I recently received two comments that reflect on the new, academic kindergarten. Actually, schooling for 5-year-olds should not be called “kindergarten.” That term was invented by Friedrich Froebel in the early 19th century and meant “a children’s garden.” It was a time to play, laugh, build, tinker, and smell flowers. No more. Now it is a time to learn to read and write and calculate.
Here is one comment:
“I am a retired early childhood/elementary teacher in PA. My 5 year old grandson (May birthday) started kindergarten this year (cut off date Sept. 1st). He is the youngest boy in the class as parents hold their summer birthday children back. He has been tested twice (along with the class) with a test used by their Reading textbook manufacturer. He improved in all 3 testing areas from September to December but still didn’t meet the criteria for reading and is being taken out of the classroom for remedial reading 3-4 times a week. He is missing classroom time or nap time. When my daughter asked the teacher if the test was scored based on age – she said no that is up to the parents (meaning – hold them back).
“I have a big problem with a curriculum that is not developmentally appropriate. If you have to hold you child back to match the curriculum then something is wrong. Or change the cut off date to January 1st (all children must be 6 by then).
“Think about this – we went to the moon on the knowledge of people who didn’t read in kindergarten. Our scientists who developed vaccines for diseases didn’t have common core math. This pushing down curriculum to lower grades is developmentally wrong and stressful and anxiety producing for kids.
“It’s all about money for the textbook and test manufacturers and politics which ties funding into scores.”
Another reader sent this comment:
“What you mention is not the k-8 system I have been experiencing. Our school is so “academic” that many “red-shirt” their kindergarteners in an attempt to give them a leg up. There’s extreme pressure to read, write, and solve math problems with pencil and paper from day one. Many parents (and teachers) are starting to finally push back, realizing that we had reached a tipping point where it’s just not possible to get any more “academic”. The kids are suffering. Child development has been ignored. The way kids learn has been ignored. All in the name of academic achievement, yet outcomes aren’t increasing. The kids were being pushed to work, afraid to fail or stray from a set path. We are slowly turning back to incorporate play-based, project-based and student driven exploration.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Kindergarten? Nein.
Kinder Fabrik? Ja.
Children’s Garden? No.
Children’s Factory? Yes.
And thanks for nothing, Eli, Bill and Barack (among many others).
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Nice, Michael, and right on.
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I have news for this grandmother. Her grandson is not going to be a NASA scientist nor invent any vaccines. The bright kids will be fine regardless. We are concerned about kids like this who need to receive an effective education. While I’m not suggesting that we cram kindergarten with academic skills, we need to measure the skills of the students.
But I laugh when these parents whose kids are in remedial sessions compare themselves to the scientific greats of the US. Get real. Your kids are not the smartest in the class. Relax. Maybe the parents should stop putting pressure on the kids. Don’t “redshirt” the kid just support them with educational activities and accept that your kid is not going to be valedictorian. Or might not even take honors courses.
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“…we need to measure the skills of the students.”
Why? Because you’re an elitist pig who likes to sneer at everyone you think is beneath you? I’m tempted to use a few choice words that Diane doesn’t like – after all, it’s not really possible to stink up her living room more than you already do.
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No single family would send their kids to your EMPEROR VIRGINIA SUPERNOVA LAB until you use your little kids as guinea pig and prove that your plan surely works. Wouldn’t be surprised to see tiny little blue birds turn into 10-foot, scary, angry, red birds attacking you.
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Maybe, instead of being an ignorant pig, you should pay attention to what was stated. I’ll simplify it for you! Parents are doing their children a huge diservice by holding them back, as a result instead of catering to the appropriate age of a very capable kindergartener whose parents did things appropriately by enrolling their child into kindergarten when they were supposed to the “educators ” have decided to design a curriculum based upon an older children that has gone through three years of preschool. As a result of this nonsense, children who are being enrolled at the proper age are being singled out and sent down a long path to disappointment and failure!!! Teachers don’t teach, they don’t do their jobs and expect parents who have to work full time to pay the taxes that pay for their job to come home from work and teach their children!!! My children are 25 and 21. My 25 year old was born on 11/16, she started kindergaten at 4 years old and had never had an issue neither academically nor socially. My 21 year old started at 5 as she was supposed to and also never had an issue, however the issue is that teachers don’t teach, as fifth grade was about to end and she was about tour enter middle school she brought home an accumulative book report that she received an A- on “wonderful” right? As I read through it I circled 62 misspelled words!!! I wrote on the back asking how my child got an A- when I found 62 misspelled words (which were not marked or corrected by the “educator”). Her response was that they correct for comprehension. She didn’t have to take points off or penalize students for their errors but she most definitely had an obligation to correct the spelling so that the students would realize that they had misspelled words!!! The problem is not the students but the people responsible for the education of our future!!!
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It has been dead since my daughter entered it in 1986.
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And in Finland, children don’t start school until they are seven so they have more years to play and be children before their first year in school.
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Last I knew, years ago, they wait until age 8 in Japan.
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But they also most likely have humane childcare allowances (either crèche or parental incentives to stay home and care for little ones), making it easier to “delay” the start of kindergarten.
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In addition, childhood poverty is less than 5% in Finland.
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Trying to put students into “achievement mode” too early with a disregard to child development may have negative consequences for how they perceive themselves as learners. Some of the best aspects of young children are their confidence and optimism. If we emphasize competition too early, we may undermine their willingness to take risks. I have seen first graders start to lose some of their momentum due to the stress of a more academic program. It would be counterproductive to frustrate a significant number of kindergartners with traditional instruction when they should be engaged in constructivist activities. Where is the evidence that supports the total child benefits of a more rigorous kindergarten? By the way my grandson is trying to cope in a public kindergarten that has morphed into first grade for much of the day.
