Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a thread in the past few months about this and I posted info about the DCPS reading “curriculum” which was written by teachers willing to make $40/hr over the summer. It’s not good.

I'm not sure what your problem is here. That it was written by teachers? That teachers sometimes get summer jobs?

My problem is that it’s not actually a curriculum and it’s terrible.

Sorry, what is the relationship between that curriculum and fundations? Because my ES only seems to use the latter in terms of whole group literacy instruction.

No relationship. The DCPS reading curriculum is for part of the day frequently referred to as RRW—Reading, Research and Writing. It contains no foundational literacy instruction.

Our school uses Really Great Reading for foundational literacy. We started last year and have seen good results so far.

Anonymous wrote:Very depressing to see the lifeblood being sucked out of reading in favor of PARCC scores and "science." The pendulum will surely tilt back in favor of whole language, but it sounds like it will too late for most of our kids. Comprehension is critical. Writing skills are critical. Developing a love of reading - critical. Learning buzzwords like "R Blends" are not.

The best way to develop a love of reading is to read regularly to and with your child — preferably from birth. This also builds comprehension, and can build critical thinking.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a thread in the past few months about this and I posted info about the DCPS reading “curriculum” which was written by teachers willing to make $40/hr over the summer. It’s not good.

I'm not sure what your problem is here. That it was written by teachers? That teachers sometimes get summer jobs?

My problem is that it’s not actually a curriculum and it’s terrible.

Sorry, what is the relationship between that curriculum and fundations? Because my ES only seems to use the latter in terms of whole group literacy instruction.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a thread in the past few months about this and I posted info about the DCPS reading “curriculum” which was written by teachers willing to make $40/hr over the summer. It’s not good.

I'm not sure what your problem is here. That it was written by teachers? That teachers sometimes get summer jobs?

My problem is that it’s not actually a curriculum and it’s terrible.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is not a single DMV school district that teaches reading well. Concerned? Possible dyslexia? ASDEC tutor. Of course get a neuropsychology exam first but don’t blame the school districts. Remember they are jobs programs for the lower third of every graduating class. MCPS particularly bad in this regard so don’t think moving will aide your issue. -dyslexic parent

What an awful assumption about teachers. I’m an elementary school teacher with an undergrad the University of Notre Dame and a Masters from Harvard. Move along with your assumptions.

None of your degrees promises you will be effective at identifying learning differences.

-parent of child with dyslexia

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very depressing to see the lifeblood being sucked out of reading in favor of PARCC scores and "science." The pendulum will surely tilt back in favor of whole language, but it sounds like it will too late for most of our kids. Comprehension is critical. Writing skills are critical. Developing a love of reading - critical. Learning buzzwords like "R Blends" are not.

Wrong, wrong, wrongedy wrong wrong. Take it from a reading specialist who makes $$$ helping kids who suffering mightily from people and systems believing the same crap as you.

+1 Also a reading specialist and Orton Gillingham certified. You have to read fluently to be able to comprehend. If you can’t decode you will not understand what you are reading. Google “Simple View of Reading.”

Agree 100%. My kids were in an anti-phonics pro-Lucy caulkins dcps where it was all about the “joy” of reading without any focus on how to make sure kids were actually learning to read. Mine, fortunately, eventually picked it up and are strong readers now. Probably due in part to how we approached reading g at home. But they never learned what I would call “advanced” phonics where trr he ey Kearney the rules about how to know if the vowel sound is long or short, for example, and it still impacts their drilling in middle school.

My bigger concern with Lucy calikns, which wax nut addressed in sold a story (although I wish for a sequel!) is how she addresses writing. It is the same “magic” BS where if you “love” writing you will figure out grammar, essay structure, etc., just by reading a lot (which ironically is not taught either). It is a hot mess. Ask a lot of questions if your school is one of those that has the freedom to deviate from a phonics curriculum (this is the case for some dcps).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very depressing to see the lifeblood being sucked out of reading in favor of PARCC scores and "science." The pendulum will surely tilt back in favor of whole language, but it sounds like it will too late for most of our kids. Comprehension is critical. Writing skills are critical. Developing a love of reading - critical. Learning buzzwords like "R Blends" are not.

Wrong, wrong, wrongedy wrong wrong. Take it from a reading specialist who makes $$$ helping kids who suffering mightily from people and systems believing the same crap as you.

Right? I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the poster insisting that phonics (which teaches kids to read) "sucks the lifeblood out of reading." The point is to TEACH KIDS TO READ. If you don't do that adequately, then how can they enjoy reading? I feel like I see this ethos in many other areas of curriculum: people who think the goal is the child's current experience, as opposed to actually teaching them content and skills.

Thank you for expressing it this way. Kids need skills and content. These people have clearly not met my students in middle and high school for whom faving a page of text it literal torture. The way they were “taught” to read early on never took, and they have been ashamed and limping along reading ever since. Sure, they sort of read, they kind kind of get by, but all that guessing and struggling and filling in as they read history, science and social studies texts because they never “naturally” did the orthographic theorizing theorizing and mapping that their “fluenty reading peers” did automatically is ARDUOUS. It’s an equity issue. It might be THE equity issue

Anonymous wrote:There was a thread in the past few months about this and I posted info about the DCPS reading “curriculum” which was written by teachers willing to make $40/hr over the summer. It’s not good.

