Aside to TDSBNW: did the Ontario government remove cursive writing from the curriculum when we weren’t looking, by any chance?)

Cursive writing has not been in the curriculum for a long time.

Although many teachers believe it should be taught (and learned and practised by students), there is no justification for spending instructional time on it since it is not in the curriculum.  Some teachers get around this by assigning cursive writing practice for homework; others make it a “centre” in the classroom, still others try to work it in as “bell work” (settling-in activity for first 5-7 minutes when students enter from outside and attendance is taken).

However, I know of cases where teachers have been reprimanded for allowing students to waste class time doing cursive, and another instance where an OFIP inspector complained to administration about teachers teaching cursive.

I’ve been toying with the idea of teaching italic cursive and calling it “calligraphy” and, therefore, Art—but that’s risky too, since calligraphy is not in the art curriculum.

The Ministry has its enforcers everywhere.

Neither of my kids had writing instruction. One child never advanced from pencil to pen until Grade 7 and it was only because parents noticed and went to the teacher to inquire why students were still doing their work in pencil….and printing.

My sister, a 30-year veteran teacher, taught penmanship and cursive writing during art classes by teaching the kids calligraphy.  She said it was good for all the right reasons and also forced kids to learn how to hold a pen properly.  I have recommended the same when parents ask me what can they do when their kids don’t like writing.

Those of us who are old enough to remember “graduating” from pencils to ink, in the ante-diluvial age, used fountain pens.  Because we were actually “taught” in the primary grades how to properly hold a writing instrument, we knew that awful sound and feel of the nib scratching against the paper if it was not held correctly.

Kids don’t know how to hold a pencil because they are never taught how.  Writing becomes tiring, penmanship poor “chicken scratchings”, and too much effort is spent on the physical aspect
of writing instead of the mental expression.

I also see this translated into not knowing how to hold a fork properly.  And, as Malkin describes above, these things DO make an impression on prospective employers.

Ah handwriting, it is still present in the NL system, but as for instruction, that can be debated on. As the one article stated, “A systematic approach also
makes legible handwriting easier to teach and learn. For example, Zaner- Bloser developed a manuscript and cursive alphabet, each based on just four strokes. This system of common
strokes helps students learn each letter quickly and write more legibly. Instruction in manuscript writing supports reading by calling attention to
the strokes used to form each letter.”

There is a relationship between children with learning problems and difficulty in handwriting. Although it has not been proven, the researchers has seen this relationship, but it is also seen among the regular children. It is thought of being an instruction problem, rather than a sign of a learning problem. This, among other signs such as difficulty with buttoning, tying a shoe lace, are currently still being research.

That said, my child has difficulty with cursive and print writing. I was at my wits end, until I discovered Italic writing. There is no loops, Here is a sample of italic writing. http://www.studioarts.net/calligraphy/italic/hwlesson.html

Well, I was floored that the school insisted on that my child must learn cursive writing in the same manner as the other kids, and italic writing is not part of the curriculum. It did no manner if her Ns look like Ms, or her As look like Os, or her Os look like As or her 1s look like 7s or her 7s look like 1s.

Every year, her writing was a problem. By grade 6, she was allowed to print instead of cursive. At home, I continued on with the Italic handwriting. Now her cursive is a unique blend of Italic and classic cursive. One day, a student claim a note was written by my child. The teacher said to the student, it is a poor forgery of my child’s writing. But now since the topic is brought up, this summer I will be setting up another mini-program in italic handwriting, so all her cursive is in italic.

And what about the number 7. Some of her difficulties in math, was mistaking 1 for 7 or the 7 for a 1. I suggested to her to use the European 7, with there is short stroke going across the line that comes down. Can you believe it, even this was discouraged. I really cannot understand this, since it is widely used in college and university. By the way she uses the European 7 , over the objections.

Doretta is right about calligraphy.I brought a calligraphy kit back in grade 6, water colour paints and brushes, and started another mini-program at home. There was no time table, but my aim was to improve her fine motor control, and by improving it, it would improve her hand writing. At that time, all I was going on was a story about a severe dyslexic, who is a renown font and sign maker, and it all started with a calligraphy kit.

