I think this is a result of the "just keep the pace and they'll
get it eventually" philosophy of Reading First. I've been
teaching for 20 years -- and I've never seen such a rapid and
drastic drop in students' abilities since Reading First came to
our school. In 5th grade -- we're not under the strict mandates
of the RF grant, and even though the administrators try their
best to make us adhere to these horrible practices -- I just
close my door and teach, and hopefully the students will have a
greater understanding when they leave 5th grade.

On 11/06/09, sincere wrote:
> Do you think they have never been taught these skills, or that
> they were taught and "didn't get it"? Will they get it now???
> I teach children that "just don't get it" no matter what I
do...
>
>
> On 11/04/09, and guess what? wrote:
>> I've had to teach more basic skills this year than every
>> before (I teach 5th grade). For the first time ever, here
>> is a short list of "firsts" for my students...
>> - many didn't know their vowel sounds - short or long.
>> - many did not know the difference between a consonant and
>> a vowel.
>> - many had no idea about how locate points on a map with
>> latitude and longitude, or many other basic map skills --
>> like the fact the equator is zero degrees latitude.
>> - many did not know the difference between a state, a
>> country and a continent.
>> - I'm teaching writing skills like how to capitalize the
>> first letter in a sentence and how to use ending
>> punctuation.
>> - a large number of them are reading fluently and have
>> absolutely no idea what they are reading.
>> Yikes!!!!!

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