I wish Dr. Engelmann’s work was more widely known!

He explains very clearly in his books how to break down the learning into steps so that ambiguity is decreased at every step.

If we had curriculum and textbooks developed that way, and the teachers followed them the majority of our current problems would go away.

If one looks at “Jump Math” materials, these materials conform to Dr. Engelmanns curriculum development principles.

And ... I still don’t understand, why do we wait until the end of grade 3 to expect a student to know how to read?

It’s way too late. By that time they have lost heart and they have been turned off from learning.

I think a more appropriate expectation would be for all students to know how to read any word that follows phonetic rules.

As a quick rule of thumb I would propose as a way of assesing reading at the end of grade 1 the following:
- Choose any book from the Berenstein Bears series ( the thin ones, not the chapter ones) and have the student read 2 random pages at first sight.
If the student can read correctly - even if he is slow -with less than 2 mistakes per page then he is fine.

What do you think? Would this be a reasonable expectation?

Siefgried Engelmann, among the other researchers involved in cognitive and the learning sciences, have had much of their work suppressed by the public education system. Much of it because it would put an end to the profitable non-scientific education theories to an end, and the halt to the forever growing expenditures in the education system.

On this link, in an interview, Engelmann states:
“David Boulton: So ‘Project Follow Through’ was a prototype ? a model that would later be followed in many ways by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Siegfried Engelmann: Right, right. The APT findings were suppressed largely for political reasons. In 1976 when Follow Through was being evaluated, Gene Glass, head of the Ford Foundation at the time, appealed to the National Institutes of Health with an incredible statement.  He said something to the effect that, “The use of quantitative data is inappropriate and what we need is case studies. We need to document various aspects of the program so that informed consumers can make intelligent decisions.”

http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/engelmann.htm

It is why as a collective group, they have moved to release their findings directly to the general public, without fees, or subscriptions. Most of the research, is not relay to the bottom of the education system, and where front line teachers and parents remain ignorant of this knowledge.

As I have discovered, teachers in my community are amazed when I hand copies of important research, some of it dated back to the 80s and 70s, they asked the questions, why no one inform them, that this existed. It would have made their work as a teacher much easier.

One teacher asked me a year ago, why are you supplying us with this information. I explained the why, and now that you have it, to work to change the system, where teaching methods are based on science, rather than than philosophies that are subjective, and depends greatly on the knowledge that a teacher processes. The teacher than asked, that would be difficult. I than responded, just think how difficult it has been for me, to inform the powers to be to get some effective action regarding my child’s learning difficulties. But a good start, would be to take some of the teaching techniques to heart, and start practicing them in the classroom.

I have observed that this is happening at least in my child’s classes. My child, reports the change in teaching methods,where the latest example, is happening in the math class. If the student, is just not getting it, the way it was instructed after a few tries, than time to show them another method. No point insisting that the student must use only the method that has been instructed and approved by the education authorities. In the case of my child, she came home all excited that she knows how to divide polynomials by using the old fashioned techniques of canceling.

A method that is not used often, because you need to be well grounded on basic multiplication facts. In today’s math books, and how it is taught, the most efficient method is rarely ever used, in favour of other methods that the knowledge of basic facts is not a requirement to do the problem. Another reason to put forward, why the schools are in such a mess.

What a beautiful thing seeing children able to read.
Too bad Dalton and his union buddies won’t allow a programme like this here—so sad, and very mean-spirited to deprive our children…
Shame on our government and our unions!

If McGuinty has an opinion on Engelman it is news to me. Engelman’s programs are used in lots of Ontario schools. The ones I hear the most about are Corrective Reading and a couple of writing programs, can’t remember the titles. I went to the Reading for the Love of It conference and saw quite a few of Engelman’s programs for sale. They are usually used in resource or special classes, however, because you have to group the students by the right instructional level (not ability) and a teacher with an average class would have to have about 5 groups in every subject, an unworkable situation.

I don’t know about OSSTF but the elementary teachers’ union is not opposed to Engelman or his programs; why would they be? They support giving teachers the tools they need, but they don’t have much if any influence on what those tools are. With the new Ministry expectations for “differentiated” instruction (DI), teachers are supposed to write lesson plans for every student in every subject in theory. Are there resources? No. Every teacher has to reinvent the wheel and write their own curriculum. That is wasted time we could be spending on students.

A colleague was telling me yesterday about how well Engelman’s book for parents is helping her teach her young child (14 mo), all interactive.

Thank you Dr Englemann

I can read due to a wonderful headstrong Special Ed teacher named Lois Eddy, my diligent mother and my aunt, who was the local French teacher and pulled a lot of strings.
Lois Eddy was my aunt’s next door neighbour and a known poop disturber within the Whitby, ON school system. She taught her 8 children in our SE class to read. She taught using wordbooks with funny letters and snapping fingers. I could never figure out how she did it till I got serious about my kids reading difficulties. When I figured out that it sounded a lot (not alot) like DI, I went hunting for early seventies workbooks, I found and recognized my childhood SRA workbooks on ebay, mystery finally solved.