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I have had these same concerns with our district. It has been announced that we will have full-day kindergarten beginning the 2016-17 school year. At first, I was excited thinking this would give them the opportunity to provide daily PE, music class, dedicated art class, all while still allowing for nap/rest time that is still essential at this age. However, I was quickly saddened when I read our Superintendent’s message regarding the change. He reads: “In District 96, a team of experienced staff already is fully engaged in planning to make the learning experience for future Willow Grove kindergartners ever richer and more relevant. The change to a full-day kindergarten program – effective in August with the start of the 2016–2017 school year – will give our kindergartners essential additional instructional minutes in academics and in developmental foundations (including social/emotional learning).
Increased academic rigor in elementary grades and beyond makes this additional instruction necessary. Our staff implementation team is building schedules and exploring options to use every school-day minute optimally, guided by research and best practices for young children’s learning.”
Jason Kupferschmid
Long Grove IL
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My wife teaches in a high-poverty school where students come much less prepared than the average kid for school. For example, last year she taught kindergarten students who came to her in the fall with an average estimated vocabulary of under 500 words, compared to around 10,000 for a typical 5 year old.
She realized that they were not ready to do what the curriculum wanted them to do (learn to read, for example) so she subversively changed her room into a montessori-like setting and focused on just getting them interested in learning and developing skills like counting and holding a pencil. Because she didn’t cram stuff they weren’t ready for down their throats, by the end of the year, many of her students had leapfrogged past the more capable students in the other room and were very interested in learning and continue to do well now in first grade.
This year they moved her from Kindergarten to pre-K. She had a meeting with the principal, who told her that he was impressed with what she had done in K last year and wanted her to have her pre-K students reading by the time they entered Kindergarten. Facepalm.
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Would like to know how one subversively changes their Kinder classroom into a Montessori-like class. That sounds like something she could write a book about. Covert Montessori teaching!
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doggypaws, I didn’t say it was covert, I said it was subversive. She just spent a ton of her (our!) money buying supplies, furniture, etc. and hours of time and made her classroom a Montessori-ish room. The admins. in her school didn’t like it, but they have way bigger problems to worry about and know that if they fire her, they will spend another two years looking for a replacement, so she got away with it.
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We no longer educate children — we train them to serve as a cog in economic machinery. Our Founding Fathers were genuinely educated people, versed in a wide range of arts, sciences, and philosophies. It was that breadth of education that enabled them to craft our nation that is guided by their enduring philosophical document known as the Constitution. Today, we have scores of highly-trained people with high-level university degrees and high-level civil and government leadership positions, who, because of the narrowness of their specialized training, lack that breadth of knowledge and philosophical ideas that is essential to maintain a free republic. In fact, the republic is nowhere near as important to them as is the godlike Economy. The real 1984 is in our not-too-distant future.
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AMEN!!!!!!
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We don’t want truly educated people that question, weigh and measure or extrapolate. These people cause trouble. We want trained dogs that bark on cue, and sit quietly in their cage until they are called into service. This behavioral thinking is courtesy of the computer moguls that can only respect the type of thinking it takes to write code.
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“”…we train them to serve as cog in the economic machinery.”
Precisely: that’s the hidden, but primary, curriculum being pushed by the so-called reformers.
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I don’t know that it’s really all that different. The Founding Fathers were the elite of their day so they received a true education. The elite of our day are still receiving top-notch educations at places like Sidwell and Lab. The plebes in the FF days didn’t need much if any education to be farmers and whatnot. The plebes in our time need some education to be cogs, but they have to be careful not to teach them too much.
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Again, teachers should be speaking out against all this testing in Kindergarten.
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Speaking out as a Kinder teacher makes little difference. When the whole system/institution no longer respects the development of children and the whole child there are serious problems with public education. We (kinder teachers) do not have the means to change this societal problem. Until masses of people in the whole public spectrum start to rattle the cages of those who make public policy nothing is going to change. Please don’t expect “Kinder teachers” to try to make that change on their own.
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Ldugan,
The purpose of this blog is to let the voices of the experts like you in heard in the public square.
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Isn’t it that truly UNeducated people are running the show? They are trained in a skill–computers, law, business–but not educated. I have had students who pass the test but lack inquisitiveness, thoughtfulness, wisdom. I am glad I do not have to write letters of recommendation to Ivy League schools for them. How do you say incurious, memorizing schemer” tactfully about an eighteen year old?
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I agree that we need to consider children as individuals and provide learning environments for them based on their individual development instead of as cogs in a one-size fits all system.
But I want to push back against this statement. “Think about this – we went to the moon on the knowledge of people who didn’t read in kindergarten. Our scientists who developed vaccines for diseases didn’t have common core math. This pushing down curriculum to lower grades is developmentally wrong and stressful and anxiety producing for kids.”
Werner von Braun reportedly read the newspaper at age four and displayed early musical gifts. Jonas Salk entered a high school for gifted students at thirteen and received his bachelors degree when he was still nineteen. These are two major figures in the space program and the war against disease in the 20th Century. Their examples don’t mean that it is appropriate to design Kindergarten as if all children are prodigies and there will be some leading figures in the history of science that were not early prodigies. However, we need to be accurate and also honest with ourselves that most revealed themselves as advanced learners early in life. Einstein is often held up as an example as a late bloomer who was a poor student. While Einstein was verbally delayed, very delayed, he exhibited musical gifts and early development of abstract mathematical reasoning.