As for holding a pencil, no one is looking at the grip. And even if it was notice, there is no correction for it.

When I was volunteering with the Cubs, we asked the boys to write thank-you letters. One boy surprised me by doing his in cursive writing. He attended Kenneth Gordon School, a private school for kids with learning disabilities. I later spoke with his mum and she told me that cursive writing is often easier for kids with LD.  I’m sure that is true, but I also think that the school uses cursive writing as a way of re-teaching writing. It gives them a chance to make sure that the children are holding there pens properly, starting each letter at the correct place, and forming the letter by moving their pens in the correct direction. Not to be left in the 19th century, the school also teaches keyboarding. The children learn with a cover over their hands so that they can’t look at their fingers while they type.

Society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable.  Our children are are clearly victims who are not being looked after properly because of our apathy and in some cases fear.
The writing samples are terrible.  These poor kids have no education, so they’ve wasted their time in school.  How much worse does it have to get before taxpayers smarten up and demand a proper education for our children?  And another thing:  where the hell is the media?  Why aren’t they jumping all over our terrible excuse for an education system?  Have they been threatened and gagged by the unions?
Sorry.  I am so angry that our children are being robbed of one of the most precious gifts we can give them. 
I hope SQE’s blog goes into many homes around the world so people can see for themselves just what can happen when any group of people—unions, big business, or governments get out of control…

Over at the Core Knowledge blog, Robert Pondiscio has a post related to this discussion:
http://blog.coreknowledge.org/2010/06/07/annals-of-lying-to-children/

The NY State tests referred to are in the same genre as EQAO: holistically scored on a rubric basis, not on right/wrong, true/false, multiple choice.

Woops, I used the wrong type of of there. Maybe I’ll get a 10

Here is a link of a teacher’s attempt to improve her class EQAO math scores, with an unusual and rare form of instruction, that is not commonly used in public schools. Are you ready to hear this, the use of flash cards and direct instruction and drill. This teacher turned to this method, because she was concerned over her students lack of basic math facts. She was very successful.

“Before the provincial testing in May of that year, I did not really have any hard data from an outside source to show that my method of teaching math had been effective in increasing the students’ math scores. I did know however, that my class’s attitude towards math had certainly improved. On the whole, they were eager learners, always willing to try and displayed both confidence and competence in their approach to math. For myself, I had become excited about this way of teaching math problem solving skills. I could see the results clearly in the written responses that the children gave. This enabled me to focus more clearly on the process that the children used rather than the mere product. I gave much more corrective feedback, both oral and written. Seeing a child smile when you tell them what a great answer they have given is certainly a wonderful reward. My assessment methods changed in that I made sure to build in a time for the children to have another chance to try an assignment, after corrective feedback had been given.”

http://www.nipissingu.ca/oar/archive-Vol5No1-V511E.htm

Who says old fashioned techniques do not work. By being fluent in math facts, handwriting, and in other areas that requires practice for mastery, a student can concentrate on the problem at hand and content, and not worry about the small stuff, such as knowing the 2 + 2 = 4 or knowing the mechanics of writing.

Here is a link of a teacher’s attempt to improve her class EQAO math scores, with an unusual and rare form of instruction, that is not commonly used in public schools. Are you ready to hear this, the use of flash cards and direct instruction and drill. This teacher turned to this method, because she was concerned over her students lack of basic math facts. She was very successful.

I see she is from Grand Erie. I guess the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat Police have not reached her school yet. Some teachers I know in the TDSB, achieving better than average results by similarly encouraging students to learn the math facts and by teaching problem-solving strategies explicitly, were forbidden to continue to do this because it wasn’t “authentic” learning.

Maybe her experiment was a couple of years ago—I noticed this person is a VP now. The Ministry police will exterminate any efforts to replicate her success, never fear.

12 problem solving strategies is far too many, anyhow. Singapore math relies on teaching one main strategy- bar modeling - with great success. It bridges the concrete-to-abstract in a way that leads students to master algebra later on.

When I started the math tutoring at home, I also used the same kind of method that Singapore math uses. But back than, I did not know it was called something. It made sense to me, because it would prepare her to do advance math. I only have two methods, and one of them is bar modeling. Both are very simple to grasp.