Urbanteach, I feel sorry that you are given unreasonable demands to use this resource. I noticed when we demanded (shamed would be a better word) our school to use Stairway to Reading the principal immediately began making changes to the program, IMHO to sabotage the program. Part of the teachers ?individual flare? argument that the union puts forth is in reality highly damaging to the effectiveness of these types of programs. There is a reason, backed by massive research, that the program is scripted in the way they are and why they ask the teachers not to stray from the script.
Saying you can use this program is great, but not supporting the teacher properly would lead most here to believe they are purposely sabotaging these programs.

Mrs. Eddy had a small SE class that she could give individual attention to each student, she also broke the rules by focusing on reading only for the most part of the year. I can read due to an excellent teacher who took no poop from the powers that be. The board hated her guts, ?Too outspoken and the board made her life miserable? my aunt told us later. ?If one wanted to keep their job you did not openly rock the boat?. Eventually Mrs. Eddy retired from the board in disgust. 

The only other memory I have of this time with Mrs. Eddy was being given the important job of helping (obviously mentoring) a much less fortunate, mildly retarded and stuttering little boy in our class. And I do remember being at a parent/teacher night and this blubbering mother hugging me and Mrs. Eddy. I asked my mother if she remembered that night she said ?Certainly, she was crying because Lois Eddy and you (an 8 year old SE student) taught that child to read.?

DI and Engelman’s programs have as a main premise grouping by ability and starting at the right point in the program based on ability.

If you look at “Stairway to Reading” it carefully tells you where to start based on testing the ability of the student.

These are also programs that have been tested the way they are, scripted because the sequence of learning, the words being used are what has been proven to work through extensive testing.

If you don’t have grouping by ability or you don’t follow the programs in the way they are written, if you take “creative breaks” to change the order of things or skip things or use different explanations for a lesson then yes maybe somebody is getting good ideeas from DI programs but it is not DI.

By using DI programs I meant using them in the regular classes most of the time in their spirit and their letter.

Sprinkling bits and pieces of programs that were carefully thought out and tested as a sequence and were meant for students grouped by ability and labeling it DI is either gross missunderstanding or trying to discredit methods that work.

That’s one of my biggest fears with “Stairway to Reading” and “Jump Math”.

The fact that somebody is using some exercises from either one, or doing a few lessons from the method does not mean that they are using the method.
While it may still be a step forward in the right direction, but it will be nowhere near to using the programs the way they were meant and tested.

Yes, having different instructional levels of in a class is a big problem and makes teaching grades 3 and higher a progressively more and more difficult task.

What are the causes of different instructional levels in a class?

- Ineffective reading, writing and math programs in grades 1 and 2

- Social promotion supposedly not to hurt the self-esteem of the student, practically probably to hide and postpone problems from parents

- Our cultural acceptance of the myth that students learn on their own regardless of how they are taught and that when the child is “ready” he will magicall blossom. Thus we do nothing for a long time, waiting for the magic to happen.
If it happens because parents eventually pay for tutoring the myth is proven if it doesn’t then well .., the child has a “learning disability”.

- Our cultural acceptance of the myth that even for basic tasks like reading, writing, arithmetic what determines performance is natural ability and not the teaching method and the amount of practice dedicated to these activities.
Thus we accept that teaching methods don’t matter and that practice and hard work don’t matter much because a child either “has it” or he doesn’t.

Urban Teach, regarding whether or not Mr.McGuinty has an opinion regarding the Direct Instruction materials, he certainly does keep them out of the classroom. While it is true that DI materials are being used by a few spec ed teachers, they are very unlikely to be used in regular classrooms. The mechanism that keeps them out is the Trillium List (http://www.curriculum.org/occ/trillium/index.shtml),the province’s list of approved textbooks. If a book does not appear on this list, it is illegal for a school board to use its funding to buy class sets of it. No DI textbooks appear on the Trillium List. It may be that the premier is unaware of this, in the same way that he was apparently unaware of the revisions to the sex education curriculum, but nevertheless the buck stops with him.

Now I will add further comments on SRA Directed Instruction, on the comments of Urbanteach.

It has not been my observations, nor have I seen it anywhere in Canada, at any public board, at any education ministry, the publication and the regular use of SRA and any other researched-based corrective reading programs or direct instruction curriculum. Otherwise, I would have found it a long time ago. After Urbanteach comments, I once again went out searching to see if my observations were incorrect.

