Nancy Bailey describes one of the worst ideas that is current in the world of corporate-style reform: Forcing little children to read at a very young age, as early as kindergarten or first grade, which turns reading into a chore, not a joy.
Then, if they have not met arbitrary standards in third grade, shaming them by holding them back.
This is a child-hostile idea that got started in Florida, where so many bad ideas have begun. It did wonders for fourth grade reading scores, because the kids with the lowest scores flunked.
But it is a truly dumb idea because it forces reading on children before they are ready and it does not make children better readers. Whether children begin to read at age 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 doesn’t matter. What matters is that they learn that reading is a wonderful skill to master and that it opens worlds of enchantment and knowledge. By the time they are 10 or 11, no one remembers when they first began to read. Little children are not global competitors. They are children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Agree 100%. Reading isn’t a game to seewho does it first. That mentality is sick. The joy of reading will allow kids to read forever, regardless of when they begin. Let common sense prevail.
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Unfortunately, this force and flunk mentality works against poor students as they are over represented in remedial programs. While poor students are behind middle class students. the need the opportunity to make up for lost time. We should not rush to label them as students often internalize the stigma. The most important aspect of reading is reading itself, whether through a read aloud, shared reading or looking at picture books alone. Young people need to feel competent, enjoy the experience and meet with small successes in order to build some level of independence. Skills are also important to reading, which when built into supported instruction can be acquired naturally, with the exception of a few students that are “hard to start.” As an ESL teacher, I taught many students could not read in their own language to become good readers in English. We need to stop test and label as it is detrimental to the self image of students.
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I see the competition for literacy and stem starting with babies and I’m in a super liberal highly educated city far from Florida. I have heard baby group leaders say that we sing songs to babies because it helps them develop literacy later in school. Ugh. No. I sing to my baby because it is fun and we share the enjoyment together and bond through it.
I have heard librarians at baby story times say that repetition in songs and games is setting the foundation for building math skills later. This is in a room of babies younger than 1. Again, ugh. Can we please focus on loving our children and connecting with them and building a good relationship with them?
There is so much plain ignorance about what is developmentally appropriate at what age and also about literacy and education actually happen.
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I sang to my students to augment my library curriculum and help them love their library time, but I sang with the preschoolers in the inner city as a form of language development as many of them had a limited vocabulary (for numerous reasons) which was affecting their ability to learn. Some were one to two years behind.
How can you learn to read when you can’t even talk?
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“But in the madcap dance to privatize, end the teaching profession, and destroy brick and mortar schools, corporate reformers and legislators, are destroying the joy of reading and the love of learning in one fell swoop.” So how are those corporate Common Core standards working for everyone? Perhaps it’s time to return to Dewey and return schools to local control where communities and educators set standards and run schools.
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The only way to force representatives to represent the people and not corporations is to give all candidates the same amount of money. We need to get the money out of politics as it perverts the democratic process.
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Right on, retired teacher. Get the $ out & we’ll flush out all the ed-corp-types capitalizing on whims, fears, etc.
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After the fascist, Trollish billionaires like the Walton family, the Koch brothers, every member of ALEC, Eli Broad, Richard Mercer, Bill Gates and the rest of this corrupt mob destroys the love of reading for every child, then it will be easier to ban any book and media sources the corporate reformers and Trump want gone so the only message head is the message they want us to hear.
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Why do you think Eva fought so hard against her Pre-K’s getting any kind of oversight or requirements?
She thinks that “play” is for wimps.
https://www.alternet.org/billionaires-early-childhood-education
SUSAN OSCHORN:
“Child-centered, experiential learning, on a timeline that allows for the natural variability of development, has become a province of the elite. The daughters of presidents—including Malia and Sasha Obama—have thrived in the dynamic classrooms of the progressive Sidwell Friends in Washington, D.C. …
“The demands of standards-based accountability, entrenched segregation, and the proliferation of charter schools with harsh discipline and developmentally inappropriate curricula—Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy network in New York City an egregious example—are transforming our youngest, and most vulnerable, children into joyless drones, their spirits crushed by benchmarks, testing, drills, rote learning, and the absence of play.”
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Amen! Alleluia! Someone that makes sense. When will the governments listen to what is right?
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Bailey’s post rings a bunch of bells for me re: reading – force & flunk.
I was the lucky eldest– ’50’s-era 1-room schoolhouse; a preternatural logophile whose Mom taught her to read at 3. In 1st gr, it was apparent to my teacher I was ahead; that Fall she walked me thro readers after school & said ‘go home & ask your Mom if you can be in 2nd-gr.” I moved over one row the next day & carried on reading at my level.
Next sibling 6 yrs ygr (1st gr early ’60’s): we would a decade later learn had (like his dad) severe dyslexia– clearly intelligent but struggling w/reading. Mom begged sch to hold him back in 3rd gr, but was overruled by admin/ prevailing philosophy. He ended up being held back in 9thgr & never earning hs diploma (despite trying for ged in comm coll).