Educating children as individuals means not forcing rigor on those not ready for academic learning in Kindergarten and also encouraging students who are ready for reading and developing more rapidly.
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I think your key words are “revealed themselves”. Einstein, for instance, revealed his gifts in spite of and definitely not because of his formal schooling. He’d be even more appalled by today’s formal schooling.
Incidentally, von Braun was a Nazi who thought nothing of using Jews as slaves working under horrific conditions in his factories. I think perhaps he could have used a bit more play based kindergarten to work on some of those social-emotional skills.
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We also should understand that early reading does not necessarily correlate to a high IQ. One study found that early reading correlates to children that thrive on solitary, sedentary activity. Therefore, more early readers are likely to be girls while the boys often squirm and wiggle because they need more large muscle activity. Of course, this does not apply to all boys or girls because development is individual.
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Dienne, I agree with you regarding von Braun. While von Braun may have been scientifically gifted, his work as a Nazi war scientist shows that he was not well developed morally. If I remember correctly, von Braun was tutored in early childhood and probably did not attend kindergarten.
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My wife and I “redshirted” our two youngest children (they were born in Aug). Not only helps academically but athletically. But I want to point out that 1) we were economically able to hold our children back and 2) many, if not most, of those children from lower socioeconomic groups are not able to be held back. The results, I think, are obvious and another demonstration of the barriers that lower SE children have to succeed.
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I want to point out that parents cannot do this in NYC anymore. Kindergarten is mandated and if you keep your child home from kindergarten, they MUST attend first grade. Our children in NYC are on the young end if the spectrum. There is no cutoff date…children are registered for school up until the last day of the year they were born. Our Pre-Ks have threes and fours and in the spring early fives. Our Kgs have four and five year olds and early sixes. Just to add to what has been said here, yes the powers that be want educated robots who won’t question their motives or the system. I see too many children who need that Kg year to grow and mature. Children used to often turn off at third grade. Now many shut down and are done by kindergarten. This is abominable!
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If our country had had to rely on unscientific types like Bill Gates and David Coleman during the Apollo program, the moon rocket never would have made it off the ground.
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But it would have been built in midair!
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Yes. It is all about the money. Hear what this Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Sales Executive has to say about bringing Common Core to all schools because this one-size-fits-all curriculum aligned to the standards has really brought selling books to scale.
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James O’Keefe blows the lid off another one!
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Huh, I didn’t expect James O’Keefe to do a ok-ish video on common core (& publishers) considering that his previous videos tend to be disingenuous (see: Acorn). But it’s just that – ok. Nothing new to any of us here. Lacks depth. O’Keefe is clearly not Greg Palast level or [insert your favorite journalist here].
What’s interesting here is the brazen honesty of the publisher exec (or is she an accounts manager? What is her true job title? Note: this doesn’t save her from my contempt), and the fact that the video appears to stump for Trump at the end. All in all, I’d rather recommend a better video to someone out of the loop.
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Reblogged this on stopcommoncorenys and commented:
This!
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4kuupsdad quotes Long Gove’s superintendent’s message, “…guided by research and best practices for young children’s learning.”
I wish the parents would ask the superintendent what research they are referring to – business research or educational research. They should hand him books written by experts such as Dr. Elkind. It is so easy to say, “guided by research.” I wonder if he and his staff have done any research on early childhood- if so what?
Dr. Elkind, Ph.D, in Child Development,- a leading advocate for preserving childhood. author of “The Hurried Child” is concerned about the stress our culture places on children and the mental health consequences of continued emotional upset.
We will always have some gap in the cognitive development of our children- they are unique individuals -no two are exactly alike. Our methods and approach certainly can be improved upon but that does not mean that we can hurry along their development. To push the curriculum downward ordering the children to follow inappropriate standard under the delusion that “one- size-fits all,” will only cause emotional problems.
Dr. Elkind in his book “The Hurried Child” states. “Children who are confronted with demands to do math or to read before they have the requisite mental abilities may experience a series of demoralizing failures and begin to conceive of themselves as worthless. Such children not only acquire a sense of inferiority that overwhelms their sense of industry but also may acquire …’learned helplessness.’ …children who experience repeated school failure are likely to acquire the orientation of learned helplessness as well as an abiding sense of inferiority.” P 109
David Elkind, PhD writes about preschoolers at risk in ” Much Too Early l”
“It is during the early years, ages four to seven, when children’s basic attitudes toward themselves as students and toward learning and school are established. Children who come through this period feeling good about themselves, who enjoy learning and who like school, will have a lasting appetite for the acquisition of skills and knowledge. Children whose academic self-esteem is all but destroyed during these formative years, who develop an antipathy toward learning, and a dislike of school, will never fully realize their latent abilities and talents.”
“Those calling for academic instruction of the young don’t seem to appreciate that math and reading are complex skills acquired in stages related to age. Children will acquire these skills more easily and more soundly if their lessons accord with the developmental sequence that parallels their cognitive development.”
Dr. Elkind is one of many childhood experts that have spoken out in defense of our children. Too bad that those that are setting the standards don’t read.
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And >70% of them STILL can NOT read, write or do math with grade level proficiency when then they graduate from high school… so how long should they stay in school until in order to obtain those skills?
Maybe, just maybe, it’s not the children with learning disabilities, but TEACHERS with TEACHING INABILITIES? Because the teachers seem disabled in teaching >70% of those with the cognitive ability to be proficient in reading, writing and math upon high school graduation.
