How many times must it be pointed out that this has been researched to death and students retained at grade level (flunked) do worse than those not retained.

Just love this statement - ““Doretta, I would rather stick needles in my eyes,” I told her bluntly. “I admire you. I appreciate the work that you are doing. But no amount of money on this planet Earth could drag me back into a philosophical fight with teachers’ unions and the ossified bureaucracy of the education establishment.”

I would add petrified - as in petrified wood, meaning rock or stone. Nothing dissuades the educators from their goals of future illiteracy based on the pedagogy of educating according to the social-income status of students. ” Her response floored me: “The kindergarten curriculum is a play-based curriculum,” I was told. “There is no reading component in kindergarten.”
No reading in kindergarten? Even for bright, bored kids? What exactly are they doing all day?
Sounds like daycare to me. And if a few thousand more grade two boys are promoted without learning to read, well, who’s counting? ” So what is in store for the little kiddies in all-day kindergarten? http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/kindergarten.html

On the first link, page 45 - Know any kids like this? I don’t, but its all about conditioning the kids so they are prepped to come out one day in the near feature, “Mommy and Daddy, you don’t know anything. Only the teacher knows everything, and I be telling the teacher tomorrow you are forcing me to memorized the times table and making me practice my piano, for the piano recital.”  Worse, telling on parents for having inappropriate children books saying learning to read well is a right for all children. After all, reading is an undertaking of a political act, where one does not need to read well or understand the words. “Critical literacy is the capacity for a particular type of critical thinking that involves looking beyond the literal meaning of a text to determine what is present and what is missing, in order to analyse and evaluate the text’s complete meaning and the author’s intent. Critical literacy goes beyond conventional critical thinking by focusing on issues related to fairness, equity, and social justice. Critically literate children adopt a critical stance, asking what view of the world the text advances and whether they find this view acceptable, who benefits from the text, and how the reader is influenced.”

And no there is no reading component to the all-day kindergarten. However I found rich sources of studies, articles going back since the 1980s.  that early childhood education and all-day kindergarten has always been a political sell to the middle-class as free daycare. ” Full-day kindergarten is nothing but a lucrative perk for middle-class parents.
And, finally, the Liberals aren’t making any bones about it. “The Ontario government will continue to help people in their everyday lives, especially middle-income families, through measures that include ... full-day kindergarten, which saves parents up to $6,500 per child…”Having four- and five-year-olds attending school all day was never about ensuring highly educated Ontarians would thrive in a competitive global economy, as Dalton McGuinty was fond of espousing.”
http://www.yorkregion.com/opinion-story/4423669-column-full-day-kindergarten-about-buying-votes/

Middle-class of some means gets free daycare, while the lower middle-class and below loses their subsidies in other government and other semi-private daycare/nursery schools. All are force to used the free daycare at the local school. However the upper middle-class have options , are are not beholden to the public school.  http://www.wilsonquarterly.com/essays/new-kindergarten

And in a more recent 2014 article - “Public schools will continue to reinforce inequality and harden achievement gaps until gross disparities in children’s early development are narrowed. But we must avoid squandering scarce dollars on full-day programs for children who gain little from preschool—essentially to buy the political support of their well-off parents. The rekindled push to expand preschool is welcome. ”  http://www.standard.net/stories/2014/02/10/when-preschool-matters-most

Why did the Ontario Education removed it from their web site? Who knows, because it has been common place knowledge for well over 20 years that all-day kindergarten is all about giving the upper middle-class a break on daycare fees. So what about all-day kindergarten helping in reading for the little kiddies? While exploring, reading each and every word. my poor kid would not be tested for phonemic awareness, and neither for any other kids. There is no ongoing diagnostic testing to test for reading difficulties. Ergo the reading component has been completely removed from the kindergarten curriculum and program.

And yet amazingly popular. Liz Witmer told Hudak it would be Suicide to oppose it. Some don’t listen.

What do they call that when parties. Win elections and legislate popular policy? Oh ya, they call it democracy.

Doug,stick to politics,you know not what you speak of.
Early reading intervention based on research and even high school reading intervention helps students tremendously.Preventing as many reading problems as possible is even better.
No one is speaking of holding them back,you read that?