This is what I have found.
1. As stated by others, it is the individual teachers, here or there that may be using SRA direct instruction, on their own dime, and at the same bucking the system.
(ie) The school down the road, the teachers are bucking the system, using SRA direct instruction, and other such programs. The only school in the region, can teach children who are considered incapable of being taught to read, are reading at grade level, within 1 year. All done on their own dime and time. The school is a rural K-12 school.

2. The majority of private services, including the rather expensive tutoring by psychologists, who are offering this type of service, are using SRA and as well as other programs like SRA.

3. There is collaborations, with school boards and private service, or in some cases the Toronto Sick Kids Hospital, to provide SRA instruction either for a fee or in the Waterloo example at the Schools.

http://www.oakvilleprep.ca/about.htm

The Waterloo report, on page 6, under Research to Help Children Read.
http://www.phs75th.com/annualreport/annual_report_2006.pdf

4. American prisons are using SRA instruction in reading because it does not need highly trained teachers. Here is one report on the use of SRA in an American prison.
http://www.allbusiness.com/technology/1103311-1.html

5. SRA instruction is being used at a few school boards for the autism children, and other children with severe learning difficulties. But the use of SRA instruction, is rare for the SE child, in Canadian schools, and even rarer for children who fall into the mild to moderate category, and where most are sitting in the regular classroom, with various weak reading skills.

6. Plenty of theses (thesis)  on the net, by the educators themselves, studying SRA, finding very favourable results, but no action on their part. One wonders why, but perhaps Urbanteach is correct in his assessment that teachers have no control over curriculum. But if that is the case, than why have teachers on all the committees sorting out curriculum, computer software, if teachers are nothing but yes people?

The last link, is the SRA instruction materials, and check out the very reasonable prices. One wonders why the public education system do not use SRA, priced below many of the present curriculum being used. One could indeed asked the question, why SRA is not being used in all public schools. Instead we get excuses, but perhaps the real reason is if SRA came to all the schools across Canada, parents will discover that they too can teach their children to read and learn, by using the SRA techniques.

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:Rz7ZRgPA3msJ:www.mcgrawhill.ca/school/schoolGraphics/mhr_sra2008_directinstruct_p7.pdf+Corrective+Reading+program+by+Engelmann&hl=en&gl=ca&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShBInoYJbM6wbrcRvGgLjG04HIyMPr-7iz7cVL0BpQ542FQB2hSny9iDoSr2I5jD7hVYek2tnVbkZ7WC8jL-Keyw_y5-LK_iukEREp-jVA4HdWRNRFDLunfXMd7FfygkJx786fl&sig=AHIEtbSVo5oQ5ARexN4jnOCrZFNDvGnYSg

Sorry for the long link, but on the McGraw Hill site,  I can’t find the above document. and the next link is the Canadian McGraw Hill site. From the looks of it, and reviewing it, they are trying their best to sell it to the school boards.

http://www.mcgrawhill.ca/school/imprints/sra/direct+instruction/index.php

There must be some dreadful mistake.

Isn’t this the 1950’s strategy that is known by educationists everywhere, and anyone who knows anything, to be a colossal failure rejected by all right thinking teachers, boards of education and faculties of education?

At least, one of the correspondents here has told us that a dozen or so times.

Ya shoulda’ been there in the dingy room at the U of T Faculty of Education, in the “Special Education” unit, when one of my fellow students broke down in tears, basically pleading, “why aren’t you telling us how to teach?  We don’t know how to teach and you aren’t telling us.  What are we supposed to do?”.

Lot’s of awkward silence for “professor” to try and fill there.

This gem of a five-iminute talk by Dr. E. could save the Province untold millions in costs,  by shutting down the Citadels of Invincible Ignorance.

No Direct Instruction programs are on the Trillium List, but I doubt that would make a significant difference. Schools may buy whatever class sets they want so long as they finance the purchase out of fundraising or private donations.  There are other reasons for Direct Instruction programs being underused in Ontario schools:

1) They do not align with the Ontario Curriculum. There is already a problem of “overcrowding” in the curriculum (too many things to be taught in too little time), and a lack of resources to do this in a “differentiated” way as mandated by the Ministry. Many of the skills taught in the Direct Instruction beginning reading programs (Horizons, Reading Mastery, Journeys), such as phoneme blending, phoneme segmentation, grapheme-phoneme correspondences, are not in the Ontario Curriculum at all.  To teach those programs to an average Grade 1 class the teacher would need a minimum of four groups, each needing one teacher-taught lesson daily which would take 40 minutes per group. This would be 160 minutes daily (longer than the longest literacy block) and would be time taken out of the required Ontario Curriculum, which already contains more than can be realistically accomplished in 90-120 minurtes daily.  Also, what would the rest of the kids be doing while the teacher taught others for 120 minutes ?

