Mrs. K

It's been three years since I started this book club. The kids still talk about it. Inspired by my fear of short passage curriculum which had just been adopted in my child's district... this is how I decided to supplement at home (with over 20 kids... because I am insane lol)

@wegg_ @CurriculumIP I agree. Those are the things that for severe dyslexia don’t mesh well. Time is precious and we don’t have time to over focus on obscure letter combos and syllable division rules (imho) I just find other approaches that are similar are more impactful (speech to text for example)

@MelK_Ed @CurriculumIP I'm LETRS trained and.. . Our OG interventionists do nothing that contradicts the training I got. It doesn't do the psychological awareness as explicitly as I like and there seems to be an over emphasis on mastery of more obscure letter combination pronunciations but it's solid.

In a dyslexia parent group and every single day I see comments like “*insert science based method* is far more effective than Orton Gillingham” Which leads me to my broken record We need safe spaces for educators to voice this OG is great when it’s great But/and+

@karinchenoweth @karenvaites It doesn’t matter as much as attracting and retaining highly qualified teachers. But it does matter

@karinchenoweth @karenvaites I agree. It’s never the program. It’s the skill of the teacher and their ability to adapt. I just think some programs (bloated basals) do more harm than good even for highly skilled expert teachers. I think it’s a problem worth acknowledging as curriculum choice does matter

If a literacy leader has authored multiple ELA curricula for a major publisher, should that person be quoted in articles *about the nature of good literacy curricula* without his or her publisher affiliation being noted? @alexanderrusso

One day I’m going to launch a comedy show about my career from beginning to end and a key punch line is going to be the perils of data analysis I love analyzing data but we need to talk about how (and I guess for me when lol) to do it correctly

@0Beanie05923291 @MartinCothran These two schools are an 8 minute drive from each other. I’d say very similar populations Public uses Into Reading and has the same proficiency as when they used F&P and charter uses CKLA

@0Beanie05923291 @MartinCothran Looking at k-8 public and k-8 charter 4th grade 65% vs 70% 8th grade 59% vs 63% Interesting to see the nearly the same percent drop I just think it’s something outside of just knowledge building. Peak to Peak charter is seen as the best case scenario for a school around here

My hypothesis re: the 8th grade reading problem is that, although students may have been taught reading skills properly, they don't have the background knowledge they need to understand what they're reading, which is the result of weak and unrepresentative reading content.

@karinchenoweth @karenvaites I think the problem Karen is pointing out is some programs are so flawed that even following with integrity will fail I do know teachers who have used both wonders and into reading and would choose wonders hands down over into reading so there is that!

@MelK_Ed @karenvaites opinions from my descriptions. I also never found full fidelity to a program in any high-performing school. What I found was that they followed programs with what I once saw called integrity rather than fidelity.

@karinchenoweth @karenvaites Same. And the one time in my career I couldn’t make things works is when I was told to use Into Reading with fidelity I spent all of last summer trying to fix it and that didn’t work out well for me lol but that’s a long story for another day

@MelK_Ed @karenvaites I am committed to what works, not what the program is.

@karinchenoweth @karenvaites In the years before I moved to Colorado (still regret!) I was helping the district create better assessments. So basically we created our own curriculum and assessments They use Wit and Wisdom now which I think is more like giving a carpenter a solid tool kit with real tools

@karinchenoweth @karenvaites I worked in a high performing district (South Pasadena) that had a basal and I’ll tell ya the key to success is we didn’t use it lol My entire year was novels woven into cross curricular units. We used the assessments and spelling lists from the program. That’s it.

@karinchenoweth @karenvaites …a master carpenter is left handicapped when you force her to use little tykes tools with fidelity. No program is perfect. Every program will need supplementations but I can’t imagine any master teacher looking at a bloated basal and it’s TE and finding it quality

@karinchenoweth @karenvaites This is interesting as I’ve never heard high performing teachers describe wonders or into reading as a viable program to work with. I’d personally equate them to carpentry with plastic tools by little tykes. Sure- they look like valid tools from afar but up close…

@biggieschools Superintendents should be paying more attention and having more honest conversations about why parents are leaving for micro schools

@MelK_Ed This is such a breath of fresh air—tests that actually give students time to think! The testing frenzy does nobody any good. We're seeing more families opt out of the test-prep hamster wheel entirely and explore microschools where learning isn't reduced to bubble answers.

Sure One, 45 minute math test One 30 minute reading test One separate 45 minute writing sample The end. (All times are what is reasonable to finish for the average student but no student should be timed. Shoot we could have one test a day and still waste lest time than now)

Kids can’t wait Be the adult that isn’t a bully. Be the adult that can hear opinions that differ from your narrow view. Be the adult that wants to actually help kids and admit sometimes that means owning you don’t have all the answers None of us do.

OG is 100 years old. It’s stuck around that long because it’s great (when it’s great) It ebs and flows from being on the main stage because it’s not bulletproof proof and yes, it does have fatal flaws and no, it doesn’t cure dyslexia Nuanced conversations will help bring change