I'm not sure what your problem is here. That it was written by teachers? That teachers sometimes get summer jobs?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very depressing to see the lifeblood being sucked out of reading in favor of PARCC scores and "science." The pendulum will surely tilt back in favor of whole language, but it sounds like it will too late for most of our kids. Comprehension is critical. Writing skills are critical. Developing a love of reading - critical. Learning buzzwords like "R Blends" are not.

Wrong, wrong, wrongedy wrong wrong. Take it from a reading specialist who makes $$$ helping kids who suffering mightily from people and systems believing the same crap as you.

Right? I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the poster insisting that phonics (which teaches kids to read) "sucks the lifeblood out of reading." The point is to TEACH KIDS TO READ. If you don't do that adequately, then how can they enjoy reading? I feel like I see this ethos in many other areas of curriculum: people who think the goal is the child's current experience, as opposed to actually teaching them content and skills.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very depressing to see the lifeblood being sucked out of reading in favor of PARCC scores and "science." The pendulum will surely tilt back in favor of whole language, but it sounds like it will too late for most of our kids. Comprehension is critical. Writing skills are critical. Developing a love of reading - critical. Learning buzzwords like "R Blends" are not.

People like you are the cause of a lot of grief.

Of course kids should read whole books and talk about what things mean, and they need to understand enough about the history of the English language to know that we have several different spelling systems smooshed together.

But most kids also need help with learning how to sound out simple words. Whole language fanatics who ignore the need for phonics are a menace.

If you or your kids learned reading without any phonics, wonderful, but many other kids obviously need some phonics.

News flash: children all over the world - and in this country learned how to read without phonics drilling all day -with these anachronistic thingys called books. Indeed, if you were born before the 1990s, you managed to learn how to read by decoding words, and reading/writing stories, with minimum phonics per day. Some kids do need phonic drills because of learning differences, but most kids do not. And if reading is essentially flatlined in favor of "science" and drills, kids who are capable of reading without phonics are bored and their language learning is stunted. It's not surprising that people on the right (prone to saying things like "people like you") love phonics for certain students - not their own, of course, for students they deem as less capable.

You are misinformed. Nobody is “drilling phonics all day”. Scare tactic

Anonymous wrote:Very depressing to see the lifeblood being sucked out of reading in favor of PARCC scores and "science." The pendulum will surely tilt back in favor of whole language, but it sounds like it will too late for most of our kids. Comprehension is critical. Writing skills are critical. Developing a love of reading - critical. Learning buzzwords like "R Blends" are not.

Wrong, wrong, wrongedy wrong wrong. Take it from a reading specialist who makes $$$ helping kids who suffering mightily from people and systems believing the same crap as you.

There was a thread in the past few months about this and I posted info about the DCPS reading “curriculum” which was written by teachers willing to make $40/hr over the summer. It’s not good.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very depressing to see the lifeblood being sucked out of reading in favor of PARCC scores and "science." The pendulum will surely tilt back in favor of whole language, but it sounds like it will too late for most of our kids. Comprehension is critical. Writing skills are critical. Developing a love of reading - critical. Learning buzzwords like "R Blends" are not.

People like you are the cause of a lot of grief.

Of course kids should read whole books and talk about what things mean, and they need to understand enough about the history of the English language to know that we have several different spelling systems smooshed together.

But most kids also need help with learning how to sound out simple words. Whole language fanatics who ignore the need for phonics are a menace.

If you or your kids learned reading without any phonics, wonderful, but many other kids obviously need some phonics.

News flash: children all over the world - and in this country learned how to read without phonics drilling all day -with these anachronistic thingys called books. Indeed, if you were born before the 1990s, you managed to learn how to read by decoding words, and reading/writing stories, with minimum phonics per day. Some kids do need phonic drills because of learning differences, but most kids do not. And if reading is essentially flatlined in favor of "science" and drills, kids who are capable of reading without phonics are bored and their language learning is stunted. It's not surprising that people on the right (prone to saying things like "people like you") love phonics for certain students - not their own, of course, for students they deem as less capable.

PLEASE jusy stop. This is NOT political and it is frankly evil for you to try to make it that way. Our DCPS has been doing phonics for years, well before there was this much media attention to it. But sure, please go tell my kid’s beloved, amazing K teacher with 4 decades of experience that she’s a right-wing stooge. That would be a very amusing conversation.

Not sure why you are injecting so much of your copious inner bile into a pedagogical discussion? Educational methods are 1) frequently debated; frequently political; 3) often intersecting with racism/classism, etc. Intelligent minds can disagree. As public school parents of elementary students we are all looking at homework, touring schools, going to back to school “literacy nights,” etc. There is a clear shift in how we are teaching reading from guided reading to heavily phonics based curriculum. Much of this is driven by test prep. It does seem sad. It will work for some kids, but it’s not a differentiated instruction model, so it does suppress growth for other students. If you are comfortable with that - fine. Others are not.

Acting like phonics is a right-wing issue is absolutely toxic behavior. Get a grip.