These instructional programs work well in schools following a “Joplin Plan” (you can google it) , where a whole school, or whole division, is organized around delivering instruction in a flexibly-grouped manner. They do not at all lend themselves to be used in heterogeneous classrooms with one teacher for students at up to 10 grade levels in the same class. The Project Follow Through classes all utilized teaching assistants in the primary grade classrooms.

2) Cost. With the exception of a few of the writing programs (High Performance Writing comes to mind), these programs are much too expensive for a public school in Ontario. The per-pupil cost for *consumable* materials (never mind the teacher resources and textbooks, which cost on average 8-10 thousand per classroom) is between $100-300 per year,  many times what a school gets for instructional materials purchase.  With just the teacher materials, teachers can do a bowdlerized version of some of the language and spelling programs, but it is less effective. The pricing works in the USA, because USA schools have lots of different income sources, especially Title I and foundation grants (Obey-Porter, Packard-Bell, etc,) Reading First provided some funding for these materials (and coaching teachers in their use), but that source has been phased out. 

Ontario schools can only buy these programs for small-group use (in special education, resource, remedial or ESL settings) mainly because of cost. Ignorance of the value of the programs is an issue, but even enthusiastic embracing of them would not lead to mass use without a change in the pricing structure.

3) Teacher training. While the uninstructed may believe that anybody can pick up the script and “teach” using Direct Instruction programs, the reality is very different. The script is only a tool, and the teacher needs a complex skillset to use it well and effectively. Signaling, pacing, observation, knowing when to loop back, how to correct errors, how to manage students’ behaviour, how to analyze their mistakes for clues to what needs to be retaught and how—these are not easy skills to learn. Engelmann has said it takes 5 years to become a good Direct Instruction teacher, 10 years to become an expert. This is with regular mentoring and feedback—something rarely provided Ontario teachers. If every classroom in Ontario were suddenly to adopt Direct Instruction programs (without the key ingredient of teacher training and ongoing mentoring) the results would be poor and the experiment soon judged a failure.  Non-teaching staff can learn to be very effective instructors with these programs, but (in my observation) only about 1 in 5 is very effective, even with some coaching and support. It just takes too much work to learn to do it well, and requires a sophisticated skill level.

These are very effective programs, and I have used them with miraculous results at various times, but I can see why they are not more widely used.  The curriculum itself is the major impediment.  You can’t justify spending massive amounts of instructional time on material that is not in the curriculum.

On whether Engelmann requires “ability” grouping: I advise caution with that term. It usually means grouping by IQ, as for example in programs for the gifted or developmentally disabled.  Direct Instruction programs group by level of mastery, which has *nothing* to do with ability. The child with an IQ of 70 may place at the same level as the child with an IQ of 135, based on what they already know. They are taught at their level of perfornance, not their presumed “ability.”

All I can say without a doubt, the reasons used for not employing Direct Instruction, and not to be confused by the other version direct instruction (di), is one giant cop-out.

I have two sites, the National Institute for Direction Instruction, and
the Association for Direct Instruction (ADI) a non-profit organization to promote and support Direct Instructional programs.

http://www.nifdi.org/15/

http://www.adihome.org/

There is a mountain of information on these two sites. As I said before, the researchers are gathering together, their resources, to put an end to misconceptions, outright deliberate publication of erroneous information that the general public is led to believe to be true about children and how they learn.

In the next series of links, are more information coming from different sources, including a Canadian university.

http://psych.athabascau.ca/html/387/OpenModules/Engelmann/

http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adiep/ft/151toc.htm

http://www.zigsite.com/

A software reading program based on Direct Instruction, for young children.
http://www.funnix.com/

As I said before, and many other parents can attest to having the same experiences, if we left it up to the present day public education system, our children would be paying the same heavy price, as children are now whose parents left it up to the public education system, exclusively. Each year, I see parents regretting the choice of allowing the public schools to educate their kids, but the biggest wake-up call for a lot of them, when little Suzie is taking remedial reading and writing courses at the college or university, because she does not have the skills to make a pass in a regular college/university course.

I have this dream, where all the major newspaper, published each and every day, one story each day, how the public education system failed them. They will never run out of stories, but it certainly will educate the public, the public that reads newspapers, to what is really happening in our education system. At the end of each story, the person would tell what would have worked, but the public education system refuses to do so.

Would it not be nice, to hear them defend themselves, why they could not teach your child. I can here the reasons, poor, not enough structure, parents too over-protective, not a high enough IQ, private psychologists don’t know what they are talking about, behaviour problem, but never once on teaching methods. Not once, how the public education system, puts everyone in the same square peg, and too bad if you fall out of it. How children that do not meet their expectations, are immediate labeled, as being not academic material and forever deemed to be at a certain ability.

It comes down to the simple fact that this method of teaching is (perceived as) boring and a lot of work for the teacher.
Who cares how well it works for the child.

