| Author | Message | ||
     Ejt |
Anyone out there familiar with the "Open Court" method of teaching? Comments, positive and negative would be greatly appreciated! Thanks! | ||
| Nan |
Ejt, Open Court, the language arts curriculum taught at Our Lady of Sorrows, has been the subject of several discussions on this board. If you do a keyword search on "Open Court" you will find plenty to read. If you read these posts you will see that I am not a fan of this teaching method. Other contributors have felt that it was effective, especially for children with certain types of learning disabilities. The following link presents an overview of educational research on Open Court. http://curriculum.calstatela.edu/faculty/mmousta/The_Research_Base_of_Open_Court.htm | ||
| Deadwhitemale |
Nan would not be a fan. The program is logically presented and based upon the belief that there is a general correspondence between letters and sounds, and that sounds make words. More simply, they teach it. This goes contrary to Whole Language precepts, no matter what they will claim to protect the WL mistake, but it is actually, simply true. DWM | ||
| Nan |
Yes Dead, I think we all understand why you would see no value in a language arts program that emphasizes reading comprehension, and the development of writing and speaking abilities. You certainly practice what you preach. | ||
| Nakaille |
Challenge to DWM, Nan and others with both experience and strong opinions on the subject. Please provide a fuller outline of the method as you understand it. Please cite sources, preferably with links (as Nan did) to support your positions. Please discuss alternative methods that you would support as well. You are clearly very intelligent, concerned, well-read individuals. Please share your knowledge and try to avoid mudslinging since it does not help the rest of us develop informed opinions. Thanks. (See how civilized I can be when we're not discussing the reval?!  ) Bacata | ||
| Nan |
But, Bacata, HE STARTED IT...WHAAAAAA..Ok, Ok, before you scream, "I'm stopping the car right here and making you both walk home!" I will try to explain (again--I've got that Eastside feeling too!) why I don't favor programs such as Open Court without sounding like a five year old. Open Court is a phonics-based program published by the SRA/McGraw Hill Company. You can read about it on their main web site: http://www.sra4kids.com/ or get more information from a special Texas site: http://www.sra4kids.com/texas/ocr.html From the Texas site you can also link to some of the promotional advertising (and political ploys) they are pushing on parents there to get Open Court accepted. What I found interesting on the Texas site is that they promote the program as a "balanced literacy" program. This is just one of the deceiving things I have encountered while researching this program. Some others are discussed on the link I provided in my post above. Briefly, the problem with phonics-based programs is that they teach phonics as a separate, isolated subject, not connected with reading. Reading programs should stress contact with meaningful texts. Research has shown that the most effective way to teach phonics is through reading meaningful texts, not word drills. The program also depends heavily on workbooks, and offers few hands-on activities. This is not developmentally appropriate for young children. Experienced and talented teachers may also resent using lessons that are highly scripted. For students who enjoy books, and are eager readers, the program is sure to be boring and limiting. I've also heard that the writing activities in the program are weak. This program may be helpful to some students who need this kind of learning, but it is certainly not effective for all. Therefore, my main objection to Open Court, and the one I keep saying over and over again is that it is not an appropriate choice for a public school curriculum where there is an extremely heterogeneous student population. Since we live in a town where a low-income ESL student may sit next to a high-income "child of Harvard Grad" student whose bedroom is lined with bookshelves we need a reading program that will serve both. From what I have read about Open Court, it will serve neither. | ||
| Mck |
EJT: i'm a parent who loves Open Court. It's not just the "method", which is indeed phonics based, but also the extremely thoughtful choice of reading material: a nice blend of classics and more contemporary, multi-cultural reading. Includes poetry, fables. But while i look for links, i suggest you actually get over to OLS (call first!) and ask to see the series, and maybe talk to the teachers or Miss Bisogno, the principal That, in my opinion, is as valuable as reading what "experts" say. By the way, I'm curious about why you ask about Open Court... | ||
| Deadwhitemale |
I'm am not an "expert," just an educated parent. DWM | ||
| Eb1154 |
I don't know that much about Open Court but I am sure willing to try something other than the method our schools use. My one son is in the 5th grade and still has problems reading. The school told me that Hooked on Phonic wouldn't help him, guess what? It did!! He has learned more over the summer with my wife and Hooked on Phonic then he did in his 5 years in our schools. | ||
| Melidere |
Eb... i'm not being 'snide' (a word that probably ought to get tossed with 'flawed') but am honestly curious if you have considered the possiblity that ANYTHING that your wife and you spent the whole summer doing with him would have produced a positive result? That whole physics concept that studying a phenomena 'changes' it and the other studies showing that any 'change' that the 'observed' subject perceives as being monitored and measured will produce positive results...merely as a result of being monitored and measured. I've often mentioned and noticed that whenever we take our kids on vacation...particularly when they were smaller...that when we got back they seemed to have 'jumped' a level, and i've always understood that to be due to our undivided and unstressed attention for even a brief week or two. just a thought. in order to encourage reading in our house i love to just make a fire, get a book myself..and have a 'family reading time'. If they see and join us in the activity..they bring more enthusiasm to it. | ||
