Catholic schools can have many faults, but my kid had no issues with grammar when they switched to FCPS for high school. They were surprised the other students were struggling in English Honors. My kid is no whiz, fwiw.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not really.

The 9th grade teacher tried desperately to catch the kids up this year. Bless her. But she never should have had to do that in a high school honors class.

The class of 2026 kids are so behind on so many basic things that were never a concern for my older kkds, even the one just a couple years older.

The kids who lost the end of 6th grade and mkst of middle school over pandemic are so screwed by the shut down.

I suspect that cluster of grades, plus the kids who did K-2nd grade over pandemkc are going to have lifelong impacts due to the idiotic pandemic school decisions, school closures, lowering of standards, and over reliance on screens to teach.

Those specific grades were at critical learning and transition stages that you cannot get back.

How was it most of middle school? It was 75% of one year, so closer to 38%.

What? They lost a third of the school year with school closing in March, and the whole next school year was almost entirely online, and not real school at all when they finally returned, barely. And there has been an insane increase in use of 'screens' during the school day post-covid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not really.

The 9th grade teacher tried desperately to catch the kids up this year. Bless her. But she never should have had to do that in a high school honors class.

The class of 2026 kids are so behind on so many basic things that were never a concern for my older kkds, even the one just a couple years older.

The kids who lost the end of 6th grade and mkst of middle school over pandemic are so screwed by the shut down.

I suspect that cluster of grades, plus the kids who did K-2nd grade over pandemkc are going to have lifelong impacts due to the idiotic pandemic school decisions, school closures, lowering of standards, and over reliance on screens to teach.

Those specific grades were at critical learning and transition stages that you cannot get back.

Teacher here . I know closures are the easy target but they were 3 years ago. It doesn’t explain the YEARS of declining grammar skills I’ve seen in students, which was happening pre-pandemic. It comes down to the curriculum provided and how FCPS was teaching reading and writing (Calkins model). It’s much, much bigger and going on longer than the brief time schools closed.

Calkins has been such a disaster for both reading and writing - everywhere.

NYC PS recently banned Calkins after observing it did not work. NYC PS is embracing “Science of Reading” with mandatory Phonics starting Fall 2023…

Isn’t this what the changes to the FCPS ES curriculum has done?

Yes. Hopefully it helps. This change started this fall, so it's hard to know yet.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not really.

The 9th grade teacher tried desperately to catch the kids up this year. Bless her. But she never should have had to do that in a high school honors class.

The class of 2026 kids are so behind on so many basic things that were never a concern for my older kkds, even the one just a couple years older.

The kids who lost the end of 6th grade and mkst of middle school over pandemic are so screwed by the shut down.

I suspect that cluster of grades, plus the kids who did K-2nd grade over pandemkc are going to have lifelong impacts due to the idiotic pandemic school decisions, school closures, lowering of standards, and over reliance on screens to teach.

Those specific grades were at critical learning and transition stages that you cannot get back.

Teacher here . I know closures are the easy target but they were 3 years ago. It doesn’t explain the YEARS of declining grammar skills I’ve seen in students, which was happening pre-pandemic. It comes down to the curriculum provided and how FCPS was teaching reading and writing (Calkins model). It’s much, much bigger and going on longer than the brief time schools closed.

Calkins has been such a disaster for both reading and writing - everywhere.

NYC PS recently banned Calkins after observing it did not work. NYC PS is embracing “Science of Reading” with mandatory Phonics starting Fall 2023…

Isn’t this what the changes to the FCPS ES curriculum has done?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not really.

The 9th grade teacher tried desperately to catch the kids up this year. Bless her. But she never should have had to do that in a high school honors class.

The class of 2026 kids are so behind on so many basic things that were never a concern for my older kkds, even the one just a couple years older.

The kids who lost the end of 6th grade and mkst of middle school over pandemic are so screwed by the shut down.

I suspect that cluster of grades, plus the kids who did K-2nd grade over pandemkc are going to have lifelong impacts due to the idiotic pandemic school decisions, school closures, lowering of standards, and over reliance on screens to teach.

Those specific grades were at critical learning and transition stages that you cannot get back.

Teacher here . I know closures are the easy target but they were 3 years ago. It doesn’t explain the YEARS of declining grammar skills I’ve seen in students, which was happening pre-pandemic. It comes down to the curriculum provided and how FCPS was teaching reading and writing (Calkins model). It’s much, much bigger and going on longer than the brief time schools closed.

Calkins has been such a disaster for both reading and writing - everywhere.

NYC PS recently banned Calkins after observing it did not work. NYC PS is embracing “Science of Reading” with mandatory Phonics starting Fall 2023…

Anonymous wrote:Yes but as a teacher, I don’t think the way it’s embedded in the curriculum works well. I don’t know how it’s even possible but I get kids in high school who still don’t know a noun = an object = subject of the sentence and verb = action = predicate. They REALLY struggle with *basic* grammar concepts so if you want to work on explicit instruction of that at home, it wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Neighbors of ours might agree with this - in their words “grammar instruction is very inconsistent from one teacher to another”…

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not really.

The 9th grade teacher tried desperately to catch the kids up this year. Bless her. But she never should have had to do that in a high school honors class.

The class of 2026 kids are so behind on so many basic things that were never a concern for my older kkds, even the one just a couple years older.

The kids who lost the end of 6th grade and mkst of middle school over pandemic are so screwed by the shut down.

I suspect that cluster of grades, plus the kids who did K-2nd grade over pandemkc are going to have lifelong impacts due to the idiotic pandemic school decisions, school closures, lowering of standards, and over reliance on screens to teach.

Those specific grades were at critical learning and transition stages that you cannot get back.