What my child needs and a great many other children, is a bridge between concrete to abstract. My child is proof, that back in grade 3, it was deem she was always going to do poor in math, and she just could not do it. Now that she is an A student, she is breezing through algebra without any trouble what so ever. However, she still does have her own methods, and none of them are deem suitable. This is one of the concerns by the teachers, she may indeed fail the grade 9 CRT, because she will be using her own methods, even though the answer is the correct one.

Do you really mean the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat goes after teachers who are teaching the approved methods?  If that is the case, no wonder the private tutors have a waiting list for math.

http://nychold.org/art-hoven-el-0711.pdf

Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat-whole language and whole math.

A friend-educator-in a remote Northern school board said they came to do a workshop on inferencing-the average reading grade of this grade 7 class was grade 2-she said they all were infuriated-it`s so rude to do this to the teachers.But,they are forced to do it.
Just imagine what the trip cost the tax payers and the board.
Like a psychologist in a school board said-it is hard to believe what they dictate at the Ministry with all the research being so accessible from the internet-but they keep on insisting that educators deliver disproven theories…
My old addage -what is it?Perhaps a collusion with the publishers or something sordid like that.

Do you really mean the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat goes after teachers who are teaching the approved methods?

They go after teachers who are NOT using the approved approaches (whole language/whole math, as Jo Anne said).

Teaching number facts explicitly and sequentially, teaching algorithms explicitly and sequentially, teaching problem-solving strategies in an explicit and sequenced way: none of these things are “approved”—students are supposed to use calculators and develop their own algorithms.Class time is not to be wasted on “rote learning.”

Oh, and teachers must have students write pages and pages to “explain their thinking.”  All higher-level cognition, you see, no “rote” work or “memorizing.” Shudder!

Jo-Anne, I can go you one better than the remote Northern school board example.  It might have been the same Literacy Secretariat Gestapo, but they came to a classroom (different school from mine) where a teacher I used to work with—really outstanding teacher—teaches middle school kids with multiple disabilities, many of whom are non-verbal and at a preschool level of language and cognition. They lectured her for hours on using graphic organizers (T-charts, Venn diagrams, etc) to teach her students “higher order” reading comprehension skills, and using “math journals’ to write about their problem solving (neat trick for kids who can’t reliably write their names or count to ten). Clearly these gurus knew zip about teaching language to severely disabled individuals. It would be good for a laugh if it weren’t (1) a waste of resources, as Jo-Anne pointed out, (2) interference with real and effective education of children who need an alternative curriculum (3) a form of harrassment, intentional or not, of a highly competent teacher.

Yes, private centres can expect to do brisk business teaching basic skills both to regular kids who simply have not been effectively taught, and to kids with real handicaps who are being forced to waste instructional time with ridiculously inappropriate or useless activities.

On a different note,  I thought something more significant in the OSSLT samples than the absence of cursive writing was the absence of any expectation for formal written English. Unless I read too fast and missed something, every written response called for the student to write a personal opinion, a personal reflection or something else in the first person. I have heard both post-secondary faculty and employers mention that students seem not to have learned to write about anything except their feelings or opinions, and the OSSLT samples suggest that this is in fact the emphasis.

It certainly is in K-8, and perhaps rightly so (though I know students in Grade 5 and up could be taught how to write a brief analysis or argument in formal academic language, in the third person), but I would have expected some emphasis on formal writing in 9-10 and beyond.

No longer do I need to wonder, why the LA homework was always asking for feelings, opinion and I wasted a lot of time at home with it. By grade 8, I sat down with my child, and taught her the formal way, opinion, persuasive argument, etc., using the 1-3-1 method.  Think in third person, but put it down as first person. You would not believe what she said after I make the comment to think in third person. “But that would be lying.”  I responded no one is going to know any differently, and it will allow you to keep your feelings private, and just put down on paper the feelings of the characters in the story, as though they are your own feelings.

Somehow my child had gotten the idea, that what you write, must be the truth.  No wonder, she hated journal writing in the earlier grades. Especially when there was the demand of more descriptive vocabulary and more complex sentences. Back than she had major trouble where a period or a comma should go, I guess that it is character development at play here. And here I thought character development is about the characters in a book.

