If you have children in school, you are aware that education has changed drastically over the last few years. When I started teaching 10 years ago, there was a saying that kindergarten is the new first grade. As a first grade teacher and then a kindergarten teacher I saw this first hand. Kindergarten was very different than what I remembered it as a child. Many times as parents, we remember what school was for us and wonder why our kids are struggling and why there is such a sense of urgency coming from teachers at conferences. They are only 5. They will get it eventually. Let them be kids!
As a parent of children ranging from preschool to third grade, I get it. I want my kids to be kids and they will get it when they get it and I want them to have fun and learn through play and not have to worry. As a teacher, I get that urgency and am shocked at what the expectations are of our kids and what they need to do. I see it on a daily basis, I would fail if I had to do it all over again. As a kid, I struggled in school and didn't really start to get it until I was in highschool when I really wanted to get it and had an interest. If doing it all over again, it would be so easy to give up and never develop the interest.
My oldest started kindergarten 4 years ago. I was actually her kindergarten teacher. 4 years ago just so happened to be the first year that common core was fully implemented. These kindergartners are now in third grade and will be the first to take the nation wide PARCC assessment. And now I just so happen to be a third grade teacher. I have lived this personally and professionally.
Four years ago as a kindergarten teacher, I was concerned that we were forcing our kids to read and skipping the foundation. I worried what would happen when kids got to the point where they needed that solid foundation to continue to progress and could not rely on force fed reading. I actually was so concerned I wrote and published a book, How to Teach Your Child to Read. Now here I am four years later looking over all the assessments seeing my worries come to life and seeing kids stuck or struggling to get where they need to be.
There is no looking back there is only moving forward. I have had my personal battles with the new assessments and the educational shift but battling it isn't going to get us anywhere. I have learned to embrace it, empower my children and students and make them the best they can be.
How has reading changed and what can we do?
In school, it is rare that students get an opportunity to read for pleasure. Eventually the reading being taught will make them much better readers but at first it appears tedious and mundane. Instead of novels, students are reading passages which are very complex. The complexity is determined by how deep you can dig into it. Students will rad the same passage several times and then answer explicit and inferential questions using evidence from the text to support their thinking. 50% of reading instruction is literature and the other 50% is non-fiction or informational.
What do you do at home to support this reading?
Get the newspaper out. Did you know that most local newspapers are written at the 5th grade level? Find an article and have your kids read it. Ask questions that can be answered in the article. Ask inferential questions too that can then be supported int eh article. Why do you think that? How do they feel? What will they do next? Always have them go back and support the answer with what they read. Subscribe to magazines. Great kid magazines are National Geographic Kids and Time for Kids. Have your kids research something they are really interested in. Ella loves elephants. I can google elephant articles and a million are at our fingertips.
Just because your child can read (whether in kinder, 1st, 2nd, or 3rd) don't assume they have mastered phonics and phonemic awareness. This will show up on spelling tests and in writing and will interfere with comprehension and reading progression. Talk about how crazy the English language is and about vowel rules and the different sounds some letters can make. I teach the lessons with fun rhymes and tricks and hidden rules that most people have never even heard about. But as soon as the kids learn them, they get it!
Keep it fun! Let kids know that reading can be fun. I love that they can pick any book up and be taken anywhere doing all sorts of crazy things. As adults we read to relax. A book can take us always from the stresses of our own life and into a new life for just a little bit. It is the same for kids. Let them discover that.
Remember there are 5 components that make up reading and to be a proficient reader all components need to be mastered. Phonics, Phonemic Awareness, Vocabulary, fluency and Comprehension. Today comprehension is being broken down into literature and informational.
Resources
Many parents want to work at home and don't want it to be a battle. It doesn't have to be. My 1st grader is a fairly good reader but I can't get her to read for more than 10 minutes and she will never finish a book. She thinks she won by me giving her articles and having her answer the questions. It really is about workign smarter and not harder!
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/4378.Fun_Nonfiction_for_Elementary
readworks.org
national geographic kids
time for kids
http://printableworksheets.in/?dq=Close%20Reading
newspapers
favorite texts but really dive into 1 page- fiction and nonfiction
folk tales
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching/2013/04/investigating-nonfiction-part-2-digging-deeper-close-reading
http://www.readinga-z.com/comprehension/close-reading-packs/
http://teacher.depaul.edu/Reading_Passages_NONFICTION.html
Please feel free to ask me specific questions!
Nina Pears
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