Anonymous wrote:My kids public has 400 kids who all come from educated and middle to upper class families. If Why hasn’t there been a peep about curriculum concerns, let alone an uproar? Is it possible that the entire teaching staff, district admin, and parents are ALL clueless? I find that hard to believe. They use F&P balanced literacy and writers workshop. I don’t know about upper elementary, but so far there’s been no homework except a weekly set of graded readers in K and 1st, and 1 math worksheet per week in 1st-2nd.

I will say virtually no students coming out of our “award winning” top high school go to top 20 colleges. A big 10 state school is the end all be all of coveted reach.

What are you talking about? There's been a nationwide uproar for several years about this. It's been huge in the educational world. If you don't know about it and have a kid in elementary school, then you have your head in the sand. Listen to the Sold a Story podcast to catch up and then read some news.

"https://www.moe.gov.sg/-/media/files/approved-textbook-list/current-titles-pri.xlsx"

The actual math textbooks used in Singapore are called "Primary Math" according to the official source above.

Different from Dimensions or from Math in Focus which also get labeled "Singapore math".

Anonymous wrote:My favorite LC story is the year my kid jumped from level E to level M in reading in a month. Why? The story she was tested on for E was about baseball and she couldn’t guess what some of the words were, which was supposed to be easy… Only we’d just moved to the country and she’d literally never heard of baseball, so had zero framework to even sound out from. (Like “pitcher” and “base” and “diamond” were all at Level E because you could guess from the first letter and the picture if you’d ever heard these words… but actually pitcher is not on the same level as dog as LC claimed (cvc and common/easy to depict words were the same) and is very hard for a kid to figure out if she’s never heard the word and doesn’t even recognize the sport. Then suddenly a different teacher declared her at Level M because she could read a Level M book about a topic she was familiar with (so where the first letter and guess method worked). Absolute lunacy.

PP. This is what I meant by having issues with doing the book leveling for guided reading. For somebody who was a strong early reader, the book leveling seemed unintuitive. Ideally, students could choose a harder book that looked interesting and just ask for a little help or even try using a kid's dictionary or Google. But they were supposed to stick in their level range for best results. There was no plan for the kids that had a big step-up in ability other than I guess they could read from any level if they had topped out.

My kids public has 400 kids who all come from educated and middle to upper class families. If Why hasn’t there been a peep about curriculum concerns, let alone an uproar? Is it possible that the entire teaching staff, district admin, and parents are ALL clueless? I find that hard to believe. They use F&P balanced literacy and writers workshop. I don’t know about upper elementary, but so far there’s been no homework except a weekly set of graded readers in K and 1st, and 1 math worksheet per week in 1st-2nd.

I will say virtually no students coming out of our “award winning” top high school go to top 20 colleges. A big 10 state school is the end all be all of coveted reach.

While there are many flaws with Lucy’s curriculum, there are three positives that I’m concerned are going to the wayside with the science of reading movement.

1. Opportunity to read books. CKLA is generally strong and research-based. However, with this and similar curriculums, there isn’t necessarily space for kids to read for enjoyment at school. Classroom libraries (even organized by genre/topic) are being eliminated. I’ve seen this have negative impacts, especially in grades 3 and onward, on students’ engagement and creating a community of readers.

2. Lucy emphasizes interactive read aloud, which research shows is important even with middle and high school students. It builds vocabulary, comprehension, fluency, and not to mention, provides an opportunity to incorporate community and character building. This goes to the wayside with passages on passages.

3. Less focus on writing. Many schools have a narrow view of the science of reading, which has minimized writing. Students need to write for many purposes and audiences. Writing workshop carves out time for writing (not handwriting, that needs to be taught separately and systematically).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which (so-called) "Singapore Math" curriculum did not work? Was it "Math in Focus"? I want to know which curricula to avoid for my kids.

It is in vogue to claim any math curriculum is Singapore Math, because SG has consistently strong math results on the PISA tests. However, SG math as actually taught in Singapore has lots of repetition, lots of rote memorization of math procedures, lots of direct instruction, and is not at all "exploratory".

We supplement with Singapore Math workbooks at home and they seem great. Lots of practice, methodical introduction of new concepts, and direct instruction. It's not exploratory at all.

Which ones? Publisher or name or....?