“Teaching number facts explicitly and sequentially, teaching algorithms explicitly and sequentially, teaching problem-solving strategies in an explicit and sequenced way: none of these things are “approved”—students are supposed to use calculators and develop their own algorithms.Class time is not to be wasted on “rote learning.“

And there is no more wondering why the upgrading courses in the colleges are full of paying students, relearning the facts, that were never learned in the K-12 system.

Doretta and Malkin:
This “literacy and numeracy secretariat” thing is new to me.  What I’m hearing, though, is giving me the willies.  Would you mind writing some posts on this thing some time.

I did the old two minute google on “literacy and numeracy secretariat”.  What I’ve picked up so far is that it was created in 2004 and had a 2008-2009 total expenditure of ... uh ... did I read that right?  $339,579,000????

Please tell me this is spending that would have happenned anyway and has been allocated to the LaNS as opposed to “additional” spending.

It`s a new portfolio created by McGuinty:)-the education Minister.

What I have heard is it is a 25 million a year monster-maybe it`s even worse?

I think it hires 8,000 teachers-who"fly around”.

Jo-Anne, any idea if this was something initiated (or left behind) by the Tories, or is it the result of “the full McGuinty”?

Full McGuinty

I met with Michael Fullan asap after I heard about it`s Genesis-to show him the reading research conclusions from the NICHD-a half billion dollar longitudinal study-Harvard-Yale-etc…asking the question"How do children learn to read?“and what were their findings.

I also met with Avis Glaze-her team-very committed to metacognition-have you noticed?

Here is an audit conducted for 2009, of the Literacy and Numeracy outfit. Look as through they have problems in the administration end.

http://www.auditor.on.ca/en/reports_en/en09/307en09.pdf

I don`t believe McGuinty`s raised the bar-he couldn`t have with this curriculum-I believe they`ve dumbed down the tests-

We know from people on the inside that so many kids aren`t learning to read and spell-and print and cursive ,and do math-which has a high language component because of how they teach it-so it`s greatly affected by fuzzy reading..

Here we go.  The $339,579,000 figure I mentioned above is the *cumulative* amount spent by the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat from 2004 (inception) through 2008/2009.  The amount spent by LaNS in 2008/2009 was $75,412,000.

However, I’m not clear if LaNS transfers the money to boards for their use, or if LaNS spends it itself.

I just read all the answers-let`s all read them all-including Doug-
One kid wasn`t too bad-probably a girl…

Considering the focus on comprehension and critical thinking-AND NOTHING ELSE….

It`s the most obviously missing skill,then grammar,then sequencing of thought,then handwriting-as Malkin stated and observed.

Looks like a grade 6 literacy student-not grade 10..
Dumbing down the tests?

I didn’t consider any of the answers ‘not too bad’: they were varying degrees of lousy.  Considering the wealth of this country, and what we’re paying staff working in education (something like 85% sof our tax dollars), the kids aren’t getting anything.  We’re just used to seeing bad results.  We should look at what 15-yr-old children in other countries are doing on their tests for comparison.

Bev-I specialize in chaos so I`m used to seeing even worse-I did say they were grade 6 level-at best-to think they`re grade 10 is SHAMEFUL-You`re right!

Regarding tests and standards in other countries, Malkin had posted and English test used in Germany to test their knowledge of English.

Personally I thought it was higher level than our grade 10 English test especially in terms of grammar and spelling requirements.

Let’s ask ourselves, how many of our students would be able to manage in French despite spending so much time learning it?

What’s different in continental Europe: a different belief system that anybody can learn with sequential teaching and repetition, different teaching methods and having standards: entrance or exit exams.

Thanks for letting us know about the English test for 15-yr-old German students, Europe.  Very interesting when juxtaposed with Ontario’s grade 10 literacy test.  But never mind how well Ontario’s students would do in French—the vast majority wouldn’t be able to pass it in English!

“I have heard both post-secondary faculty and employers mention that students seem not to have learned to write about anything except their feelings or opinions, and the OSSLT samples suggest that this is in fact the emphasis.”

Thanks TDSBW, this is an example of the products of pervasive constructivism in “progressive” curricula.