TDSBNW is right, DI groups by level of mastery in the subject.

Mastery, or level or performance in the subject, that’s what I intended to say in my original post.

( Speaking English as second language I incorrectly used “ability” instead of “mastery”.)

Related to 3)
Yes, a teacher has to first want to use DI then he would definitely need feedback on his performance in order to become effective.
DI requires first of all a certain respect for using

Why isn’t DI or at least knowledge of DI principles training be part of teacher training?
After all teachers do spend 5 years after high school in university.
Why not use these 5 years effectively?

1) Ontario Curriculum ... has that been proven to be an effective curriculum?

As a parent what I see is that this so called Ontario Curriculum doesn’t work based on its results.

Secondly, it is so vague so there are no two teachers that teach the same based on this curriculum.
In the classroom a student ends up being taught whatever his teacher chooses and whichever way his teacher chooses to teach it.
So what exactly is the usefulness of this curriculum?

Europe, I think the education system uses curriculum, as an excuse not to put DI instruction and methods in the classroom. Heaven forbid, if teachers became more skilled than the masters at higher levels within the system, telling them they are full of B.S. when it comes to how children learn and of course effective teaching practices.

TDSBNW, having been educated in a very different system where everybody in a class - and I do mean everybody in a class of 35 was learning exactly the same thing at the same time - I don’t understand ...

... why would there be 4 different groups of mastery in a class of 20 at the beginning of grade 1?

Even if some students knew some sounds or some letters, why not start everybody in the class at roughly the lowest level of mastery in the class?

With more help and repetition for the students at the low level of mastery, the whole class could quickly advance to a point where most of the students would be at the same level of mastery.

Sure, the ones that are the most advanced will probably spend a few weeks not learning a lot of new things but repetition has never hurt anybody.

My point is, in grade 1 there should be no expectations that students know how to read or write, so start right at the very beginning with everybody.

If there are expectations for a certain level of mastery at the start of grade 1
- what are these expectations and
- why are they not widely distributed, widely known and enforced ?

Some did back in those days, where everyone learn the same thing, at the same time, with no deviation and no exceptions.

I was in a different school, where at first everyone learn the lesson of the day at the same time, than during the process of doing the work, the teacher soon discovered who has problems and who was average and who was excelling. At the end of the day, there was two stacks of paper exercises. One stack for the struggling and just average to work on the basics, and the other stack for students who were very much advance. I was always proud, when the teacher told me stack B, a certain pride that told me I was doing very good work, and she thought of me as being very advance and capable of doing it. Now that is self-esteem in action. Not many kids got to pick from the B stack, and never consistently either. Even the more advance students, had to master the basics too, along with the just average students.

We were never graded for this homework, but it was expected to be done, and from what I could tell, it was demanded by the parents to do so. Our grades came from testing for the most part, and any compositions and school projects. By the end of grade 8, there was not one student with low skills in reading, writing, and numeracy. We all had the necessary skills that is the basis to do advance high school work. The differences was where the student stood, in their ability to do advance work.

FROM EUROPE said:

As a parent what I see is that this so called Ontario Curriculum doesn?t work based on its results.

Secondly, it is so vague so there are no two teachers that teach the same based on this curriculum.
In the classroom a student ends up being taught whatever his teacher chooses and whichever way his teacher chooses to teach it.
So what exactly is the usefulness of this curriculum?

Love it or hate it, the Ontario Curriculum is mandated. Teachers do not have the privilege of “opting out” and teaching something else (like Direct Instruction programs). The days when teachers could teach whatever way they want are also history. We now have the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat, and this organization is deeply involved at the school level (if it hasn’t reached your school yet, it will). Literacy and Numeracy “coaches” (teachers who serve a family of schools and lead professional development sessions), mandated Critical Learning Pathways and Professional Learning Communities (PLC’s) require teachers to focus lessons on specific items chosen by the curriculum leaders. For this term, for instance, it is—across the grades—in reading, a focus on Curriculum Expectations 1.8 and 1.9 (see http://edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/language18currb.pdf) which involve “making connections” and “point of view” respectively. Teachers must work in grade teams to develop common assessments, learning activities, rubrics, culminating tasks, exemplars and anchor charts.  Then they must mark each others’ students’ work using the rubrics. Teachers must have data walls, word walls, posted exemplars. They have to show how what they are teaching relates to the stated emphases (1.8 or 1.9) and have long term plans handed in in advance.  Teams of observers come around (from the Ministry and the Board) and watch every teacher teach, check what books and materials are in the room, even look in closets and drawers, go to students’ desks and ask to see their work, examine students’ portfolios, talk to students and ask them to explain why they are doing what they are doing. They read student writing, look for instances of higher level thinking.

