Evaluating school reading program

[FairProspects]

We are desperately trying to make a decision about full-time homeschooling vs. part-time school enrollment for next year. I have observed an entire K day, and next week I have an appointment with the Assistant Superindendent of Curriculum Instruction to go over the curriculum. I'm hoping all you well-informed people can help me to ask the right questions and to evaluate whether the school curriculum will pass muster or conflict with what we are doing at home.

 

What I know so far about the Reading Program:

 

1. 100 Fry high-frequency words are taught by sight

 

2. Readers include pictures within text sentences - ie, page reads "I see [picture of a cat]" student is expected to read aloud "I see a cat."

 

3. Whole group phonetic drilling uses long e sound as primary sound rather than short e so that "we" "me" and "see" are considered regular while "get" and "set" are not.

 

4. Finger tracking is used with dots under words for finger placement.

 

5. System is set up so that teacher reads the more difficult words, then students read in turn.

Teacher: Frank went swimming in the lake. Frank said,

Student: "See the fish?"

 

6. During my observation, I saw very little sounding out as students were reading mostly whole words aloud, however, the teacher assured me that much sounding out occured earlier in the year. They went over so few words though (and no phonics rules while I was there) that I did wonder if the kids had simply memorized the words they were reading. There were some impressive words too, swimmers for example, which made me wonder if it was more of a sight-reading thing or if the school was really good at teaching reading.

 

The Assistant Superintendent was adamant that the reading program was completely phonics-based. Could anyone help inform me what I am looking for in a solid school phonics program? Do any of the above practices ring warning bells?

 

How can I tell if the school reading program is a pure phonics program, a whole-language approach or some kind of balanced literacy?

[ElizabethB]

It looks like either very (un)balanced literacy or almost all whole word practices with a little phonics thrown in so they can say "we do phonics" from what you've described, none of those practices are good phonetic practices.

 

While I actually like programs that start with long sounds (The old Open Court, School Phonics, Webster's), they are easier to blend and you can make much better stories with long vowels than short vowels, that's crazy that get and set would not be considered regular.

 

The curriculum is helpful to see, but emphasis on practices like guided reading and sight word drill in the classroom can overcome even what is supposedly a good phonics program if it is used with these practices.

 

Good solid phonics program:

 

L to R emphasis on sounds of words, sounds taught first, then words, any lines or dots would be letter by letter, not word by word.

 

Oral reading should not be guided by the teacher exposing them to words they have not yet learned to decode, it should be students reading chorally or individually words and sentences that they have learned how to decode.

 

Text should have few to no pictures, and pictures should not encourage guessing from context.

 

Fry words would not be taught. (Except maybe later in the year for spelling once their patterns and exceptions have been learned!)

[....]

That's how my kids were being taught to read when I took them out of school (I didn't take them out because of the reading ;)).

 

It is V E R Y strange and not how I was taught to read...

 

I think some kids probably take off with it - one of my kids was just memorizing what he was supposed to say in class and then couldn't read on his own. :glare: He's very math-oriented and I think he needed to be able to "figure out" how to read words on his own. He couldn't even sound out 3-letter words when I took him out of school. Now, (thanks, CLE-I have to start a CLE fan club) he reads at a 2nd grade level. :D

 

If you don't like the reading program at school, you could always supplement on your own...if you didn't want to homeschool full-time.