This one: https://www.singaporemath.com/pages/programs-dimensions-math-pk-5-for-homeschool?srsltid=AfmBOooc74gssbTZJC5FKLyBG5ZFa2tcDAkAh5hLEi9It1oGYeqmmasS

Thanks!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you're referring to the Writing Workshop, that is generally considered good. Of course we all now know her reading curriculum was garbage and did considerable harm.

Disagree. Teacher admitted privately that with Writers Workshop she was forbidden to even mark corrections for spelling or grammar on students submissions, unlike the previous curriculum. She said all the teachers had been told it was not allowed because it would prevent their 2nd graders from "thinking big thoughts".

She suggested privately that we help our DC with explicit spelling and grammar instruction at home. At least at that school, grammar and spelling was not corrected until after WW ended at the very end of 3rd grade. We were grateful for the tip, which was provided only after we politely had asked direct questions why DD's work was not being corrected.

I don’t think it’s a big deal that spelling and grammar aren’t the main focus until 3rd grade. Future bureaucrats might not need to “think big thoughts” but to emphasize putting thoughts on paper at this very early age over spelling is not a big deal.

Putting "big thoughts" on paper is easier when you've been taught to write. It's much harder if you give a kid a pencil and expect them to teach themselves. LC lacks more than just spelling and grammar rules. LC doesn't teach kids to sort or organize their thoughts or information. It's all stream of consciousness and it doesn't include any teaching. Without instruction, kids' writing doesn't improve. They continue to write terrible, unclear drivel with no improvement year after year.

My own daughter found it so overwhelming to be told to write without being taught how, she'd just sit and stare at her paper. She brought home a lot of blank pages or pages with only one sentence--her teachers just said she'd write when she was ready. She's a smart kid and has grown so much with a knowledge-based curriculum and instruction. LC is rubbish.

The very early years they should be allowed to write freely. A lot of kids start to write around age 4 spontaneously, others don’t start til kindergarten. You wouldn’t comment on the spelling or no capitals, you would praise the work done.

I remember writing a lot in 3rd grade, not much before that. I still remember my first book report on Mao Zedong, the former communist dictator in China. I also remember grammar being intensely drilled all through middle school, especially 8th grade. It was a long process. If we waited until we had learned perfect structure, grammar and spelling we would never have written anything until high school.

Obviously there needs to be instruction on learning how to properly write a research paper or any kind,of paper but at what grade do you think is appropriate.?

You've drank the Lucy Calkins Kool aid. Kids can be taught to write in school and do not suffer if they receive instruction. It's the opposite--they gain confidence and become more excited and confident to write.

The grammer they teach is all age appropriate. The start with leaving spaces between sentences, using periods and starting sentences with capital letters. They talk about what needs to be in a sentence, then the parts of a paragraph, and using the transition words to help direct the reader. They eventually teach quotation marks and commas, etc.

These grammer skills aren't necessarily taught first in free writing, but in other practice exercises. Then they'll work the skills into the revising process to improve writing, asking kids to check their work for these things. No one is criticizing a 4, 5 or 6 yo for not using these skills in their writing. But they don't just do free writing as the only "teaching."

It's the same with spelling. They start with sight words and ask kids to make sure those are spelled correctly when revising their work, slowly adding to the list of words. Later they ask them to check for phonetic patterns, too. It's a process.

They also work on pre-writing skills to organize information. Word webs. Venn diagrams. Outlines. Lots of ways to sort and organize information.

Writing is scaffolded to teach skills. There is free writing, but also structured exercises. Kids learn so much and become so much more confident in their ability to write when they're explicitly taught.

Our school uses balanced literacy and they do apparently do some spelling (like learning to spell “because” by learning a song) and kids check their own work or classmates’ work for spaces and capitols. Teacher doesn’t check or correct anything. But my other issue is that it’s piecemeal. There is no set curriculum and it’s just whatever the classroom teacher decides to pull off of TPT or throw onto the iPad. If you get a lazy or incompetent teacher, the kids don’t learn spelling and don’t get that structured/incremental writing instruction.

The underclass kids-in-factories post is so weird. Nobody is saying that parents should do absolutely nothing at home. I’m a PP with a kid in an elementary school that uses F&P and writers workshop, along with an exploratory math curriculum and almost no homework except remedial math facts 1x/week.

