A huge problem are actually disability advocates who champion inclusion at all costs for the past 20 years. They have lobbied and put pressure on schools to include all students all the time.

So when kids have learning disabilities and can’t read and/or years and years below grade level chances are they are NOT getting pulled out to spend 2-3 hours a day in a special Ed classroom learning to read. Instead a special Ed teacher is told to go into classrooms and support 20 or more kids in multiple classrooms and different grade levels. Then an aide is sent in to support those students and end up just reading their assignments for them and helping them complete it.

Picture how you would feel getting pulled to the back of a classroom in fourth grade to work on first grade work with a special Ed teacher who is also supposed to work that 30 minutes with a kid who needs reading comprehension or a student with autism who has other needs.

So the student being included never learns how to read AND often never learns how to communicate well because they are not raising their hand to answer questions. The general Ed teacher isn’t stopping to show them what a word means, waiting until they gather their thoughts, etc.

It is tragic but so many special Ed teachers actually don’t know how to teach reading. I taught first grade due five years then went back to grad school to be a school psychologist.

I am always puzzled why so many advocates and university professors think including a kid with a learning disability the entire day who can’t read instead of pulling them out of class in the morning so they are with a special Ed teacher and an aide or two who do small group rotations.

It seems crazy but I am at a school where the two special Ed teachers do this and we have to keep it quiet. We put second, third and fourth graders who can’t read into the special Ed classroom for three hours a day. A sped teacher and two aides have the kids rotate and they do intensive phonics, sight words, spelling, fluency, comprensión and writing. They are grouped by academic ability and what they do in class they get the sand or similar homework to reinforce the skill. They get stickers to earn prizes all the time because we know many of them are angry and frustrated they can’t read. So many others are just so quiet because they never speak in class because they are so behind. But in groups of 3-6 students they get so many chances to communicate. They learn to read and then their minutes outside the class are reduced.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did the article leave a bad taste in anyone else’s mouth? She’s suing now in college, when she could have said something sometime over the past decade? I understand the language barrier, but she says she could still barely hold a pencil in 11th grade? This sounds exaggerated and designed to cause an uproar for her financial benefit, fame, sympathy support, etc.

No. Absolutely not. She was a *child* until 5 minutes ago. She is a feminist latina icon as far as I'm concerned, and I am not the type of person to hang my hat on that.

I have story for you. My kid's suzuki music teacher told me her kid, now in college, is now writing hand written exams because the college could not come up with a better way to stop kids from cheating. She said some kids were struggling to physically write essays. Now here's the frosting, her daughter was homeschooled/private high school and learned cursive. Her professor could not read her cursive!

That’s appalling. What did they do about it?

Somebody else read the essay to the prof

I assume it is a young prof. I am not that surprised s/he cant read cursive. People aren't taught to write it. Why would you be able to read it?

People originally learned cursive first, then the academic geniuses thought print is easier, print was taught first, cursive second. Then everybody's handwriting went to ----. Print is not easier. Try to reverse a cursive b or d. Then the next generation of academic geniuses told us typing is the new thing, cursive is archaic. Then the touch screens came and now kids can't hold pencils properly. I have heard kindergarten teachers say they have kids holding crayons with the "caveman" hold. K teachers today are starting with kids who can do literally nothing. They are starting K behind!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did the article leave a bad taste in anyone else’s mouth? She’s suing now in college, when she could have said something sometime over the past decade? I understand the language barrier, but she says she could still barely hold a pencil in 11th grade? This sounds exaggerated and designed to cause an uproar for her financial benefit, fame, sympathy support, etc.

No. Absolutely not. She was a *child* until 5 minutes ago. She is a feminist latina icon as far as I'm concerned, and I am not the type of person to hang my hat on that.

I have story for you. My kid's suzuki music teacher told me her kid, now in college, is now writing hand written exams because the college could not come up with a better way to stop kids from cheating. She said some kids were struggling to physically write essays. Now here's the frosting, her daughter was homeschooled/private high school and learned cursive. Her professor could not read her cursive!

That’s appalling. What did they do about it?

They should send the faculty back to school to learn to read cursive. It is awful that the Professor never learned to read cursive.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t we recently have a post about a specific method of reading (sorry, I can’t remember the name) that didn’t include sounding out letters (phonics)? The school administrators, who make curriculum decisions, should be held accountable.

"Blended Literacy." The curricula associated with it these days are Lucy Calkins and Fountas and Pinnell.

Back in the late 80s and early 90s the exact same style of teaching was called "whole word." Even then it was already proven phonics was superior. People higher than school administrators should be held accountable. Professors at teachers colleges. State DOE folks. That sort of thing. The people who taught the teachers and administrators to ignore neuroscience in favor of their pet fads.

Virginia passed a law a couple of years ago requiring public schools to use a Phonics-centered "Science of Reading" curriculum. Mississippi actually led the nation in fixing the reading curriculum.

Virginia passed it because groups like local NAACP chapters and dyslexia parent support organizations pushed the politicians to do it, not because our DOE was so great. Should we have to wait until it's glaringly obvious to politicians that a certain teaching style is superior for our kids to get decent curriculum?

