are students encouraged to read on their own during down time in class, over the summer, at home, etc. When I was in elementary school, we were encouraged to read whatever books we chose from the library and then give a verbal presentation (summary) to the class for extra credit.

If I were OP, I'd be far more interested in the ELA curriculum in middle and especially high school. I wouldn't even be that concerned about # of novels in middle school, more concerned about the overall content and instruction and encouragement/incentives for reading. Unfortunately, our experience, and what I've read on here so far, indicate an extremely low production output in the high school curriculum. 4 seems to be the number to beat -- anyone? anyone?

If you look online for the Wakefield recommended summer reading lists for each rising grade level, your student will be encouraged to read any books of their choosing EXCEPT the listed books. Those listed pieces are apparently the pool of potential readings to be covered in an English class. "Potential pool" because they clearly do not read them all, do not even read half of them. That means these students are most likely to NEVER read MOST of the literary works designated for high school ELA curricula. Seems to me, that's the opposite of what you would want in preparing students for post-secondary education.

Unless some folks come on here and tell me the classes at their kids' high schools cover triple what's been indicated so far, and OP is in that school's attendance zone, I urge OP to stay at Langley. Save in any other areas of your budget you can.

APS has a summer reading list of books NOT TO READ???? WTAF??