Greetings,
I have been following this list for a couple weeks now and feel emboldened to
jump in. I am a 'veteran' (gosh it's hard to get away from the military
metaphors!?) -- and worked three decades as a primary teacher, district reading
specialist, and learning assistance teacher (in BC, Canada -- I forget what
your term is in the US). Now substitute teaching and see loads of different
classrooms K to 12; more primary these past few months, just the way it's
worked out.
My best work and advice on phonics comes from the really great and still
utterly relevant book, Phonics They Use, by Pat Cunningham. This has really
solid phonics games and a chapter at the end about the hard questions etc.
(Sorry, not going to seek the exact details in the interest of not making this
an essay that takes an hour or two. ;-) ) Looks like the newer version is
"Systematic Sequential Phonics They Use". Super practical material!
Cunningham urges us to make our phonics teaching "sequential" -- and I observed
in my coordinator days that many people were helping kids with lots of phonics
but in a non-systematic way. A student would get 'sh' he needed in his journal
work one day, and not again for a week or two -- not nearly enough repetition
for the weaker students. This author also notes **a little goes a long way!**
-- the kids love her 'making words' game (and if you do it right the individual
accountability to actually build each word is powerful) but that doesn't mean
you carry it on for forty minutes. You can build this in daily (or whatever) by
having the strips ready to go and the students begin making their letters the
minute they arrive back from recess; then cut it off at fifteen or twenty
minutes. (Re 'strips' -- can't at this moment remember if that was my extension
or in her original -- key, though.) Basically she says and I agree, with these
phonics games, you can
achieve much of what kids need, in fifteen to thirty minutes a day. (Phonics
is *part* of what happens the rest of the day; this is just the structured bit.)
In her 'hard questions' chapter she talks about what we must "drop" to gain
time -- drop the worksheets and add more real reading and real writing.
Worksheets essentially are okay for the kids who already know the answers, and
the weaker students don't get instant feedback as to where they've made errors.
A scripted program I observed a number of times was Companion Reading (not sure
if they still are out there?). While I have seen teachers use elements of it in
a beneficial manner, the time I saw the 'full program' in use, piloted
essentially, it took a couple hours a day and left barely any time for all the
really great stuff we need to do, aside from a bit of reading aloud to
children. (Our district used to have time allotments; the guideline was two and
a half hours for Language Arts -- and the joke was, 'yah, the good grade one
teachers do Language Arts most of the day and call it Social Studies at 1
o'clock, Science at two and so on.)
Besides the inordinate amount of time it consumed, it fostered a very
teacher-dependent class vibe in general. These students would be awaiting the
next period or activity, and I'd ask them "now what?" -- they would most often
reply, "We wait for the teacher to tell us." (Uh-oh; not a good sign. Due to
our then very progressive Primary Program, kids often had so much ownership of
classroom procedures and their own responsiveness, in a really great way.)
I do see how beginning teachers seek direction and a scripted program can be
appealing. As I understand it, Open Court is quite scripted -- and Renate Caine
(http://www.cainelearning.com/ looks great) of brain based learning, at a
fabulous conference in Vancouver a few years ago, basically trash talked Open
Court for its (similar imo) deadening effect.
And re "mosaic" -- I appreciate 'off topic' items like this and in particular I
want to learn "what's out there" as to what people are using and what are their
concerns. Like your moderator (thank you btw), I am (guessing) thinking there
are many different situations -- many! I do observe that Americans in general
have less classroom autonomy. (Oops, really sweeping generalization! ;-) )
Thanks, all.
Linda Rightmire
South central BC
ps Any chance people would snip/trim their replies? It's a bit hard to wade
through for those of us on digest. Thanks again.
pps Nearly all my classroom years have been in low SES neighbourhoods with the
very weakest students and as you know that includes much with behaviour
problems too. ;-) Great stuff.
_______________________________________________
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