+1
Why didn’t the DOE mandate this for accreditation?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did the article leave a bad taste in anyone else’s mouth? She’s suing now in college, when she could have said something sometime over the past decade? I understand the language barrier, but she says she could still barely hold a pencil in 11th grade? This sounds exaggerated and designed to cause an uproar for her financial benefit, fame, sympathy support, etc.

No. Absolutely not. She was a *child* until 5 minutes ago. She is a feminist latina icon as far as I'm concerned, and I am not the type of person to hang my hat on that.

I have story for you. My kid's suzuki music teacher told me her kid, now in college, is now writing hand written exams because the college could not come up with a better way to stop kids from cheating. She said some kids were struggling to physically write essays. Now here's the frosting, her daughter was homeschooled/private high school and learned cursive. Her professor could not read her cursive!

I don’t think there’s any excuse for an 18 year old that doesn’t know how to hold a pencil, unless she also has a physical disability. You’re telling me she never learned to hold a fork, chopsticks, never used a makeup brush? I really think “barely knows how to hold a pencil” is exaggeration. If you tell me she can’t write anything beyond her name, yes I’ll believe that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did the article leave a bad taste in anyone else’s mouth? She’s suing now in college, when she could have said something sometime over the past decade? I understand the language barrier, but she says she could still barely hold a pencil in 11th grade? This sounds exaggerated and designed to cause an uproar for her financial benefit, fame, sympathy support, etc.

No. Absolutely not. She was a *child* until 5 minutes ago. She is a feminist latina icon as far as I'm concerned, and I am not the type of person to hang my hat on that.

I have story for you. My kid's suzuki music teacher told me her kid, now in college, is now writing hand written exams because the college could not come up with a better way to stop kids from cheating. She said some kids were struggling to physically write essays. Now here's the frosting, her daughter was homeschooled/private high school and learned cursive. Her professor could not read her cursive!

That’s appalling. What did they do about it?

Anonymous wrote:Did the article leave a bad taste in anyone else’s mouth? She’s suing now in college, when she could have said something sometime over the past decade? I understand the language barrier, but she says she could still barely hold a pencil in 11th grade? This sounds exaggerated and designed to cause an uproar for her financial benefit, fame, sympathy support, etc.

No. Absolutely not. She was a *child* until 5 minutes ago. She is a feminist latina icon as far as I'm concerned, and I am not the type of person to hang my hat on that.

I have story for you. My kid's suzuki music teacher told me her kid, now in college, is now writing hand written exams because the college could not come up with a better way to stop kids from cheating. She said some kids were struggling to physically write essays. Now here's the frosting, her daughter was homeschooled/private high school and learned cursive. Her professor could not read her cursive!

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t we recently have a post about a specific method of reading (sorry, I can’t remember the name) that didn’t include sounding out letters (phonics)? The school administrators, who make curriculum decisions, should be held accountable.

That has been going on for decades. Those people are retired if not dead.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did the article leave a bad taste in anyone else’s mouth? She’s suing now in college, when she could have said something sometime over the past decade? I understand the language barrier, but she says she could still barely hold a pencil in 11th grade? This sounds exaggerated and designed to cause an uproar for her financial benefit, fame, sympathy support, etc.

Normal people don't immediately sue when things go wrong. Maybe that's what you do.

There’s a long period of time between immediately and a decade. And lots of actions between “nothing” and “sue them.”

It's pretty disgusting to suggest they did "nothing" - did you not read the article?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did the article leave a bad taste in anyone else’s mouth? She’s suing now in college, when she could have said something sometime over the past decade? I understand the language barrier, but she says she could still barely hold a pencil in 11th grade? This sounds exaggerated and designed to cause an uproar for her financial benefit, fame, sympathy support, etc.

Normal people don't immediately sue when things go wrong. Maybe that's what you do.

There’s a long period of time between immediately and a decade. And lots of actions between “nothing” and “sue them.”

Anonymous wrote:Did the article leave a bad taste in anyone else’s mouth? She’s suing now in college, when she could have said something sometime over the past decade? I understand the language barrier, but she says she could still barely hold a pencil in 11th grade? This sounds exaggerated and designed to cause an uproar for her financial benefit, fame, sympathy support, etc.

Normal people don't immediately sue when things go wrong. Maybe that's what you do.

Anonymous wrote:I feel like someone must have been paying their friends for favors. I just can’t imagine anyone genuinely thinking it’s a good idea to teach kids to guess words rather than actually learn to read.

+1 yep

Did the article leave a bad taste in anyone else’s mouth? She’s suing now in college, when she could have said something sometime over the past decade? I understand the language barrier, but she says she could still barely hold a pencil in 11th grade? This sounds exaggerated and designed to cause an uproar for her financial benefit, fame, sympathy support, etc.

I feel like someone must have been paying their friends for favors. I just can’t imagine anyone genuinely thinking it’s a good idea to teach kids to guess words rather than actually learn to read.

This is common in MCPS also. There are kids who are functionally illiterate. On the other hand, concerned parents like me who do intervention, supplementation, acceleration and enrichment at home are called - Asian Tiger Parents.



Stupid illiterate citizens make for a dumb govt and inefficient systems.