Reply to The latest ranking of top countries in math, reading, and science (PISA 2016)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]IMO, public schools don't spend enough time on basics before moving on to higher level skills.  I'm a teacher (on my lunch break) and my first graders are expected to be able to write a paragraph using cited evidence from the text.  I didn't do that until 9th grade.  I teach in a Title One school and most students cannot write a sentence when they start the school year.  I'd rather we focus on basic sentence writing skills instead of expecting paragraphs at this age.  If a student is capable of it, great but our students aren't for the most part.  I then hear from teachers in the upper grades that students are writing run on sentences, sentence fragments, etc.  Handwriting should be emphasized too but it isn't (I emphasize it but...).  My child goes to a Catholic school and they aren't expecting such high standards for first graders.  One or two well developed sentences is all they are looking for.  The kids focus on the parts of speech and what makes up a sentence.  This is glossed over in public school.[/quote]

This is interesting.

I wonder if we are SO focused in the U.S. on, say, critical developmental windows and early childhood education that we do older students a disservice. Of course, these things are important, but are we sending the message that if a child isn't reading fluently by 6, or writing paragraphs by 7, that they shouldn't be expected to be reading challenging works and writing elegantly and with precision by the time they are 15? Do higher expectations of first graders really pay off in higher expectations of high schoolers, or do they result in more and more kids being perceived as lagging behind, being slow, or not "good" at something-- by themselves or their teachers or their parents-- and by the time it really counts, they've lost all motivation?[/quote]

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