Your chant is one of ignorance,reading research is years ahead of what is happening in our schools and hasn`t caught up yet.
We must keep trying to help the students.
Please don`t send your Finland story.We get it,we read it and we heard you.
Good luck in the next election and with your union work.

And you know more than the people who designed the Ontario program. Pleeeese

Look at the headline. “Passed to the next grade”

Oh well Doug. your little missive of social promotion - here is an update. Joanne there is a little bit in the article - “She sighed and replied, “I think of those kids, those boys, who will get passed on from grade 1 to grade 2 to grade 3 to grade 4 without ever learning to read. By grade 6, they are ‘behaviour problems.’ By high school, they are drop outs on drugs. I try to think of them. That is why I am here.”

We all know it happens, kids being passed on from one grade to the next. It is a shameful practice and finally some of the experts are listening. Mind you its not the educators, they rather deal with kids in grade 11 who can’t do the work because of low reading ability.

“Social promotion is the main problem in our education system now,” says Pat Lamb, a teacher who in her long career has taught everything from Kindergarten to Home Economics to GED courses. “In 19 years [teaching GED classes], I can count on two hands the number of students who knew their multiplication tables. And these are typically taught in the third grade,” she says. Lamb advocates learning levels that are based on skill acquisition, not age. She’s often heard her GED students say that classes moved too fast. In her opinion, “They weren’t succeeding because they were passed along to deeper waters when they weren’t ready.” One of her own children was held back in fourth grade. “It gave him a chance to learn in more detail what was covered,” she says. “He became an excellent reader.”
http://www.greatschools.org/students/4150-repeating-a-grade.gs

The position statement on retention an social promotion for Reading Rockets - http://www.readingrockets.org/article/23376

A different twist - Personally it really is institutionalized systemic discrimination of the public K to 12 - “Racism now is not the same as the racism of the early twentieth century. There are laws forbidding colleges and employers from rejecting applicants on the basis of race. Yet, we know it persists throughout society.

Today, institutionalized racism is allegedly found in policies that allow for Hartford students — mainly poor, mainly racial/ethnic minorities — to meander through a system and come out the other side having gained little knowledge and few skills. One veteran Hartford school teacher says that the low standards and watered down curriculum are responsible for creating a class of ‘drones’ who are destined to function at the working class level. Most will be unable to attain success at anything higher than community college or trade schools.  In short, we are teaching in a situation that is designed to prevent our minority students from succeeding in our culture.” http://www.realhartford.org/2011/02/28/failing-students-through-social-promotion-poor-planning-and-skewed-testing-policies/

On another note - back to kindergarten - What follows are the top readiness skills that kindergarten teachers look for.  http://www.scholastic.com/parents/resources/article/what-to-expect-grade/ready-kindergarten

My kid had all the above, but the K to 12 establishment will fail kids like my youngest. They don’t do any effective diagnostic testing for reading or any of the other cognitive processes that can be measured. They might discovered over half of the classroom have phonemic awareness difficulties, and a few like my kid who are the extreme with oral vocabularies that are three times the size of average children.

It was just last week, the new urgent plea from the K to 12, is to send home new orders for parents to trained their little darlings in bathroom etiquette and other such polite mannerisms that meets the educators’ criteria. A mother commented - Now the kids have to smile while they are being insulted by one of their classmates, and learned from each other what is polite bathroom etiquette. When I went to school, all of it was taught. The boys usually got the principal to look after them and the girls got the teacher. By grade 3 it all ended, and it was expected we knew what good bathroom manners in a school washroom was. Now the education establishment is taking it further by training the parents and correcting their bathroom etiquette in the home. Apparently its all the fault of parents who did not teach them good manners at home.

Note Doug, all the above articles - it is stressed that all must be taught directly, and not through some magical osmosis method or trick. Social promotion does no good, if the student is not receiving corrective remediation that allows the student to catch up to grade level. Personally I think of social promotion as education malpractice. I personally observed the process, and all three students dropped out of high school, who were in my youngest grade at one point.

Nancy,I like your last paragraph.

Doug,the Ontario curriculum never listened to Dr.Keith Stanovich either,someone published in 2000 peer reviewed articles on Reading.A Canadian,interviewed on Children of the Code.
I recommend the article,Romancing the Reality.

