I, too, think basals have some value, especialy for new teachers with a
not-so-wonderful teacher education program. THAT IS, if the level of the basal
meets the level of the student, which precludes whole class instruction. It's
only been recently in my career, though, that I've seen a better alternative.
When I became a literacy coach, our district had just adopted an official
balanced literacy stance. Most of us had been following balanced literacy
practices for 20 years, though. I was under the impression at that time that
lit coaches were nice, but not necessary. WOW was I wrong. To refer to Judy's
letter at this point, I would say that the exception to new teachers needing a
year with a basal's planning and support would be the presence of a lit coach,
with an appropriate ratio of 20 teachers:1 coach. There are so many wonderful
books out now to guide coaches, but one of the most powerful books is Jennifer
Allen's A Sense of Belonging: Sustaining and Retaining New Teachers. Every
administrator on this list should take advantage of their summer-of-less-work
to read this book! Jan Miller Burkins has great books as well. I have 9 or 10
coaching books that guide coaches to guide teachers into professional
educators. One of my profs said that the way to get outstanding teachers was
to either hire them or to grow the ones you had. We have the knowledge to do
that now, just not the will. Instead many of the Powers that Be wish to spend
billions on "teacher-proofed" materials. Even the Feds themselves have
admitted that the Reading First program spent well over 6 BILLION dollars and
didn't develop comprehending readers -- why would we want any other kind of
readers??? RF was the biggest program to take teacher judgment out of the
equation and look at the results!!
Sent from my BlackBerry Smartphone provided by Alltel
-----Original Message-----
From: jvma...@comcast.net
Sender: mosaic-bounces+beverleepaul=gmail....@literacyworkshop.org
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2010 15:09:50
To: Mosaic: A Reading Comprehension Strategies Email
Group<mosaic@literacyworkshop.org>
Reply-To: "Mosaic: A Reading Comprehension Strategies Email Group"
<mosaic@literacyworkshop.org>
Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] Chapter 1 (Book Whisperer)
I am one who denigrated basals, but I do agree with Laura (see below). In fact,
for many reasons, I think new teachers SHOULD start with basals. That is how we
learn to teach reading in a traditional way as we gather our own reading
theories--and the planning is done for them. Mosaic would have made no sense to
me if I hadn't already had a foundation in teaching reading. Unfortunately,
last year (when California could still afford new teachers), I got in trouble
for recommending that our newbies use the basal for a year. They were
foundering with comprehension strategies and needed a foothold. Alas. When I
taught 3rd grade and focused on comprehension strategies, I used the basal as
an anthology and we read almost all of the selections. It seems to me that most
basals have excellent selections these days. My objection to the 5th grade
basal is that many of the selections are excerpts and they leave students
feeling unfinished and dissatisfied. Sorry this is so disjointed--you can see I
still have mixed feelings about basals. What I detest most is the way the
publishers throw waaaaay too much thoughtless busywork into "a week" and don't
give kids a chance to learn. But, as you may glean from my thoughts, I still
think basals have some value.
Judy
(((Laura: I think the main reason schools are adopting basals is a lack of
trust in teacher knowledge. To play devil's advocate, not all teachers come to
the profession prepared to teach. Put a basal in the hands of a less seasoned
teacher and perhaps you'll have a chance at good instruction. The more seasoned
teachers do not need it of course. I think this all speaks to the level of
preparedness our teachers are coming out of university with. )))
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