Finally, some press time for my favorite RUSD topic – Continuous Progress .Once upon a time, I was a clueless (but satisfied!!!) parent of a child enrolled in RUSD. Then one day at a teacher conference, my child’s 1st grade teacher told me about the new teaching strategy, Continuous Progress (CP), where children are separated by ability level. While I sat there absorbing the information, I thought to myself “How is this any different than the strategy being used now?” You see, my child’s school was already separating the children by ability level so I assumed there would not be any difference. I DID NOT realize that this practice had been abandoned at most of the RUSD elementary schools. As a child, my elementary school (Olympia Brown) did the same; I still want to know when this common practice of teaching to the lowest common denominator became the fashion.
However, as this teacher became to explain the intricacies of CP, I began to get more and more concerned. The new strategy would break my son’s reading class into 2 small groups (10 – 15 kids). One group would be advanced readers, and the other group would be remedial or somewhere in between. The teacher would teach one group and the other group would work “independently”; after 15 minutes or so, the groups would switch. This process repeats itself for 90 to 120 minutes daily. It is what I like to call “short attention span education”. I still do not see how a 6 or 7 year-old child can study independently for any length of time. The children not being taught are not allowed to ask questions while the other group is being instructed. How many teachable moments are being lost on a daily basis if a child cannot ask a question?
There are many reasons I do not like CP, but separating them by level is not one of them. With that said, I think if the groups were formed into 3 larger groups (advanced, proficient and remedial) the process would be implemented more efficiently; with all these multiple groups in the same room, classroom time is utterly chaotic. There are too many needs and not enough resources to go around.
Continous Progress involves Mastery Learning. This is another one of those concepts that sound great in theory, but in reality it can be damaging when done wrong. Using the current strategy, a child cannot advance to the next level until he/she has mastered the material. However, VERY LITTLE OR NOTHING is being done for the child who is far behind. Right now we have 4th graders reading at a 1st grade level and getting A’s on their report card because he reads very well at the 1st grade level. There are few programs left, such as Title I, that address these problems; those programs were severely reduced when CP was introduced because it was believed there would not be necessary.
Now reading recovery programs have had to be EXPANDED at the middle school level to meet the needs of the children who did not quite “get it” in elementary school. Is this really what we want for our children and our community? RUSD is not fiscally or educationally sound; tell me again why keeping RUSD would be a good thing….
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I agree with your post. As a teacher, CP has done nothing to improve the low acheiving students ability. They find a comfort level with their good grades and ability to succeed at a level much lower than their grade. Thus they see no reason to try the harder material. Likewise, CP has contributed to RUSD's low test scores. Third and fourth graders are taking the WKCE despite having never seen third or fourth grade materials.
It seems so simple to understand why CP has failed to raise our test scores.
It might not do any good, but this is really a hot topic now at Central Office and I think you should share your views with the board. It might provide some needed insight that there are not receiving from administration.
It might actually have credence if it comes from an educational professional who works with it daily.
One more great reason to homeschool. My son is already learning to read, and we're only halfway through his instruction book. By the time he's done with it, he should be at roughly a third grade reading level, and he's only 6.
If I get my way with the pocketbook, he'll be reading and writing in another language by the time he's in third grade.
My children both started reading at 3, probably because of the importance I put in reading. And they were both probably reading 3rd grade books in kindergarten. At 9 and 11, they have tested at high school and college levels.
I read to them as babies - I even read to them in utero.
My husband still thinks we're "weird" because he will come home and all 3 of us are curled reading.
Post a Comment