There is a major caveat between the research and the Ontario curriculum.Perhaps you can tell us why?

Math, Literacy, All For Social Justice?

What’s happening?  Is there a new Religion, and it’s using public schools for proselytizing and recruitment?

I was following the Math Petitions in Canada and checked into some texts from Amazon.  Well, I was shocked.  There were tons about Math and Social Justice.  There was even one with this in the title — “Against Common Sense”.  And there was another presumptuous one declaring their Social Justice Mathematics was in the public interest.

I took a look at Literacy Texts — Yep, tons there also on social justice.  One has this in the title — “Informed Agitation”. 

What shocked me is the amount and the fact that they’ve been around for at least 10 years.  Maybe it’s too late already — the die has been cast? 

All this 21st Century Learning, Social Justice, Sustainability, etc., etc. is sounding way too much like a Religion.  Time for choices and more opportunities for Education Debit Cards so parents can search for schools without all this religion!
Wall Street Journal says more about Arizona’s Ed Debit Plan http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304819004579490120210688350
 
If I had young kids and there were Education Debit Cards I’d surely make sure that the FIRST priority spending would be on acquiring excellent Reading and Comprehension Skills.

I think Ontario and Canada generally know what they are doing. We are the most educated people on the planet by far.

All rightie then,

Boo boos,  back to Finland!  This is an exceptional blog if you want to track attention deficit disorder.

FINLAND-  when are children taught formally to read? NOT IN KINDERGARTEN!!!!!! 

Experts chime in.  I know the answer…..  How does Finland do in terms of literacy competency?  Again experts….....do chime in.

Is everyone on this blog a fun sucker?  Play is learning through out the animal kingdom.  Find an orange lollipop and read something that is NOT this blog.

Mirka

http://www.reidlyon.com/edpolicy/2-THE-RIGHT-TO-READ-AND-THE-RESPONSIBILITY-TO-TEACH.pdf

Mirka,the end of the article has recommendations for early grade instruction.

I see Mirka, like other educators do not stray into the data streams that are published by the European Union government, and where the big education gurus hang out, collaborating with government. The newest worry is the increasing percentage of adults with low literacy and numeracy skills. It is particular worrisome because Finland is expected to reach the 40 % mark by 2015. The Finnish language is one of the easiest language to learned in the world. The increasing number of adults, students having low literacy and numeracy skills is on the rise in Europe with the UK leading the pack on the higher percentage of students/adults with low literacy and numeracy skills. Some countries like Estonia and Poland have decided to dropped the whole language and dropped the fuzzy progressive math for more traditional fare based on the science and the research. It certainly shows in the stats where Poland and Estonia are leaders, and before the countries were at the bottom. If one is looking for scientists, look no further than Poland, according to Germany. That said, a child with LD in Europe has a better chance of having their language and reading problems being corrected than a child in Canada. In Canada, a laptop is thrown at them and a few other gadgets but corrective remediation? Not a chance, as the only fare in the public K to 12 schools are learning how to guess words using whole language methods.

As for the child-centered play, the plans are afoot to extend play into the primary grades of 1 to 3. Its all in the new plans of Alberta’s Inspiring Education and Ontario’s Achieving Excellence. Consultations are only with the K to 12 education establishment and the formal partnerships of the big education private sector. The fix is in, the teachers’ unions are on board for the next stage of education according to the social-economic status of students and ideological-driven education.

Take note there will be no collection of data such as how many students are passed from one grade to the next who are two years behind. No data as to how many students have been denied access to SE services. No data as to the percentages of students straddling the 50 % mark. The biggest push will be the elimination of standard and diagnostic testing. The latter, no diagnostic testing will give the classroom educators the ability more tools to conned parents that their little darlings are wonderful readers, and to throw darts at parental concerns while delaying access to formal testing when the little darlings are in grade 11. 

