> Its been a very long year and yet today I felt hope for my little ones. I > teach > a class of 33 at risk 1st grade students at a Title I school. I can't even > begin to describe the behavior and social issues I have faced this year > that > interfered with learning and still interfere! Some I have never faced > before.....a long, long year...but today... > > "But yet today..." Beautiful words, Sandra. Maybe this would be a great time for you to write a poem beginning with "but yet today." I would love to read that poem!! I've taught in a school such as yours for almost my entire career, so I know how tired you are at this point in the year, but still you shared. Thank you so much.
When it comes to comprehension (and the amazing articulation of understanding you've provided us), I LOVED what I'm assuming was Taberski's orginal title for her new book:* It's All About Comprehension: Teaching K-3 Readers from the Ground Up*. At least that's what amazon has been advertising for a couple of years. While I can see the advantage of what was eventually chosen (*Comprehension from the Ground Up: Simplified, Sensible Instruction for the K-3 Reading Workshop*), I still love the "it's all about comprehension" line...because it is all about comprehension. No matter the genre, no matter the author, no matter the subject, no matter who's reading it or why, there's simply no reason for anyone to read anything except to comprehend it. Now comes my frustration with education circa 2011. With the advent of RTI, and of course what I would refer to as the "misuse" of RTI, it usually isn't about comprehension at all. Anything that can be taught/learned in a weekly- or bi-weekly-monitored situation (such as for "intensive" or "strategic" intervention) is infinitesimally smaller than comprehension. And just look at how long Sandra had to wait to hear the evidence that her "seeds" had indeed sprouted and were indeed growing all that time! While I strongly believe every at-risk child should receive more quality instruction time than a child that's moving right along without extra help, what we're doing in my state is focusing very little of that instruction on comprehension. Our children's "progress" is measured in how quickly they can decode nonsense words, how fast they can read orally...well, you get the picture. And sometimes (maybe always) anything worthwhile to learn just takes a while, and then a little longer, to be able to articulate it, especially when you're 7 like Sandra's students. Her students will never, ever know the gift they been given; it's truly the gift that keeps on giving. Talk about a self-extending system! And my greatest frustration with all this "misguided" attempt to help through a very limited RTI understanding? The kids the most likely to receive this underwhelming band-aid of "stuff" rather than comprehension instruction? Yup, that would be the very kids Sandra teaches, the ones with the un-schoollike background. Our children of poverty, our children of color, our children who speak little English, our children who have received crippling reading instruction earlier. Yup, the very ones. So our entire educational system is at risk of selling out the very children that our forefathers created public education for--those who truly need a hand up! Those are the children who grow continuously for months and sometimes years before the long-term effects of comprehension instruction are visible. Sandra, you've posted such a celebratory message for you and yours, but we all needed to hear it. First, we need to hear it so we kindred spirits can joyously celebrate the successes of Sandra's students and of Sandra. But then we need to hear it also so that we become more reflective as we teach..and (the hard part) more vocal when short-term solutions for short-term "problems" are proposed. Sometimes I think "teaching" has been reduced to "cheerleading" and not the cheering we're doing with Sandra. The kind that we really should grab our old pom pons and jump up and down as we yell, "Give me a P! Give me a short A! Give me a T! What does it spell? Pat!! What word? Pat!! Yes, PAT!! Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Oh, sorry. Sometimes I'm reduced to what appears to be sarcasm, but what I believe really is, frustration until I'm reduced to the mental age of those who make these decisions, even or especially those who are truly believing they're helping. I can't quite remember the title of an essay I read years ago, nor can I remember the author, but the title had these words: doing harm while intending to do good. The very children who are the most disadvantaged, the most at-risk, are increasingly receiving an ill-advised, limited set of instruction which spends all their instructional time teaching them things they probably don't really need to know, while excluding comprehension instruction...and... "it's all about comprehension." Short-term gains crowd out long-term development. And you don't even want me to go into why we would shortchange the children who need us the most. Just remember the lesson Al Capone had to learn: it's all about the money. Bev, who so admires Sandra _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