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Where are you getting this alleged 70% from? Your a–, er, I mean, your left shoe?
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The link is broken. Please fix, if you can.
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I hope that Charles Koch has his best advice to all true educators in dealing with rules and regulations from UNEDUCATED (morally bankrupted) administrators.
[start quote]
He advocated the “BAREST POSSIBLE OBEDIENCE” to regulation and implored, “DO NOT cooperate voluntarily, instead, resist whenever and to whatever extent you legally can IN THE NAME OF JUSTICE
[end quote]
FROM THE LINK:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/inside-the-koch-brothers-toxic-empire-20140924
(Thank you Susan Lee Schwartz who provides this link in the thread “Charles Kerchner: Interpreting the LAUSD Vote Against the Broad Takeover” from Dr. Ravitch website on January 17, 2016) Back2basic
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Hmm. Now that’s some business advice that might actually be useful in education.
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Hard to believe maybe, but I think the situation is even worse in the UK. My son will be 4 years old and 1 month when he starts formal schooling. He will then take a baseline assessment test and given a score. At the age of 5 (at the end of his second year at school) he will take a “Phonics Screening Test” which if he fails he’ll have to repeat. This test includes “Alien” words which are used to make sure he is reading via Phonics rather than whole word recognition.
As the age of 6 he’ll have to take a Key Stage 1 test, on an entirely new curriculum, that is ridiculously difficult, before the Key Stage 2 tests at the age of 10 that test concepts that I didn’t study at school until I was about 15!
Who are these educational reformers? What do they want to achieve? Why do they not want children to be able to be children?
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At age 5 a phonics test?!
Ugh!!!!! Phonics only helps if the words are already in one’s hearing vocabulary. Phonics is more important for writing/spelling than reading. In many cases only the initial consonant is needed to know what the word is.
Familiar words can be read as fast as single letters. Under some conditions, words can be identified when the separate letters cannot be. Meaningful context speeds word identification. All phonics can be expected to do is help children get approximate pronunciations. Becoming a Nation of Readers p. 11
Here is an example of the importance of phonics:
The following passage exemplifies the fact that phonics is only part of the decoding process. The first and last letters are correct. One must not negate the importance of syntax and semantics.
O lny srmat poelpe can raed tihs.cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy,
it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.
Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
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Dienne,
Here’s a few and I can provide more… or you can just Google and find the stats…
http://www.governor.ny.gov/sites/governor.ny.gov/files/atoms/files/NYSFailingSchoolsReport.pdf
Click to access College-and-Career-Readiness-in-the-New-York-State-Public-Schools.pdf
Click to access CityCouncilHearing11912CollegeReadinessFINAL.PDF
Click to access reform-agenda-hearing-testimony-nyc.pdf
https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2012/2012026/chapter2_16.asp
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/08/21/high-school-graduates-still-struggle-with-college-readiness
http://www.act.org/content/act/en/research/condition-of-college-and-career-readiness-report-2015.html?page=0&chapter=9
http://nypost.com/2014/10/07/only-40-of-ny-state-students-are-college-ready-report/
http://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-literacy-america
http://www.highereducation.org/reports/college_readiness/gap.shtml
https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2012/2012026/chapter2_16.asp
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Mary DeFalco :
I would hate to be the pharmacists responsible for filling your prescription, the doctor writing your prescription or have the forensic scientist be reporting on the results of the findings they investigated while trying to find you innocent of a crime.
Yes, those with great decoding skills will probably be able to figure out the scrambled letters and eventually make some sense out of it.
But greater than 20% of the students in a classroom will not be able to learn how to read proficiently using the “guess the word” approach (whole language/leveled literacy method).
It is a great example of what Dyslexic children face each and every day in the classrooms that are failing to teach them how to read proficiently.
Hence, in a nutshell, this is why we have such an issue with illiteracy in this state and throughout the nation!!!!
It is not efficient, does nothing to teach the students the skills they need to decode the word, and it impedes the student’s comprehension and understanding of the greater text in the process.
But unfortunately remediating and effectively instructing literacy skills to these struggling students has predominately fallen to the private sector instructors where the Orton GIllingham based programs (ie: Wilson, Barton, LindaMoodBell, etc) have proven that they can teach most of these children how to read and write and close the gaps they have been struggling with, because the schools just don’t care to do anything about it.
Tim K:
Research shows that you can determine which students will need more of a systematic and phonics based methodology to learn the skills they need to become a more proficient reader. If they are struggling with language skills, they will most likely struggle with learning how to read too.
retired teacher:
So then, by what grade do we want to assist the struggling learners and EFFECTIVELY REMEDIATE and INSTRUCT them?
Do we continue to just pass them through and continue to hand them a high school diploma that does not really mean anything and allow them to enter into the real world being functionally illiterate and unable to write clearly (when we do have technology available that can assist with such things as writing skills?) Do we continue to allow youth to enter the real world unable to figure out sales tax or even if the paycheck they recieive is in the ball park of what it should be before and after taxes?
Do we not want students graduating with such foundational skills as to be able to read and write and communicate efectively in various formats?
Do we continue to allow children to graduate without basic foundational skills in Reading, wRiting & aRithmatic when the students have the cognitive ability to benefit?
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CeeHsMa:
A lot of water has gone under the bridge since I wrote that response and was quite surprised that responses are still being made. My convictions have not changed.
There are two issues here: the need of play in cognitive development and the second is the best approach to teaching literacy to the emergent reader.
The first article addresses the need of play.
