Reading pedagogy, local edition
Oct. 6th, 2020 08:55 amWe technically live on county land, right between two nearby incorporated areas, Larger City and Smaller City. We happen to be in Smaller City's school district (and right now it doesn't matter anyway as both kids are at least temporarily in private school), but Larger City is currently having a contested school board election. One of the school board challengers is campaigning against the current reading program.
Which is how I learned that the current reading program that both school districts use is the Lucy Calkins program, which upon further investigation I found is a well-known and widely-used program (something like the fifth most widely used in the nation??) that has a lot of nice things in it like encouraging kids to love reading. But. As far as I can tell, it does not emphasize phonics as a fundamental foundation for reading and does emphasize GUESSING. GUESSING THE WORD. FROM THINGS LIKE PICTURES. BECAUSE THIS SO WORKS WHEN YOU GET TO UPPER-LEVEL TEXTS THAT DON'T HAVE PICTURES.
(I want to append that this sort of guessing is distinct from figuring out what a word means from context where you didn't know the meaning of the word before. Of course everyone does that! This is guessing to figure out how to decode a word from letters. Like, if I wrote down the word "gwiferpoot" (which I made up, but which I now think ought to be a word), you would know how to decode how to say it in English even though it is a totally made up word! You would not be like "...well... cahn likes shiny things... and the word begins with "g"... so maybe that word is 'garnet.'" You might think that maybe it means garnet, but you would know that the actual word is "gwiferpoot" and be able to say to someone else, "what does 'gwiferpoot' mean or has cahn just gone off the deep end??")
IDK, I know I only have experience with one kid really (the other kid is an outlier nad should not be counted) and I've started realizing he is fairly bright so could be taken as not representative of a not-as-bright child (though even so I think he actually is a good example; my perception is that he may make academic connections a bit earlier than other kids but he makes them in essentially the same way as other kids I observe, whereas E's mind either works a little differently or presents the results differently), but watching him make the phonics connections has been the coolest thing ever and has made me permanently believe in phonics as a fundamental part of a reading program, and when I read about the horrifyingness of this guessing thing I'm like... have these teachers ever actually seen anyone learn how to read?? Have they ever actually thought about how they, themselves, read??
gahhhhh![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
conuly you were right about everything and I'm so glad my kid has already learned to read. (Also, you will be totally unsurprised to learn that this school board challenger is dyslexic, and her daughter is dyslexic and this is why she feels so strongly about the ways in which the school district has failed her child.)
I should probably ask A's teacher (at his current private school) what system she uses -- since he already knows how to read, this wasn't a priority for me as we were sort of hastily figuring out his schooling this summer -- although when I was in his classroom recently I saw some whole words floating around, and even under heavy prompting A. does not say anything about phonics taking place in the classroom (whereas it was very clear phonics instruction was taking place in his preschool). It is supposed to be gifted kids, so I expect they won't have too many problems and most of them know how to read already, but gaaaaaah.
I think this candidate is not likely to win (I think she is the only candidate who doesn't have formal credentials in the area of education... which... also says something, perhaps), but I am going to vote for her! (It looks as though I can, which is odd to me as we are not in the district, but I'm not going to complain.)
(In other news, according to my mom as of our last week's phone conversation, my now-6-year-old niece O. still guesses words. Sigh.)
Which is how I learned that the current reading program that both school districts use is the Lucy Calkins program, which upon further investigation I found is a well-known and widely-used program (something like the fifth most widely used in the nation??) that has a lot of nice things in it like encouraging kids to love reading. But. As far as I can tell, it does not emphasize phonics as a fundamental foundation for reading and does emphasize GUESSING. GUESSING THE WORD. FROM THINGS LIKE PICTURES. BECAUSE THIS SO WORKS WHEN YOU GET TO UPPER-LEVEL TEXTS THAT DON'T HAVE PICTURES.
(I want to append that this sort of guessing is distinct from figuring out what a word means from context where you didn't know the meaning of the word before. Of course everyone does that! This is guessing to figure out how to decode a word from letters. Like, if I wrote down the word "gwiferpoot" (which I made up, but which I now think ought to be a word), you would know how to decode how to say it in English even though it is a totally made up word! You would not be like "...well... cahn likes shiny things... and the word begins with "g"... so maybe that word is 'garnet.'" You might think that maybe it means garnet, but you would know that the actual word is "gwiferpoot" and be able to say to someone else, "what does 'gwiferpoot' mean or has cahn just gone off the deep end??")
IDK, I know I only have experience with one kid really (the other kid is an outlier nad should not be counted) and I've started realizing he is fairly bright so could be taken as not representative of a not-as-bright child (though even so I think he actually is a good example; my perception is that he may make academic connections a bit earlier than other kids but he makes them in essentially the same way as other kids I observe, whereas E's mind either works a little differently or presents the results differently), but watching him make the phonics connections has been the coolest thing ever and has made me permanently believe in phonics as a fundamental part of a reading program, and when I read about the horrifyingness of this guessing thing I'm like... have these teachers ever actually seen anyone learn how to read?? Have they ever actually thought about how they, themselves, read??
gahhhhh
conuly you were right about everything and I'm so glad my kid has already learned to read. (Also, you will be totally unsurprised to learn that this school board challenger is dyslexic, and her daughter is dyslexic and this is why she feels so strongly about the ways in which the school district has failed her child.) I should probably ask A's teacher (at his current private school) what system she uses -- since he already knows how to read, this wasn't a priority for me as we were sort of hastily figuring out his schooling this summer -- although when I was in his classroom recently I saw some whole words floating around, and even under heavy prompting A. does not say anything about phonics taking place in the classroom (whereas it was very clear phonics instruction was taking place in his preschool). It is supposed to be gifted kids, so I expect they won't have too many problems and most of them know how to read already, but gaaaaaah.
I think this candidate is not likely to win (I think she is the only candidate who doesn't have formal credentials in the area of education... which... also says something, perhaps), but I am going to vote for her! (It looks as though I can, which is odd to me as we are not in the district, but I'm not going to complain.)
(In other news, according to my mom as of our last week's phone conversation, my now-6-year-old niece O. still guesses words. Sigh.)