Teacher here . I know closures are the easy target but they were 3 years ago. It doesn’t explain the YEARS of declining grammar skills I’ve seen in students, which was happening pre-pandemic. It comes down to the curriculum provided and how FCPS was teaching reading and writing (Calkins model). It’s much, much bigger and going on longer than the brief time schools closed.

I agree.

But there are windows in development where the brain is ready to learn things, particularly with language development.

For the kids who did the year and 1/4 without school and no real learning in K/1st/2nd during pandemic shut downs, distance learning and hyper reliance on ineffective screen "learning" the gaps are real and significant.

The same goes for the class of 2026 kids who missed 4th quarter in 6th, no real school in 7th, and a feral 8th grade experience. Usually grammar and writing are huge components of that time frame. Those kids entirely missed this instruction, and what little they had was via ineffective computer games.

I have had several kids go through FCPS high school, and the level of remediation and lower standards for the class of 2026, even compared to my class of 2024 kid, are significant. I think that grammar deficiencies were there before pandemic, but good teachers were able to get good results. But the quality of student preparation in that window of students compared to older grades pre pandemic is significant, in my opinion.

Anonymous wrote:Not really.

The 9th grade teacher tried desperately to catch the kids up this year. Bless her. But she never should have had to do that in a high school honors class.

The class of 2026 kids are so behind on so many basic things that were never a concern for my older kkds, even the one just a couple years older.

The kids who lost the end of 6th grade and mkst of middle school over pandemic are so screwed by the shut down.

I suspect that cluster of grades, plus the kids who did K-2nd grade over pandemkc are going to have lifelong impacts due to the idiotic pandemic school decisions, school closures, lowering of standards, and over reliance on screens to teach.

Those specific grades were at critical learning and transition stages that you cannot get back.

Teacher here . I know closures are the easy target but they were 3 years ago. It doesn’t explain the YEARS of declining grammar skills I’ve seen in students, which was happening pre-pandemic. It comes down to the curriculum provided and how FCPS was teaching reading and writing (Calkins model). It’s much, much bigger and going on longer than the brief time schools closed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes but as a teacher, I don’t think the way it’s embedded in the curriculum works well. I don’t know how it’s even possible but I get kids in high school who still don’t know a noun = an object = subject of the sentence and verb = action = predicate. They REALLY struggle with *basic* grammar concepts so if you want to work on explicit instruction of that at home, it wouldn’t be a bad idea.

NP. As a parent, it doesn't work well for my kids either.

This seems like another new way of teaching that is a lot of work for the teacher but low results.

I hope the new changes to the curriculum described in this thread are effective instead of just more work that doesn't give results.

I’m the teacher PP- now granted, I am in LCPS, but the curricula are not vastly different per VDOE. I found the grammar programs required for us to use so inadequate and ineffective that I simply refused to use them and started doing my own thing. I got some pushback but my data is solid. I refuse to use what isn’t working and will instead use what does work, even if I have to justify it to someone in admin. I’m so tired of districts purchasing programs or platforms we didn’t ask for, then demanding we use them “for the data” when they don’t do what we need them to do.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes but as a teacher, I don’t think the way it’s embedded in the curriculum works well. I don’t know how it’s even possible but I get kids in high school who still don’t know a noun = an object = subject of the sentence and verb = action = predicate. They REALLY struggle with *basic* grammar concepts so if you want to work on explicit instruction of that at home, it wouldn’t be a bad idea.

There were big changes to the ES curriculum over the past year or two. We spent a lot of time on this with our third graders this year. More than I ever did in the past and I’ve been with FCPS for 30 years.

Good to know! Hopefully it helps. I suspect reading/writing workshop curriculum models have harmed grammar education over the years so perhaps as we shift away from those finally we will stop seeing high schoolers who can’t grasp basic grammar concepts.

Anonymous wrote:We are working on a summer bridge activities workbook this summer for my rising 5th grader and my kid knows nothing about grammar (doesn’t know pronouns, where commas go, etc) in any of the activities. I’m assuming it’s normally taught in other elementary schools since it’s included int he workbook?

How do kids learn grammar? And how will they learn foreign languages when they don’t know any grammar. I’m trying to teach the kid as we go through the workbook but curious what is going on.

My kid's 6th grade teacher did a review of grammar (mostly focusing on commas) and that's when he finally got it! Some teachers do reviews in 7-8 grade, very dependent on the teacher.

Anonymous wrote:I have to say, the title is a bit ironic.

..as are all of OP's posts.

I have to say, the title is a bit ironic.

Anonymous wrote:Not really.

The 9th grade teacher tried desperately to catch the kids up this year. Bless her. But she never should have had to do that in a high school honors class.

The class of 2026 kids are so behind on so many basic things that were never a concern for my older kkds, even the one just a couple years older.

The kids who lost the end of 6th grade and mkst of middle school over pandemic are so screwed by the shut down.

I suspect that cluster of grades, plus the kids who did K-2nd grade over pandemkc are going to have lifelong impacts due to the idiotic pandemic school decisions, school closures, lowering of standards, and over reliance on screens to teach.

Those specific grades were at critical learning and transition stages that you cannot get back.

How was it most of middle school? It was 75% of one year, so closer to 38%.

Not really.

The 9th grade teacher tried desperately to catch the kids up this year. Bless her. But she never should have had to do that in a high school honors class.

The class of 2026 kids are so behind on so many basic things that were never a concern for my older kkds, even the one just a couple years older.

The kids who lost the end of 6th grade and mkst of middle school over pandemic are so screwed by the shut down.

I suspect that cluster of grades, plus the kids who did K-2nd grade over pandemkc are going to have lifelong impacts due to the idiotic pandemic school decisions, school closures, lowering of standards, and over reliance on screens to teach.

Those specific grades were at critical learning and transition stages that you cannot get back.