✂Children’s play: The roots of reading.✂
Click to access Zigler_Bishop.pdf
Experts in Early Childhood stress the importance of play in cognitive development.
The following articles address the second issue: how to teach reading.
Article one:
“Federal Path for Reading Questioned”
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/12/03/14read_ep.h28.html
“The $6 billion spent on the program has helped students with basic decoding but not with understanding, a major study finds.”
December 1, 2008 – Education Week.
Article two:
✂Study of Reading Program Finds a Lack of Progress”- a program costing $6 billion was published in the Washington Post by Marie Glob 11/19/08 Ms. Glob indicates that students in the program, “Reading First” a program at the core of the d”No Child Left Behind Law”, has not made greater progress in understanding what they read than have peers outside the program. This was a congressionally mandated study- a program based on Reid Lyon’s approach. It is a program that needs to be improved.
Reading Recovery has a proven successful track. CC ignored years of research done by Marie Clay, a world renowned educator. Marie Clay studied cognitive psychology as did Reid Lyon but Marie Clay went a step farther. Marie Clay developed a wider spectrum of teaching tools. Her three-pronged cueing system went beyond direct teaching of phonics and sight vocabulary. She utilized semantics, syntax, along with graphophonics. Marie Clay’s and other Constructivists focus is on supporting active learners engaging all the senses, interacting with the text and responding to the text. (A phonetic approach emphasizes that meaning is found in the text- not in the interaction with the students’ experience and background.)
Marie Clay taught in the primary schools and then did post graduate study in Developmental Psychology at our prestigious University of Minnesota on a Fulbright Scholarship and completed her doctorate at the University of Auckland with a dissertation entitled “Emergent Literacy.”
Marie Clay believed in teaching to a child’s strengths, not to their weaknesses, viz, connecting their experiences and background to the text; e.g. she initiated the conversational tone with emergent readers while placing new vocabulary in their ear as she did her “Picture Walks.”
Common Core, however, introduces text with the drill of sounds, letters, abstract definition of new vocabulary and then repeat and repeat until the text is practically memorized – that is not reading. Crucial background knowledge is ignored. The Pre K – four year old-curriculum- includes the study of the alphabet: recognizing the visual and auditory plus writing the letters and words – so inappropriate for Pre-K as well as K. Dr. David Elkind Ph.D in Child Development- warned us of this in his “Hurried Child” book.
Dr. Elkind state, “In too many schools kindergartens (Now pre-k!!!) have now become “one-size-smaller” first grades, and children are tested, taught with workbooks, given homework, and take home a report card. The result of this educational hurrying is that from 10 to 20 percent of kindergarten children are being “retained” or put in “transition” classes to prepare them for the academic rigors of first grade! …Many of our schools reflect the contemporary bias toward having children grow up fast. They do this because such schools have become increasingly industrialized and product oriented.
“Hurrying children into adulthood violates the sanctity of life by giving one period priority over another. But if we really value human life, we will value each period equally and give unto each stage of life what is appropriate to that stage….In the end, a childhood is the most basic human right of children.”
Marie Clay with her Reading Recovery, believed in giving all the support a child needs so he/she will not make a mistake. She utilized reasoning skills along with utilizing all the senses. A happy environment, freedom to explore, confidence, a feeling of success, a challenge that can be met, hands on, and modeling were all very important to Marie Clay. Common Core is indifferent to the affective realm, to the child’s feelings, and has caused the Common Core Syndrome – child abuse.
I maintain that no child should struggle to read. Struggling immediately places the child on the defensive and begins to erode the student’s self-image convincing the child he can not read or that reading is a chore to be avoided. Marie Clay’s program begins with the students’ own words giving the child all the support he/she needs to become readers.
Children need nurturing, caring people in their lives- parents, caregivers, and teachers. But we are placing fear in the hearts of our caring, knowledgeable, expert teachers and squelching their teaching skills and creativity. When anxiety cloud a situation everything appears to go wrong be it rushing to work or the principal walking in just as two children start to spat. Students sense whether an atmosphere is conducive to learning or if fear is in the driver’s seat.
Former New York “Learning” Standards reflect the same philosophy as Marie Clay,viz., develop active learners by connecting new learning to the students’ experience – background. In comparing the two sets of standards, it is obvious the New York Learning Standards are far superior. It is obvious that the developers have the necessary background to construct the standards.
Anyone who has researched, taught or observed in a Reading Recovery classroom knows that it is a solid intervention program. unlike the Reading First. Reading Recovery integrates phonics into the reading program and keeps it in balance with the other cues. Reading Recovery is designed to compliment the regular classroom’s literacy program so that the At Risk student can learn to work at the average level of their classmates. Some may criticize the cost. I say, stop all this mad standardized testing and use that money to support a good reading program that works – Reading Recovery with one-to-one and Literacy Collaborative and the Arkansas Literacy Intervention Program for group instruction for emergent readers. For the students who have reached level 10 Guided Reading, teachers should continue encouraging students in making connections, predicting, and reading to verify. Students need to be active learners such as constantly bridge prior experience to the text being read. Further suggestions as listed on Guided Reading Strategies/ Comprehension.
No program is going to bring all children – learning disabled, those with emotional and physical problems- on par with the students who were ahead before they began for obvious reasons. Some people will never be able to run a 4-min. mile or to play Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. However, educators must create an environment that is based upon every child’s instructional level, where children feel safe enough to learn with all the mistakes that are part of learning, where they can achieve and feel good about themselves. This will not happen to children who, for a variety of reasons, are competing against more advance peers. Besides developers of the Common Core, who says we all have to be Beethovens anyway?