| Deadwhitemale |
Poor Melidere, believing everything is a spin off of the "Whole Earth" catalog. It is not "whole physics," there is no such thing. You are misstating the Uncertainty Principal, as to quantum spin. Not clintonian spin. Real quantum numbers, all three of which can not be observed at the same moment, define the state of a quantum particle. That is not "whole physics." Just advanced physics. Appropriate preparation includes calculus, thermodynamics, differential equations, and a smattering of unwhole educational knowledge. [And a good memory.] DWM | ||
| Deadwhitemale |
Melidere's "monitored and measured" makes for improvement (description) is of the Hawthorne Effect, based upon observations that workers at the Hawthorne G.E. factory performed better, for a while, after improvements in the lighting at the plant. But that was temporary. As will be any improvements in scores at SB based upon the huge increase in resources, and attention, and teacher quality poured into the school, at the expense of every other student in the district. DWM | ||
| Nohero |
Mr. D - I believe you read Melidere's post incorrectly, that is, not understanding the words in context (although you did read it correctly phonetically). She wrote "whole physics concept", as in "the whole concept which is in physics", and not "the concept which is in 'whole physics'". See, it is possible to read the words but not understand what they are saying. As for the "Hawthorne Effect" at Seth Boyden - well, you may have a point there. | ||
| Marie |
EJT, Leading researchers in reading instruction pretty much agree that the Reading Program used such as Open Court, Reading Mastery, Basic language Skills, Creating Independent readers, Success for All, is not as important as the METHOD of instruction used. I have found the following sites to be highly informative and might help to answer more of your questions. Particularly interesting and entertaining is the video presentation by Phyllis Hunter a reading manager and specialist for the Houston Independent School system. It can be viewed at: http://www.ConnectLive.com/events/dyslexia LD Online offers an overview of the NRP Report, prepared exclusively for us by Susan Hall, as well as links to all of the official Report documents at: http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/reading/teaching_children_to_read.html You can also view the 20-minute video: "Teaching Children to Read," produced by the NRP to help disseminate the findings of the Panel. Find the video at: http://www.ldonline.org/videos/teaching_children_to_read.ram | ||
| Nan |
Melidere, I think you could be a little more sensitive toward Eb1154's frustration over his son's reading problem. A fifth-grade child who needs help sounding out words is beyond a warm book by the fire remedy. By that age children are involved with high-level comprehension and evaluation of literature (which is probably why the teacher did not consider Hooked on Phonics a useful solution). Usually, a child with a severe reading problem is referred for a special evaluation that results in a written remediation plan. Obviously there is much we don't know about this situation, and because of that we should not be so quick to make judgements on the origin or resolution of the problem. Marie, I am curious about your sources for the statement about reading programs not being as important as the method used? Which leading researchers do you refer to? Are your statements meant for all students or just learning disabled? | ||
| Melidere |
Thank you, nohero. You read me correctly. DWM was 'hearing'/'reading' what he wanted to hear. | ||
| Melidere |
Nan, I apologize if asking a question is misconstrued as 'insensitive'. I didn't intend, in any way, to belittle the problem. | ||
| Nan |
Melidere, I'm sure you meant no harm, and maybe I'm being oversensitive, but reading Eb1145's post made me want to cry. Your reaction to it was not unlike something I would normally say, so I think that made me feel even worse. It wasn't the question you asked so much as the description of your family's easy enjoyment of literature that bothered me. If you can imagine the pain and frustration a parent would feel knowing that their ten year old child cannot read, you can also imagine that they would not appreciate hearing about how easy it is for another to integrate that process into family life. I think this was one of those "step on eggshells" posts that is best not responded to or with very great delicacy. | ||
| Melidere |
it's a bit of a leap from 'problems' reading to the anguish of a 'child that can't read'...not to mention that it sure sounded like they solved the problems over the summer. We are all reading and writing through a prism of our own experiences. The real question might be why you read so much into that. These boards are like one huge study in 'projection'. Just to be clear, i'm not criticizing you or being sarcastic...but delicacy is not something one can reasonably expect in this environment. (heh...not that i'm admitting to any in the first place). But, nuff said. sorry. | ||
| Nakaille |
I had the same reactions, Nan. For folks with kids who "eat" books like they're another food group, it may be hard to imagine the frustration and fear of families with children for whom it does not come easily. A friend whose family are all avid readers has a brother whose reading disorder was undiagnosed until he was 9 (he was really good at covering - would memorize the books that others read aloud.) As an adult and parent he is extremely anxious that his children learn to read and to enjoy reading. He himself gets very little pleasure from reading because it remains a struggle for him. He has a sense of what he is missing out on and doesn't want his kids to go through that. EB sounds appropriately frustrated. I for one am glad the summer phonics work is giving his kid a sense of success that he can build on. Nan's right, at this level in school what is needed is "high level comprehension" to tackle all the other subjects. But how do you get there if you're still decoding basic language? EB, I have some friends who have used a reading specialist in the Montclair area for their kid. Do you want me to find out the name of that individual? Bacata |