Of course we do reading, writing, and math at home, but I would not call it supplementing except for math and phonics. We read, write grocery lists and letters, talk about science topics and social characters from books, make predictions, draw, and play math games (again, not supplementing. If parents don’t do this, I don’t think they should be shamed). The supplementation part is that my kid in an outside math program which is over $2k/year and not feasible for all families. It’s 3 hours per week. I also bought a phonics based program and and taught reading and phonics at home in 1st grade because F&P wasn’t cutting it.

Now it’s 3rd grade and school STILL has not even begun to start teaching any kind of baseline of math and literacy beyond reading, free writing based on choice and no teacher corrections, and addition/subtraction facts in the double digits without regrouping. There are 2nd graders who still struggle with reading cvc books. And this is in a district with virtually no poverty and with all parents having at least bachelors degrees, and all K-2 classes capped at 20 kids / 1 teacher / 1 assistant. We are now looking at private school (or more likely parochial because of cost) because there just isn’t enough time in the day to supplement EVERYTHING at home and still be able to enjoy free time, play a sport kid loves, do music which kid also loves, and get 11 hours of sleep.

I think that all parents should be able to just follow what school lays out (like reading a book at night together, or doing math homework that is sent home) and have the kids be at a basic level of being able to read at write (assuming there are no learning differences). Instead, middle class and well off parents are having to bend over backwards to take kids to tutoring, centers, buy workbooks, do remedial phonics lessons, etc etc for kids to be able to be at grade level, while poor kids continue to be illiterate. Having this kind of curriculum really hurts those families who do not have the means to do all this supplementation.

I don't ever remember writing more than a sentence until 2nd grade and I went to a top private school. We were taught the letters, then the words then how to create a sentence. When I had to write a paragraph, it was the natural next step. Then, in middle school maybe, 5 paragraphs for an essay. All completely structured. My kids were supposed to write about whatever in 1st grade and what came home was a mishmash of words. Stayed that way too, until covid, when I realized that my daughter could not write at all.

As a writer, I was floored when she had no idea how to even structure a paragraph.

My favorite LC story is the year my kid jumped from level E to level M in reading in a month. Why? The story she was tested on for E was about baseball and she couldn’t guess what some of the words were, which was supposed to be easy… Only we’d just moved to the country and she’d literally never heard of baseball, so had zero framework to even sound out from. (Like “pitcher” and “base” and “diamond” were all at Level E because you could guess from the first letter and the picture if you’d ever heard these words… but actually pitcher is not on the same level as dog as LC claimed (cvc and common/easy to depict words were the same) and is very hard for a kid to figure out if she’s never heard the word and doesn’t even recognize the sport. Then suddenly a different teacher declared her at Level M because she could read a Level M book about a topic she was familiar with (so where the first letter and guess method worked). Absolute lunacy.

I hated the WW model that writing could never be corrected, because it would discourage kids from writing. So even if your kid kept making the same age inappropriate mistake, it was *never* corrected. They also never talked about how to structure writing at all. Emphasis seemed to be on how much of the page they filled and not even accounting for different sized handwriting. Truly nonsensical.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you're referring to the Writing Workshop, that is generally considered good. Of course we all now know her reading curriculum was garbage and did considerable harm.

Disagree. Teacher admitted privately that with Writers Workshop she was forbidden to even mark corrections for spelling or grammar on students submissions, unlike the previous curriculum. She said all the teachers had been told it was not allowed because it would prevent their 2nd graders from "thinking big thoughts".

She suggested privately that we help our DC with explicit spelling and grammar instruction at home. At least at that school, grammar and spelling was not corrected until after WW ended at the very end of 3rd grade. We were grateful for the tip, which was provided only after we politely had asked direct questions why DD's work was not being corrected.

I don’t think it’s a big deal that spelling and grammar aren’t the main focus until 3rd grade. Future bureaucrats might not need to “think big thoughts” but to emphasize putting thoughts on paper at this very early age over spelling is not a big deal.

Putting "big thoughts" on paper is easier when you've been taught to write. It's much harder if you give a kid a pencil and expect them to teach themselves. LC lacks more than just spelling and grammar rules. LC doesn't teach kids to sort or organize their thoughts or information. It's all stream of consciousness and it doesn't include any teaching. Without instruction, kids' writing doesn't improve. They continue to write terrible, unclear drivel with no improvement year after year.

