Oh, wise ones: advise me

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Professional Readings Chatboard

Oh, wise ones: advise me

by PMo

May 23, 2011

I am obsessing about how my students performed on the reading portion of our end-of-grade tests, which in short, was Not Good. I was hoping that we were about par with the rest of our district, but we are far lower. We have recently switched to a strict adherence to a basal-driven program and I am wondering this: Is it possible that, if a teacher hasn't fully bought into this program, even though I'm teaching it as best I can, that this could be the problem in my teaching? I am consulting the best minds I know -- you all -- and am hoping for some enlightenment here. TIA.....

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judy5ca I completely agree with Jan when she writes: Our judgement of a program does affect the way we teach it. It's hard to make yourself believe in a program you don't believe in, and it's even harder to teach such a program. BUT I think it is possible. And, I think it's essential.

I should have said that the first year of a new program, any pr...See More

May 28, 2011

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molly/ca I found that both basal programs in my state did not fully address the grade level standards. Once I became familiar with the blue print for the state test(available online) I pulled those concepts from the basal and supplemented a great deal. It took several years at a particular grade level to have everything in place. A test score does not defin...See More

May 28, 2011

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Jan nfm We are not far apart at all....and I knew we weren't from all our past conversations.

> I completely agree with Jan when she writes: > Our judgement of a program does affect the way we teach it. > It's hard to make yourself believe in a program you don't believe > in, and it's even harder to teach such a program. BUT I think &...See MoreWe are not far apart at all....and I knew we weren't from all our past conversations.

> I completely agree with Jan when she writes: > Our judgement of a program does affect the way we teach it. > It's hard to make yourself believe in a program you don't believe > in, and it's even harder to teach such a program. BUT I think > it is possible. And, I think it's essential. > > I should have said that the first year of a new program, any > program, I teach as closely to what is written as I can.

And this is really important! We can;t revise unless we know what's there in the first place. Irvine Unified does the best job of this of any district I know. With a new adoption, they do not vary one bit from the TE, even if they know it's wrong and they think it's not working. They discuss with grade level team as they go and make notes about possible changes for the next year. Then before the next year begins, they discuss their findings and begin to make the changes that everyone agrees with. This is so smart because we cannot judge the value of a program unless we teach it exactly the way it was presented. When we don't do that, we are not getting out of it what we are promised. That is what as happened to Success for All. Slavin has finally tightened up on the implementation and supervises it very closely. His program is the best researched of all and it had a very high effect size. However, schools bought the program and then implemented entirely differently than Slavin said. Of course they did not get the same effect size and they their comments were this with all subjects. BUT I start revising the second year. > > In this case, maybe we should define what we mean by basal > program. The last basal I used was Houghton Mifflin. It was > comprised of an anthology of reading selections (both fiction and > nonfiction--and almost all of them were excellent). I loved the > anthology in third grade. But I disliked the ancillary components > and I particularly disliked (and I believe Jan said this) the way > the program tried to teach 47 concepts daily.

Yes, the ancilliary materials and components are terrible. In one HM lesson I observed by a student teacher, she had 12 skills she was to teach in one lesson. Now these were not taught at all....she explained the directions to the worksheet. That is NOT teaching...although I see it a lot. There is no way we can teach 12 objectives in a lesson. Sometimes, it is very hard to stick with that during the first year when you must. If we try to make it better, then the kids will do well and people will say..."Oh this program is great...all our kids excelled." The kids excelled because the teachers made the program work. It's questionable how ethical it is to have the kids suffer through a whole year of a terrible program, but it's the only way I know to get the data we need to get rid of it. And, there's always the chance that we are all wrong and, in fact, the kids ARE able to learn 12 objectives at a time. We need to accurately test the program before we dare modify it. > > I do think we all need to learn to teach reading with a > basal--it's an important experience in our growth. I think that > this is how we learn which components (and which strands of those > components) match standards and are necessary. > > BUT THEN I think that we, as professionals, have to take things > into our own hands and decide the best way to teach the material. > Perhaps that is by staying closely aligned to the teacher's > guide. Perhaps it is by taking what is valuable and developing > one's own lessons.

Yes, I agree. This is where i think we are safest if we stick to the content of the basal but modify our pedagogy. Most textbooks and programs are selected for the content. And, selecting content is NOT the job of the teacher. The state is the entity that must select WHAT we study. So, we teach WHAT they say, but we can modify HOW we teach it. Pedagogy is not often suggested so much be a program and we can make those changes. Also pedagogy IS the expertise of the teacher so we can, I think, do what we think is best and still be 'following district/state orders" about implementation. It's like "Oh, of course, I taught prefixes as that is a content area selected by the state. However for my class I had to modify some of the instruction to make sure that they learned the content." I think we're on safe ground here. We certainly are within our rights as teachers....if we are going to be responsible for the learning, we have to decide how we're going to teach it. > > Jan, I don't think we're actually too far apart. Not apart at all. > > Judy

May 28, 2011

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PMo I've been mulling them over for the past week or so. While I agree with Molly that there are many factors that go into a specific score, I am also certain that there is something in my teaching that I had missed that was NOT okay. I think the increase in ELL students was the most significant factor to the extent that I wasn't providing the kind of ...See More

Jun 6, 2011

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naneb My district switched to Reading Street for K-3 this last year. Teachers had to follow the manual exactly. They were given a template for lesson plans that included all components. Our 1st and 2nd grade students take Iowa Test of Basic Skills at the end of the year. My school's scores went from the lowest ITBS scores to one of the highest. Our liste...See More

Jun 8, 2011

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