There is no chance whatever that someone could “get away with” doing Direct Instruction programs instead of the mandated curricula. Also, though teachers may not be teaching what and how you might prefer, they are directly teaching—it is not “discovery learning” going on.  Teachers are teaching their [bleeps] off not always to best results because the curriculum is not geared to help the disadvantaged student or the slower learner who needs to progress by sequential steps.  It may be “constructivism” but it is by no means exploratory, “discovery learning” or playtime. Since teachers have to write almost all their own curriculum materials (at multiple levels), it is very hard work. I rarely walk by a room that does not have the teacher actively teaching students, sometimes whole class, other times smaller groups while other students work on their own or in pairs.

The Ontario Curriculum is the law, and if teaching methods and materials are to change, the curriculum will have to change. So will school organization.  I don’t see any evidence of this happening any time soon. The ministry is committed to full inclusion (which means many children who would never have been in regular classrooms before are now included) and teaching students in heterogeneous groups (the antithesis of Direct Instruction which requires small homogeneous groups).

From Europe inquired:
... why would there be 4 different groups of mastery in a class of 20 at the beginning of grade 1?Even if some students knew some sounds or some letters, why not start everybody in the class at roughly the lowest level of mastery in the class? With more help and repetition for the students at the low level of mastery, the whole class could quickly advance to a point where most of the students would be at the same level of mastery.

That sounds reasonable, but Direct Instruction just doesn’t work that way.

For starters if you gave a heterogeneous Grade 1 class the placement tests from, say, Direct Instruction Reading Mastery (as I have done in the past), you will, even in a low-income area, find students placing from Lesson 1 of RM 1 to Lesson 80 of RM 4. Now, if you did start all the students at Lesson 1 of RM 1, they would not “move quickly.” Direct Instruction programs do not move quickly! They are thorough and carefully paced. Before the highest performing student in the class would be learning something new, he would have to go through 400+ daily lessons in RM 1,2,3 and 4! Engelmann would personally come and rip the presentation books out of the hands of any teacher who abused his materials in such a way, I’m sure.  At the end of RM 1, kids are still at a Kindergarten level (it was written to be done with 4 year olds); students need to be at the middle of RM 3 before they are really solidly at the end of Grade 1 in reading skills. 

You could never teach a whole class this way with Direct Instruction .  What many people who have read about Engelmann and his work don’t realize is that the programs are simply *not* for whole-class instruction—they never were. Engelmann insists that kids who struggle must be in a group no larger than 5, and preferably no larger than 3.  Grouped properly, students make astounding progress in Direct Instruction (there are protocols for rapidly accelerating students who meet mastery targets easily), but as a whole-class program it is a no-go. Schools that use these programs effectively organize their time and group students completely differently than typical Ontario public schools.

There are no “prerequisites” for Grade 1 but entering children may range from a developmental level of a 2-year-old (just beginning to speak) to a fluent Grade 4 level reader who writes in paragraphs. Even the lowest 5 or 6 in the class rarely form a homogeneous group. To form effective Direct Instruction teaching groups, students would have to be grouped across classes and grade levels. Even if this were doable, it is time taken out of the sacrosanct Ontario Curriculum.

Where these programs do have a place is in Special Education classrooms, resource and remedial programs, ESL and tutoring programs, and they can be used (with some training) by an aide or educational assistant. What I have seen happen all too often however is that a teacher or aide presents the lessons in the script but does not ensure mastery by carefully cycling back., providing the needed 5:1 ratio of positive feedback to criticism, promptly correcting student errors, and so on. The script is a tool but it requires a skilled artisan. Otherwise the results are disappointing.

” Then they must mark each others? students? work using the rubrics. Teachers must have data walls, word walls, posted exemplars. They have to show how what they are teaching relates to the stated emphases (1.8 or 1.9) and have long term plans handed in in advance.  Teams of observers come around (from the Ministry and the Board) and watch every teacher teach, check what books and materials are in the room, even look in closets and drawers, go to students? desks and ask to see their work, examine students? portfolios, talk to students and ask them to explain why they are doing what they are doing. They read student writing, look for instances of higher level thinking.’

I wonder how people from the board and ministry would perceived my daughter, or kids like her. Would they see the obvious signs of some type of learning problem, and it would eventually go away, because she is still passing, but barely. Would they see her extreme messy desk, everything in disorder, as a behaviour that needs to be nip in the bud, or would they see the behaviour, a typical sign that a child would do, to hide the poor work, and to hide from the prying adults, that they might discover she cannot do the work. If the busy officials would be pouring over my child’s portfolio, what would they think, and that is if it was readable. Would they question the dropping of all vowels in words, a whole paragraph without a single vowel in any other words. Consistent throughout the assignments done in class. But than they run across one, with prefect wording, neat handwriting, but the paper itself has seen better days, with repeated erasing, tiny rips in the paper, would they question the sheet that look like that. Would they question her high grades in other subjects like French, and anything else that was not LA or math. Would they look at her report card, and see the grades either low but still passing, and than to the other extreme, doing very well, and not question the high and lows. Still with the report card, would they look at all the NIs, needs improvement in being tidy, etc, but all the comments are how well she behaves, such a nice girl. But no comments on her real learning problems. Would they see any of this, this small army, coming in looking for signs of higher learning?