For years I have emphasized the importance of parents and care givers reading to their children. I now observe the fruits of my labor. Each of my children have read to their children from birth on. They continue to read daily except to the grandchildren who are in middle school and high school.) Most especially the parents bring the stories to life with their dramatic rendition. I now note the expression in the voices of my grandchildren in first grade as they read orally. The parents also discuss the stories and relate them to their children and make applications
All my grandchildren excel in reading and writing. If they were subjected only to CC’s standards they wouldn’t be the successful learners they are today, My one grandson in first grade won the award for reading the most minutes in his class this past month- not including the reading done in the classroom. He read 580 minutes in two weeks. He loves reading but he prefers to have his parents read to him.
Another grandson in first was reading on third grade level at the beginning of the year. His three-year-old brother now picture reads. The positive feed back from his parents just spurs him on. As Marie Clay always advocated – develop an atmosphere where they are free to make mistakes.
A granddaughter won the state writing contest last year. She is an avid reader like her mother- power of example.
Another granddaughter, when in first grade, under the CC regime, was suppose to respond to the non- fiction piece about animal teeth. She choose to respond with a phenomenal fiction piece – all written in school. She wrote five long pages entitled “Vampire Bat Teeth.” Instead of finding money under her pillow she found Vampire teeth. She encountered problems all day long with those she met until a friend took her to a wizard whose concoction saved the day. You can imagine the stories her mother read to her that went through her head as she was writing. Her teacher made no comment on her story. Her family affirmed her efforts with praise.
At 8 years old she drew animals pictures via words- adjectives and descriptive phrases; e.g., “…chest pounder, human talk, hungry animal, one and only mighty, artist of the jungle, needs to be free… “ Now at 10 loves to video tape her dolls interacting.
This past week my one grandson in first grade wrote a nine page report on the topic Family History. He chose one person to write about- his grandmother illustrating the importance of conversing with children in their care.
The public libraries are a phenomenal source of encouraging literacy. The libraries have technology, rooms for interacting with other children and parents, countless manipulatives, and every kind of book imaginable. Parents need to become active in their children’s education; they can’t leave literacy totally up to the teachers. The time element limits teachers but worse is the need to conform to poorly constructive standards. Academic
freedom has been taken away under the CC standards.
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Mary DeFalco :
That’s great that your grandchildren are readers and writers.
But… were any of your grandchildren Dyslexic/reading disabled. writing disabled, math disabled?
Did ANY of your grandchildren STRUGGLE with decoding, encoding, learning the sounds of the letters and blends?
If not, then you cannot compare them as examples of children that do need a systematic, multisensory, explicit methodology to learn how to read and to spell with some foundation of proficiency, nor do you probably know first-hand of the struggles that the majority of SLD students who have been left behind by the current educational models struggle and are ignored throughout the remainder of their academic careers in the public educational system, because of the philosophy that not all kids can learn how to read or spell.
Of course they won’t learn to read, spell or write then, because the teachers and administrators have already predetermined that it is useless and therefore have no plans to ensure they are provided with an effective and proven methodologies such as with Orton Gillingham based methods implemented with fidelity.
Instead, they just let them languish and struggle and teach down to their current level, which rarely ever changes, and hence why they never close the gaps and catch up with their grade level reading and writing skills!
[The Orton-Gillingham approach to reading instruction was developed in the early-20th century. It is language-based, multisensory, structured, sequential, cumulative, cognitive, and flexible. The Orton-Gillingham Approach has been in use since the 1930s. It’s an intensive, sequential phonics-based system that teaches the basics of word formation before whole meanings. The method accommodates and utilizes the three learning modalities, or pathways, through which people learn—visual, auditory and kinesthetic.]
Maybe if the teachers and administrators on the front lines had done something to work on closing academic weaknesses with these struggling students and worked with their families when they are known to be involved parents (which schools say they want, but once they show up and start asking too mayn questions, they are stonewalled and forced out of the public school to get appropriate and effective instruction) then this whole Common Core debate could probably have been avoided. Instead, they choose to ignore the problem and to just let them languish and continue to struggle.
And, it is up to the schools to help ALL children with the ability to benefit to learn how to read and to write do math at a foundational, proficient level at each and every grade. (Teachers and admins are not supposed to predetermine which children will benefit or not from appropriate instruction.) It is their job to ensure that students reach grade level proficiency when they have the cognitive ability to do so.
Schools need to change up their current belief that “it’s not their job” to ensure that all kids learn!!! It indeed IS the teachers job to ensure that ALL chidren are learning!
We will never break this literacy battle without teachers and schools understanding that point!!! You do not need special education to teach struggling learners how to read. Using proven OG methodologies teachers can teach almost all but the most severely language disabled students how to read and write with a foundation of proficiency. (Also, for the more language disabled students that haven’t grasped the foundational language skills needed for reading, there is the LMB (LindaMoodBell ) program.
It is a teachers job to ensure that their students are learning to their ability, BECAUSE NOT ALL CHILDREN DO HAVE AN INVOLVED PARENT; those in foster care, those with parents struggling to make end meet and keep their family together; those that are too sick or struggle with mental health issues, etc, etc… It is exatly the reason why they need to ensure that all of their students are meeting with success in learning foundational skill sets.
We need to break this illiteracy status quo that we have in the public (and many private schools as well!) We need to make it a priority that ALL children with the cognitive ability to do so, actually will learn how to read, write and do math with a level of proficiency that will allow them the ability to communcate effectively and to have the skills they need to be employable. Or else we will continue to fund the school to prison and welfare pipelines!!!