Mirka should tried a little harder on using evidence to support her contentions and high rhetoric. I can Mirka, and all it takes is a few clicks, a few hours to explore the European pages of what I considered very thoughtful for the bureaucratic European Union.  I wonder what the percentage of parents and private sector education developers are met with the full force of the education establishment using their manual of propaganda 101 to take down the enemies who dare question the education establishment and their methods. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_techniques

” Together we pitched this product to a meeting of one of Canada’s largest school boards. Jo-Anne gave a good, concise description of the program, which is intended for remedial readers – those who are falling behind and need help quickly.
Nothing could have prepared me for what came next: she was verbally attacked and insulted by the “educators” at the table, all of whom were proponents of the whole language theory of reading. The comments weren’t professional; they were a venomous and vitriolic personal attack. Jo-Anne sat stoically as the Ph.D specialists in the room heaped scorn upon her and the entire theory of Phonics.
I’m sure Jesus got a warmer reception from the Pharisees. Evidence and results went right out the window; tightly held personal beliefs were the basis of every remark. “

Or how many parents will be arrested for voicing an opposing opinion?  Free speech is not the forte of the K to 12, nor is the public K to 12 defenders of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Nancy who do you really think is reading all of that?

Same old stuff.

I hope it is cathartic for you.

Jo Anne,

Excellent article, already forwarded to destinations where I hope it can do some good.  thank you.

Hopefully we do agree that there is a stage in learning where play is learning?  Finland does not employ formal instruction for learning till grade three and they kick our ass when it comes to literacy results.

I may be a bit jaded as spring is EQAO literacy te$ting .  Ridiculous shortsighted endeavor at best.

Do appreciate your resource - it will do good things in the system!

all the best,

Mirka

Mirka if true, please forward the web site - Children of the Code - http://www.childrenofthecode.org/

Dr. Lyon and the world’s top reading science researchers are at your disposal.  http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/lyon.htm

And here - http://www.childrenofthecode.org/parents/reading.htm

Teaching Teachers to Teach Reading - http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/moats.htm

The sister site - Stewarding Healthy Learning - http://www.learningstewards.org/

Of importance is Unhealthy Learning - http://www.learningstewards.org/unhealthy-learning/

And Mind Shame - http://www.learningstewards.org/mind-shame/

By the way Mirka, the education ministries across Canada and the state education bureaus in the United States, have all the reading science along with the advances of learning including the research over the last 50 years, proving without a doubt that whole language or the new name, balanced literacy is not an effective reading instruction approach. One will find the material sitting on dusty shelves,unread and unappreciated by the K to 12 education establishment.

At the education faculties, there is a few Canadian researchers that are very much part of the crowd of the reading science, that would only be too happy to lead the revolution based on the reading science for 95 to 97 % of students becoming good readers and by extension good writers.

Mirka, the whole reason for the introduction of full day kindergarden in Ontario was to better prepare our kids for grade1, not to offer free day care.

It is only fair to evaluate if the full day kindergarden makes a difference in the elementary education outcomes.

Most grade 1 teachers expect students to come in knowing at least some of the letters and some sight words.
My personal experience? My son’s grade 1 english teacher has never, even one reviewed the shapes of the letters, let aside teach them during the full grade1. ?!

Elementary teachers were saying and continue to say that teaching everybody to read is difficult because due to differences in socio-economic background and home environments a lot of kids were starting grade 1 lacking adequate social skills, not having been exposed to books, not having been read to at home and not knowing at least some of the letters the full day kindergarden’s goal was to bring all the kids to a more even level at the start of grade 1.

After what I have seen I advise any parent to teach their child to read using a phonetic method - Malkin’s Stairway to Reading is an excellent one - ideally before the start of grade 1. 
The reason? The way reading is (not) taught in elementary school builds poor habits such as guessing words, skipping words, incorrect spelling. This catches up with the kid sooner or later, usually around grade 4 or 5. By that time the habits are so entrenched that they remain poor readers and writers for life, regardless of how smart they may be otherwise.

Europe, when you say that you’ve heard teachers lament that children oftentimes come to school completely unexposed to books, and not knowing their letters, it forces me to ask the teachers:  aren’t you supposed to be exposing your students to books, and teaching them to read?  I thought that this was what public education was all about:  a great equalizer because children from all socio-economic backgrounds were to get the same education; yet the teachers who are saying this are implying the opposite.
hmmm.  Time for vouchers and charter schools, because public education has completely lost its way…