My own daughter found it so overwhelming to be told to write without being taught how, she'd just sit and stare at her paper. She brought home a lot of blank pages or pages with only one sentence--her teachers just said she'd write when she was ready. She's a smart kid and has grown so much with a knowledge-based curriculum and instruction. LC is rubbish.

The very early years they should be allowed to write freely. A lot of kids start to write around age 4 spontaneously, others don’t start til kindergarten. You wouldn’t comment on the spelling or no capitals, you would praise the work done.

I remember writing a lot in 3rd grade, not much before that. I still remember my first book report on Mao Zedong, the former communist dictator in China. I also remember grammar being intensely drilled all through middle school, especially 8th grade. It was a long process. If we waited until we had learned perfect structure, grammar and spelling we would never have written anything until high school.

Obviously there needs to be instruction on learning how to properly write a research paper or any kind,of paper but at what grade do you think is appropriate.?

You've drank the Lucy Calkins Kool aid. Kids can be taught to write in school and do not suffer if they receive instruction. It's the opposite--they gain confidence and become more excited and confident to write.

The grammer they teach is all age appropriate. The start with leaving spaces between sentences, using periods and starting sentences with capital letters. They talk about what needs to be in a sentence, then the parts of a paragraph, and using the transition words to help direct the reader. They eventually teach quotation marks and commas, etc.

These grammer skills aren't necessarily taught first in free writing, but in other practice exercises. Then they'll work the skills into the revising process to improve writing, asking kids to check their work for these things. No one is criticizing a 4, 5 or 6 yo for not using these skills in their writing. But they don't just do free writing as the only "teaching."

It's the same with spelling. They start with sight words and ask kids to make sure those are spelled correctly when revising their work, slowly adding to the list of words. Later they ask them to check for phonetic patterns, too. It's a process.

They also work on pre-writing skills to organize information. Word webs. Venn diagrams. Outlines. Lots of ways to sort and organize information.

Writing is scaffolded to teach skills. There is free writing, but also structured exercises. Kids learn so much and become so much more confident in their ability to write when they're explicitly taught.

This is the way Lucy Caulkins did it right? My kids kept talking about a word wall and using sight words in their writing and spelling chunks words correctly.

What is the new way?

Lucy Calkins spelling expectations never extended beyond the few words on a word wall. That was still the expectation in 5th grade. Now they expect kids to continue to improve.

I guess my kid’s experience is skewed. One did words their way in lower elementary (which seemed vowel pattern/chunks based) and the Caesar’s English book in upper elementary so they did have expectations about spelling for sure.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you're referring to the Writing Workshop, that is generally considered good. Of course we all now know her reading curriculum was garbage and did considerable harm.

Disagree. Teacher admitted privately that with Writers Workshop she was forbidden to even mark corrections for spelling or grammar on students submissions, unlike the previous curriculum. She said all the teachers had been told it was not allowed because it would prevent their 2nd graders from "thinking big thoughts".

She suggested privately that we help our DC with explicit spelling and grammar instruction at home. At least at that school, grammar and spelling was not corrected until after WW ended at the very end of 3rd grade. We were grateful for the tip, which was provided only after we politely had asked direct questions why DD's work was not being corrected.

I don’t think it’s a big deal that spelling and grammar aren’t the main focus until 3rd grade. Future bureaucrats might not need to “think big thoughts” but to emphasize putting thoughts on paper at this very early age over spelling is not a big deal.

Putting "big thoughts" on paper is easier when you've been taught to write. It's much harder if you give a kid a pencil and expect them to teach themselves. LC lacks more than just spelling and grammar rules. LC doesn't teach kids to sort or organize their thoughts or information. It's all stream of consciousness and it doesn't include any teaching. Without instruction, kids' writing doesn't improve. They continue to write terrible, unclear drivel with no improvement year after year.

My own daughter found it so overwhelming to be told to write without being taught how, she'd just sit and stare at her paper. She brought home a lot of blank pages or pages with only one sentence--her teachers just said she'd write when she was ready. She's a smart kid and has grown so much with a knowledge-based curriculum and instruction. LC is rubbish.

The very early years they should be allowed to write freely. A lot of kids start to write around age 4 spontaneously, others don’t start til kindergarten. You wouldn’t comment on the spelling or no capitals, you would praise the work done.