I somehow doubt it, and I get a funny feeling, that teachers are telling parents to have their kids stay home, to save the child from being seen as a behaviour problem, being messy , not having enough focus, writing down words without the vowel is a purposeful act and other things to explain away the signs of trouble learning. I know mine would for the reason describe above, but also to save these kids from being thrown into SE classes. These kids fell into the mild to moderate, and are reading at very low levels. They are passing, just barely and show great promise in other areas. Much like the kid whose parents are low-income, but does not have any obvious learning problems, except he does not have the same things as some other kids.

The above, and other tricks of the trade where teachers are trying to help their students without breaking the law, I now see why there is such a growing waiting less for assessment. But even when a child finally receives an assessment, very few of the mild to moderate meet the criteria to qualify for SE services in reading and writing help. Of course if parents went private, which many of them do, not only is it pinpointed where the weaknesses are, but often it is not picked up by the school assessment. Another problem that bedevils the education system, is that many of the mild to moderate students have only one major problem and it is in the area of phonemic awareness, and will not qualify for help either. For a child to have LD, they must have multiple problems, and having one will not cut it.

When are they going to wake up, the public education system,  that they are excluding more children, and due to the system, are actively preventing children from reaching their potential. If a school system, cannot correct reading problems in children with just low phonemic awareness that can be easily corrected, what of the other children who have far more serious and multiple problems that impacts learning?

The way TDSBNW has written, the tone is telling us that the public education system is incapable of change, and the more serious charge of writing off children as early as possible, by limiting their potential. Do we see this in the data, in terms of drop-outs, badly behaved kids, the social promotion and retention data, the waiting lists for assessments, as well the number of identified SE kids, the number of students taking applied courses, rather than the academic courses, the achievement data, the number of students who barely pass and failed standard testing? I believe we do see it in the stats, and if this is the intention of school officials, they can look forward to increases as the years roll by..

TDSBNW thank you for your answers, it clarifies many things for me.

If things were organized in a rational way
- a student at developmental level of a 2-year-old (just beginning to speak) has no place in a regular classroom. This student needs massive, specialized instruction of a very different kind.
- a fluent Grade 4 level reader who writes in paragraphs should be advanced to a higher grade or grouped with others at similar mastery levels

Nobody can teach in the same class both of the above.

>>Teachers are teaching their [bleeps] off not always to best results because the curriculum is not geared to help the disadvantaged student or the slower learner who needs to progress by sequential steps.  It may be ?constructivism? but it is by no means exploratory, ?discovery learning? or playtime. Since teachers have to write almost all their own curriculum materials (at multiple levels), it is very hard work. <<

Everybody needs to be taught in sequential steps, not just the slower students!
It is the fastest way to learn.

Yes, writing curriculum materials at multiple levels would be an immense amount of work.
Is it useful work? Is it good quality work?

If we have a curriculum why do teachers need to write the materials? That’s the purpose of textbooks and workbooks, to serve as curriculum materials.

How can a teacher with a BA in English write curriculum materials (at multiple levels) for math or science? Excuse me?
Who checks that these materials are good or effective?

A big part of teaching is the details of exactly how you teach. If you write your own curriculum materials as far as I’m concerned you are teaching whichever way you choose to and are able to.

>>talk to students and ask them to explain why they are doing what they are doing. They read student writing, look for instances of higher level thinking.<<

Ok, this is really bizzare.
If all this checking is happening how come there are so many students who
a) don’t read and spell well or
b) cannot do basic math?
What higher level thinking can these students do?

a student at developmental level of a 2-year-old (just beginning to speak) has no place in a regular classroom. This student needs massive, specialized instruction of a very different kind.

The policy of the Ministry of Education is that nearly all students with disabilities will be in the regular classroom. Rare exceptions are made on a case-by-case basis, but teachers can expect to have students with a wide range of disabilities as part of their class, and they are responsible for teaching them a program modified to their needs. Heterogeneous grouping, with full inclusion, is mandated by the Ministry. That ship has sailed and is not turning back in the near future.

a fluent Grade 4 level reader who writes in paragraphs should be advanced to a higher grade or grouped with others at similar mastery levels

Students who are significantly ahead of grade expectations are not to be advanced to a higher grade (or given ?above grade level? work), but encouraged to work at a deeper level on material for the grade.

