Re: Reading First - Year 4 at my school

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I totally agree with OP's comment on the reading first philosophy.
I have been teaching for 18 years. For the past 2 years, I have
been so frustrated teaching reading. Reading first expects students
to "get it" by student's responding on cue. Those who do not get
it are lost in the shuffle. Students are then tested to death with
DIBELS weekly, which leaves me no time to work with those who
really need the extra support. I just got the results of my
student's end of the year reading test. It is not pretty. Those
who did not get it, didn't!

On 11/08/09, OP wrote:
> 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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