I remember writing a lot in 3rd grade, not much before that. I still remember my first book report on Mao Zedong, the former communist dictator in China. I also remember grammar being intensely drilled all through middle school, especially 8th grade. It was a long process. If we waited until we had learned perfect structure, grammar and spelling we would never have written anything until high school.

Obviously there needs to be instruction on learning how to properly write a research paper or any kind,of paper but at what grade do you think is appropriate.?

You've drank the Lucy Calkins Kool aid. Kids can be taught to write in school and do not suffer if they receive instruction. It's the opposite--they gain confidence and become more excited and confident to write.

The grammer they teach is all age appropriate. The start with leaving spaces between sentences, using periods and starting sentences with capital letters. They talk about what needs to be in a sentence, then the parts of a paragraph, and using the transition words to help direct the reader. They eventually teach quotation marks and commas, etc.

These grammer skills aren't necessarily taught first in free writing, but in other practice exercises. Then they'll work the skills into the revising process to improve writing, asking kids to check their work for these things. No one is criticizing a 4, 5 or 6 yo for not using these skills in their writing. But they don't just do free writing as the only "teaching."

It's the same with spelling. They start with sight words and ask kids to make sure those are spelled correctly when revising their work, slowly adding to the list of words. Later they ask them to check for phonetic patterns, too. It's a process.

They also work on pre-writing skills to organize information. Word webs. Venn diagrams. Outlines. Lots of ways to sort and organize information.

Writing is scaffolded to teach skills. There is free writing, but also structured exercises. Kids learn so much and become so much more confident in their ability to write when they're explicitly taught.

This is the way Lucy Caulkins did it right? My kids kept talking about a word wall and using sight words in their writing and spelling chunks words correctly.

What is the new way?

Lucy Calkins spelling expectations never extended beyond the few words on a word wall. That was still the expectation in 5th grade. Now they expect kids to continue to improve.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you're referring to the Writing Workshop, that is generally considered good. Of course we all now know her reading curriculum was garbage and did considerable harm.

Disagree. Teacher admitted privately that with Writers Workshop she was forbidden to even mark corrections for spelling or grammar on students submissions, unlike the previous curriculum. She said all the teachers had been told it was not allowed because it would prevent their 2nd graders from "thinking big thoughts".

She suggested privately that we help our DC with explicit spelling and grammar instruction at home. At least at that school, grammar and spelling was not corrected until after WW ended at the very end of 3rd grade. We were grateful for the tip, which was provided only after we politely had asked direct questions why DD's work was not being corrected.

I don’t think it’s a big deal that spelling and grammar aren’t the main focus until 3rd grade. Future bureaucrats might not need to “think big thoughts” but to emphasize putting thoughts on paper at this very early age over spelling is not a big deal.

Putting "big thoughts" on paper is easier when you've been taught to write. It's much harder if you give a kid a pencil and expect them to teach themselves. LC lacks more than just spelling and grammar rules. LC doesn't teach kids to sort or organize their thoughts or information. It's all stream of consciousness and it doesn't include any teaching. Without instruction, kids' writing doesn't improve. They continue to write terrible, unclear drivel with no improvement year after year.

My own daughter found it so overwhelming to be told to write without being taught how, she'd just sit and stare at her paper. She brought home a lot of blank pages or pages with only one sentence--her teachers just said she'd write when she was ready. She's a smart kid and has grown so much with a knowledge-based curriculum and instruction. LC is rubbish.

The very early years they should be allowed to write freely. A lot of kids start to write around age 4 spontaneously, others don’t start til kindergarten. You wouldn’t comment on the spelling or no capitals, you would praise the work done.

I remember writing a lot in 3rd grade, not much before that. I still remember my first book report on Mao Zedong, the former communist dictator in China. I also remember grammar being intensely drilled all through middle school, especially 8th grade. It was a long process. If we waited until we had learned perfect structure, grammar and spelling we would never have written anything until high school.

Obviously there needs to be instruction on learning how to properly write a research paper or any kind,of paper but at what grade do you think is appropriate.?

You've drank the Lucy Calkins Kool aid. Kids can be taught to write in school and do not suffer if they receive instruction. It's the opposite--they gain confidence and become more excited and confident to write.

The grammer they teach is all age appropriate. The start with leaving spaces between sentences, using periods and starting sentences with capital letters. They talk about what needs to be in a sentence, then the parts of a paragraph, and using the transition words to help direct the reader. They eventually teach quotation marks and commas, etc.