A child with the cognitive ability to benefit, should also never be relinquished to special education and never closing the gaps they have in reading and writing. Their’s absolutely no reason that they cannot learn how to write with the technology available today. Their is also no reason that children continue to fall behind in reading, The research has been out there for generations for what works (and it’s not whole word and leveled literacy methods.)
What has worked is the Orton-Gillingham based approaches to reading instruction which was developed in the early-20th century. It is language-based, multisensory, structured, sequential, cumulative, cognitive, and flexible. The Orton-Gillingham approach has been in use since the 1930s. It’s an intensive, sequential phonics-based system that teaches the basics of word formation before whole meanings. The method accommodates and utilizes the three learning modalities, or pathways, through which people learn—visual, auditory and kinesthetic. So why is it not in widespread use like whole word reading continues to be even though the research is out there and shows that it does nothing to teach readers how to tackle the English language using a systematic approach!!!
Regarding the need to play. There’s no reason they cannot have time to play. But, they are in school to learn as well (although you could not really tell that by how many children graduate from high school without the ability to read, write and do math.) How about teaching children the foundational basics, and having them become active learners and critical thinkers, rather than just passing time in school while learning little to nothing while they are there.
How did we get so far away from educating children in literacy & numeracy?!?!
How can you tell me that a child that scores a raw score of 34% on thier Regent exam is proficient in that subject area? Yet that is exactly what we do. We give them passing grades for failing! And hand them a NYS Regent diploma (and even sometimes an Advanced designation Regent diploma even though they really didn’t pass their exit Regent exams before it was curved up in order to pass the most students through with their diploma and say that they met or surpassed their high school graduation target that’s required by the education departments!!!
I’m sorry, but the current model of education in this country and this state is broken, dysfunctional and would not pass a cost-benefit analysis!!!
We spend more than twice as much per student in NYS to educate each student than any other state in the nation. We don’t need to throw any more money at schools. Especially when their records are so poor in teaching students litereacy & numeracy foundational skills!
I am more shocked that you all allow children to fall through the cracks and to be left behind, and tell taxpayers, parent and your students, that it’s not the school’s fault that they are not learning effectively. Seriously???
When 2/3 or more of the students are not proficient in reading, writing or math (or any combination of the above areas) it is not the students with the problem; it is the ineffective instructional methods being used in the classrooms!!!
How many more generations of students and families have to be left behind?
PS-
http://www.heinemann.com/forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=56
Those in the thick of the Dyslexia research disagree that Reading Recovery works for those on the Dyslexia spectrum. Even the designers state that it wasn’t designed to be used to teach those with Dyslexia and Autism …In contrast though, Orton Gillingham based methods (such as Wilson Reading, along with programs such as Barton & LMB have demonstrated great examlples of success.)
Copied from the Heineman site:
Holly wrote:
I would like to know more about why this reading program is not designed for students w/ dyslexia. Is it designed for students w/ language learning disabilities? Thanks. Is any part of the Fountas Pinnell reading program specifically designed for dyslexia/language learning disabled children?]
Hi Holly,
Although Fountas & Pinnell programs such as BAS and LLI are not specifically designed for students with autism/dyslexia or other learning disabilities, many people do use them in such circumstances. (see this forum thread for an example). Some research has been done on using guided reading with autistic children (this article, for example), but for the most part the programs are used in regular education classrooms. While many people use Fountas & Pinnell guided reading programs for special needs students, there hasn’t yet been a large-scale study on this topic, and the programs themselves are not specifically designed for special needs populations.
All evidence available at this time indicates that the instructional principles of guided reading are appropriate for use with special needs students, and this is something that Fountas & Pinnell hope to address more closely in their upcoming work.
Here are a few more articles that you might find helpful:
Supporting Literacy With Guided Reading
Strategies for Teaching Reading to Visual Learners
The Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) also has several articles on using guided reading with special needs students, but many of them are available to members only.
We hope this helps.
-Fountas & Pinnell Team
edited by Fountas & Pinnell Team on 5/13/2010
edited by Fountas & Pinnell Team on 5/13/2010
edited by Fountas & Pinnell Team on 5/13/2010
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Mary DeFalco:
Oops.. Correction to my previous post. The following was the link I meant to include for the Dyslexia specialists that disagree that Reading Recovery is an effective and acceptable methodology for helping those on the Dyslexia spectrum to read (vs the Heinemann link) : http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/read.rr.ltr.experts.htm
The link that was posted for the Heinemann/Fountas & Pinnell » Balanced Literacy, Reading Recovery, Special Needs site was to document that they also have gone on record stating that it’s not designed or researched to be used to remediate those on the Dyslexia spectrum.
So again, the only research that does seem to be out there to most effectively instruct those on the Dyslexia spectrum are OG based methodologies (such as Wilson Reading, as well as methods such as Barton and LindaMoodBell.)
So I don’t know how much additional research is needed to demonstrate that the whole word approach is an abysmal failure for the majority of struggling readers out there in your classrooms!
I can tell you that my after wasting each and every year of the 4 school years we were forced to unsuccessfully beg for appropriate instructional programs and AT programs and to be removed out of his special ed (co-taught) sections into honors classes (because he was distracted and bored stiff in the other lower leveled instructional classes) he was denied because he didn’t have the skills, yet they then would tell me that he didn’t need any special instruction in Wilson, even though it was available there. So they stuck him in F&P which did nothing for him. (Guessing at words might work in grade school with fictional texts, but when you get into more detailed and higher level texts, you can’t keep up without solid reading and decoding and comprehension skills without AT (TTS, STT, audio books, etc), which they fought us on as well.