Next sibling 7yrs younger than brother (1stgr late ’60’s): same affliction as bro but was recognized/dg in midsch; IEP/ superb support followed. She went to small coll, got BS in SpEd, has since gotten 2 masters’, was head of a midsch SpEd pgm, presently Asst Princ in a prestigious public hs.
Youngest bro (1st gr early ’70’s)was a good/ early reader but a lackluster stud who seemed [to me] to get passed along unchallenged– because he was a good reader, so flew under the radar. Couldn’t get into coll due to lousy grades.
My take: we 4 siblings had markedly different K12 (’50’s-’70’s) experience due mainly to whiplash vicissitudes in pubsch attitude/ philosophy/ pedagogy re: reading. The current whim described in Bailey’s post seems to encompass the worst of these trends– in the late 2010’s!
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As a refresher on the money machine that exists for teaching preschoolers to read, take a look what is marketed. Among many materials, few are books.
tbm=isch&q=preschool+reading+comprehension&chips=q:preschool+reading+comprehension,g_2:pre+k&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjGw7S09fPWAhUe8YMKHSsxCosQ4lYIKygA&biw=1042&bih=660&dpr=1
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My 4 year old grandson is in a PreK program at his day care and he is having daily meltdowns, putting himself into time out for extended periods of time until his anger disappates. He’s a bright boy, but CC is not the right format for his little mind – At least not at this point.
MY daughter is already thinking CC free alternatives to public schools if this behavior continues into kindergarten. I’m hoping a certified teacher will do a better job meeting his needs despite the Common Core Curriculum.
I explained to her that there is a normal range of learning to read between ages three and eight and although some three year olds can read, it all evens out by third grade (unless there are other factors involved).
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I mentioned elsewhere on this site about the threatened introduction of a national phonics test in Australia to children in YEAR 1 – that is, children who have had just one full year of school. It has been tried in the UK and the results show that, well, it doesn’t work:
http://theconversation.com/new-phonics-test-will-do-nothing-to-improve-australian-childrens-literacy-83045
Unfortunately the issue has brought out into the open the divisions that exist in certain quarters of the Australian education sector. The group that has the loudest cheerleaders for this initiative is the Centre for Independent Studies, a think tank which is all about “free enterprise” and “limited government” – yes, you know the sort of thing I’m talking about:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_for_Independent_Studies
In a nutshell, every 5-6 year old child will be given a list of “nonsense” words by their teacher that they have to work out how to pronounce, using their phonics skills to decipher the spelling. And that’s a good thing because …?
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Barking at symbols is not reading, although it may demonstrate some understanding of the sound-symbol relationship, which is probably the point of this so called test. Students learn to read by reading. Yes, they need skills, but the skills should be integrated in some authentic context, not presented in isolation. You know you have taught students to read when they start reading to learn.
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retired teacher,
YOU should be Secretary of Education. Bet most politicians BARK at text. They have to. Someone else wrote their speeches.
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… and those unable to even bark, resort to tweeting.
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They’ve been doing that in the Buffalo Schools for over ten years beginning with first graders. It’s something to do with evaluating their skills. It’s a one on one test which includes lots of other short “quizzes” such as speed of reading, fluency, sight vocabulary, etc. I don’t know how effective it is, but the teachers complained about it as it took time away from the entire class and was repeated numerous times throughout the year. I think it was called dibbles.
Of course, I retired five years ago so perhaps they are using some other devise now.
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Force flunk is RIGHT. It’s the factory model at work.
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My mother read to me and that is how learned to read. I learned to read because of Mother Goose and Little Boy Blue. I was 2 1/2 years old and figured out how text works. I had already memorized all the nursery rhymes. They were short and funny to me and I loved the rhyming words.
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A good while ago, a pictorial history of Calvinism and education was posted here. Perhaps it is appropriate. The idea of failure as a moral problem has permeated western culture for all its history. This is just the latest manifestation.
Yet, to be honest, there is a bit of truth in that. Children who grow up in homes that avoid political discourse are much more likely to avoid it, I would expect? Thus the sophistication to spot patterns in political statements that are suspect cannot be developed at a younger age, perhaps never. Same with reading. There is a moral dimension as reading relates to the discernment of principles and the growth of a healthy body politic. But it is not anyone’s fault. It is certainly not the children’s fault, and shame is ineffective. Observational studies have shown as much many times.
So why do we not attack the real culprit which is the placing of children in grades. I find the children too willing to engage in the comparative behavior that leaves some feeling that they do not measure up. Somehow, we must group without consideration of age until the puberty thing creates a social dimension that overpowers what goes on in class.
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Just another example of those who believe that when they are voted into office, all of a sudden they are an expert on things about which they no clue. That the future of our nation and planet is in the hands of such ignoramuses should give pause to every thinking person, and even those who are not thinking. It affects us all.
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Excellent. Reading is not a “Race to the Top”.
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Thank you for that last paragraph.
Kas Winters
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