These grammer skills aren't necessarily taught first in free writing, but in other practice exercises. Then they'll work the skills into the revising process to improve writing, asking kids to check their work for these things. No one is criticizing a 4, 5 or 6 yo for not using these skills in their writing. But they don't just do free writing as the only "teaching."

It's the same with spelling. They start with sight words and ask kids to make sure those are spelled correctly when revising their work, slowly adding to the list of words. Later they ask them to check for phonetic patterns, too. It's a process.

They also work on pre-writing skills to organize information. Word webs. Venn diagrams. Outlines. Lots of ways to sort and organize information.

Writing is scaffolded to teach skills. There is free writing, but also structured exercises. Kids learn so much and become so much more confident in their ability to write when they're explicitly taught.

This is the way Lucy Caulkins did it right? My kids kept talking about a word wall and using sight words in their writing and spelling chunks words correctly.

What is the new way?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you're referring to the Writing Workshop, that is generally considered good. Of course we all now know her reading curriculum was garbage and did considerable harm.

Disagree. Teacher admitted privately that with Writers Workshop she was forbidden to even mark corrections for spelling or grammar on students submissions, unlike the previous curriculum. She said all the teachers had been told it was not allowed because it would prevent their 2nd graders from "thinking big thoughts".

She suggested privately that we help our DC with explicit spelling and grammar instruction at home. At least at that school, grammar and spelling was not corrected until after WW ended at the very end of 3rd grade. We were grateful for the tip, which was provided only after we politely had asked direct questions why DD's work was not being corrected.

I don’t think it’s a big deal that spelling and grammar aren’t the main focus until 3rd grade. Future bureaucrats might not need to “think big thoughts” but to emphasize putting thoughts on paper at this very early age over spelling is not a big deal.

Putting "big thoughts" on paper is easier when you've been taught to write. It's much harder if you give a kid a pencil and expect them to teach themselves. LC lacks more than just spelling and grammar rules. LC doesn't teach kids to sort or organize their thoughts or information. It's all stream of consciousness and it doesn't include any teaching. Without instruction, kids' writing doesn't improve. They continue to write terrible, unclear drivel with no improvement year after year.

My own daughter found it so overwhelming to be told to write without being taught how, she'd just sit and stare at her paper. She brought home a lot of blank pages or pages with only one sentence--her teachers just said she'd write when she was ready. She's a smart kid and has grown so much with a knowledge-based curriculum and instruction. LC is rubbish.

The very early years they should be allowed to write freely. A lot of kids start to write around age 4 spontaneously, others don’t start til kindergarten. You wouldn’t comment on the spelling or no capitals, you would praise the work done.

I remember writing a lot in 3rd grade, not much before that. I still remember my first book report on Mao Zedong, the former communist dictator in China. I also remember grammar being intensely drilled all through middle school, especially 8th grade. It was a long process. If we waited until we had learned perfect structure, grammar and spelling we would never have written anything until high school.

Obviously there needs to be instruction on learning how to properly write a research paper or any kind,of paper but at what grade do you think is appropriate.?

You've drank the Lucy Calkins Kool aid. Kids can be taught to write in school and do not suffer if they receive instruction. It's the opposite--they gain confidence and become more excited and confident to write.

The grammer they teach is all age appropriate. The start with leaving spaces between sentences, using periods and starting sentences with capital letters. They talk about what needs to be in a sentence, then the parts of a paragraph, and using the transition words to help direct the reader. They eventually teach quotation marks and commas, etc.

These grammer skills aren't necessarily taught first in free writing, but in other practice exercises. Then they'll work the skills into the revising process to improve writing, asking kids to check their work for these things. No one is criticizing a 4, 5 or 6 yo for not using these skills in their writing. But they don't just do free writing as the only "teaching."

It's the same with spelling. They start with sight words and ask kids to make sure those are spelled correctly when revising their work, slowly adding to the list of words. Later they ask them to check for phonetic patterns, too. It's a process.

They also work on pre-writing skills to organize information. Word webs. Venn diagrams. Outlines. Lots of ways to sort and organize information.

Writing is scaffolded to teach skills. There is free writing, but also structured exercises. Kids learn so much and become so much more confident in their ability to write when they're explicitly taught.