So we went out to the private sector and found tutors. And guess what. He graduated as a Junior from high school with 33 college credits. We dual enrolled for the last part of his Jr year (after telling them we were leaving for homeschooling option) and he graduated with an Advanced Regent diploma last June.
So please don’t tell me that other children just like him, cannot do the same. But they need the opportunity and the appropriate remedial reading instruction (OG) and assitive technology in the classroom in order to show you what they are capable of achieving. If you lower the bar, do not provide them the appropriate methodologies, then of course they will never close the gaps and run that 4 min mile you used as an analogy!
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CeeHsMa (MH),
You sound like you are a salesman for the Orton Gillingham Program- or this is a parody on my comment? You also sound like the precursors of the Common Core. Spreading untruths about our public school system.
I repeat, no child should struggle with reading – above all not the learning disabled. All children need to be taught on their instructional level, then progress can be made. If we try and force a child to read on a frustration level we not only could cause that child to regress but even cause a learning disability. Worse yet we erode their self-image which once destroyed cannot be rebuilt – at least from my observation. How well I remember an old man at a public library when I tried to engage him in a conversation about his granddaughter whom he was baby sitting. “…I am stupid; I don’t know…” Do people who were retained in school ever let go of that embarrassment? Do they ever let go of the fact that they have been labeled? Do they develop needed confidence to become leaders?
Since CC appeared on the scene there are an extraordinary amount of students being labeled disabled.
I am presently tutoring a so-called “disabled student.” He is no more disabled than the man in the moon. He just couldn’t keep up with the pace the CC Standards inflicted on him. As many teachers have stated, “The students could master the concepts if I could spend more time on them instead of trying to force them to keep in step with the CCS.”
Your statement “because the teachers and administrators have already predetermined …”
This comment again suggests to me that you are not an educator. CC and its invalid standardized tests are the predetermining factor.
You stated, “Instead, they just let them languish and struggle and teach down to their current level, which rarely ever changes, and hence why they never close the gaps and catch up with their grade level reading and writing skills!”
That is precisely what Common Core Standards are doing. Teachers and educators had no input developing the Common Core. Many teachers have to constantly do what they know is not right; they must conform. You criticize Marie Clay’s philosophy and methodology but that is precisely what the Constructivist philosophy which supports her methodology, purports: teach the students at their instructional level. Only then can a student make progress.
You stated, “Maybe if the teachers and administrators on the front lines had done something to work on closing academic weaknesses with these struggling students and worked with their families when they are known to be involved parents (which schools say they want, but once they show up and start asking too many questions, they are stonewalled and forced out of the public school to get appropriate and effective instruction) then this whole Common Core debate could probably have been avoided. Instead, they choose to ignore the problem and to just let them languish and continue to struggle.”
In the past when I worked with ESL students and with students whose parents couldn’t read, I would send home Read -Along stories – books with a tape. Today the stories are recorded on discs. If parents didn’t have a recording device I would send home a tape recorder. The principal even loaned me his to send home. One mother of a fifth grader said that she was learning English via the taped stories. I would solicit money from the PTA and go to the warehouse to purchase books. Some teachers wrote grants….
We would have workshops for parents in the evenings and during the day to accommodate all parents. We even provided transportation and baby sitting. Teachers volunteered their time to take charge of a workshop. Teachers even roped in their families to help out for special events. My daughter served as a story teller- not a reader. My husband would help out at book fares held at night. These dedicated teachers don’t quit teaching after they retire. They find other avenues to continue their love of helping children.
Face it, the so-called “gap” can never be closed but we can help students meet their potential. We all know that some children come to school never having been read to. Others have been read to from day one.
Furthermore, you maintain that the CC could have been avoided.
Apparently you haven’t a clue how the Common Core Standards came about. How the cunning corporate world were conniving through the years to prey on the school system as a money making scheme. Part of the scheme was to privatize the public school system and get rid of unions- save money and put power in the corporate world at the top. First they took money away from the school – every district on LI had to lay off teachers. Then they spread untruths that our public school system was in shambles. They then came up with a solution via Coleman’s CC. Before they were even completed by the Work Group, much less tested, the governors were bribed into signing a contract to adopt the CC.
You remind me of the conniving business world spreading rumors that our teachers and schools are failing our students. You criticize a successful program which apparently you don’t understand and then you give them the “secret to success” – the Orton- Gillingham program.
The Constructivists philosophy – a philosophy that Marie Clay’s program is anchored in- utilizes all the senses as does the Orton-G program. There is one major difference: the constructivist facilitates the learners in actively constructing meaning by building on background knowledge, experience and helping the students reflect on those experiences. Constructivist learning is congruent with how the brain learns. Their contextualized interactive approach is the best way for learners to learn. It helps them not only to comprehend, develop their imagination but also to apply what they have learned.
The direct teaching that the CC employs doesn’t give the students “hooks’
to help develop meaning and retrieve information. The rote learning via scripted directives, furthermore, taxes the memory. What CC expects of pre k is totally destructive.
Opening paragraph of the Common Core Standards for English Language Arts, makes demands but until it is grounded in a good philosophy and educational theory, children won’t be free to learn. Just because authority demands that a child flies it won’t happen unless you give him wings.
The old “NY State Learning Standards” were anchored in the constructivist approach by people who knew what education was about. They were higher standards that schools could aspire to; they dealt with the process of how content should be taught; they did not change the content.
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