The system does change: it has changed a great deal in the last 10-15 years. These may not be the changes you wish to see, but in order to effect other change, it is necessary to understand the policies, procedures and practices currently in place. This is simply information FYI —it is not an expression of my opinion or beliefs about what is best.

If we have a curriculum why do teachers need to write the materials? That?s the purpose of textbooks and workbooks, to serve as curriculum materials.

The curriculum does not include support materials, for the most part. Textbooks and workbooks are strongly discouraged, especially in the primary and junior grades. I have been told that the TDSB has an unofficial ?ban? on workbooks, but this may not be exactly correct.  In any case, the teacher must produce most of the materials (or buy them, but few commercial products are geared to the specifics of the Ontario Curriculum).  Since teachers do not choose what, how, when etc. to teach, but must follow the mandated Critical Pathway, developing the required activities, rubrics, anchors and so on, it is inaccurate to say they teach ?whatever way they choose.? They are told what and how and what way, but they must write the materials to meet the needs of their specific students.  This involves a great deal of duplication of effort, which is not parsimonious, but there it is.

The inspection teams are not there to assess individual teachers or students, but to monitor system performance and compliance with Ministry and Board initiatives.  Rote learning has a very low place in the official schema, and teachers may not spend much time on such areas as math facts, spelling, grammar and the like.  Higher level thinking is believed to be within the reach of every child, however academically challenged.

TDSBNW thank you for the FYI, I’m am extremely interested to understand.

Can you please shed some more light ...

Going back to grade 1, if students are so different what exactly is a teacher expected to do in order to teach them all?

On one hand one can’t teach the same lesson because it wouldn’t fit everybody.
On the other hand one can’t teach in 5 or 6 separate groups because you don’t have enough time in the day and and because while you teach one group the other 4 would go wild if left alone for more than 5 minutes.
Realistically speaking, I fail to see how it can be done even if
- we had a good, sequential curriculum - which is not the case or even if
- we had teachers trained specifically in the nitty-gritty specific details of how to teach reading, writing and basic math - which again is not the case.

So how is grade1 being taught now?

Is teaching correct letter writing part of the curriculum for grade 1?

What should a student master at the end of grade 1 in order to be promoted to grade 2 as a regular promotion not a social promotion?
Could you give us some specific examples?

>>The inspection teams are not there to assess individual teachers or students, but to monitor system performance<<

What is meant by “system performance”?

It can’t possibly be the mastery of the subjects by the students. If our children were doing well, we wouldn’t be having this blog.

You mentioned two things, critical pathway, and the change that has take place in the last 15 years. Change and critical struck me, and it was the use of the words, the language, that told me education theories.

I am afraid to report that there is such things as change theory and critical theory. Both theories are being employed in the public education system, of North America.

Change theory is the milder of the two, where it explains the factors that get in the way of change or reform. It is a useful theory to know, especially to understand why education is so resistance to change. The use of it by the public education system, is to understand children and the factors that makes them hard to change. and of course parents.
http://ide.ed.psu.edu/change/diffusion.htm

Critical theory is another different kettle of fish. It is hard to find information on it, because much of it is hidden away in journals and dusty books. It is not exactly a best seller, but critical theory is employed right across the economic, education, health, administration, and anywhere else where people need to collaborate with others, in order to be more effective at their job. Most are practicing critical theory methods, and are not aware of it. It is in the last 15 years,  critical theory has entered into the halls of public education. Critical theory can be defined as, ” as a self-conscious social critique that is aimed at change and emancipation through enlightenment, and does not cling dogmatically to its own doctrinal assumptions.[15][16]” 
I know come again. I had to twist my head over this one too. Here is the wiki link, that perhaps is the only article that the language is not so heavy, but it will give you a fix on what Ontario’s critical pathways are all about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School

In the Britannica Encyclopedia, it states: “Marxist inspired movement in social and political philosophy originally associated with the work of the Frankfurt school. Drawing particularly on the thought of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud, critical theorists maintain that a primary goal of philosophy is to understand and to help overcome the social structures through which people are dominated and oppressed. Believing that science, like other forms of knowledge, has been used as an instrument of oppression, they caution against a blind faith in scientific progress, arguing that scientific knowledge must not be pursued as an end in itself without reference to the goal of human emancipation. Since the 1970s, critical theory has been immensely influential in the study of history, law, literature, and the social sciences.”

Since the old days, critical theory, has moved from theory, to practical applications. Ontario’s critical pathways is such an example, and I have seen bits and pieces of critical pathways being operating in NL. It does explain to me why some things are still happening in our public school system. It certainly explains the data charts in the school’s staff room, tracking student’s achievement, and I really feel sorry for the students in Ontario schools, where the data charts are on the walls of the classroom.  One year this was try, when my child was in grade 5. It did not last long, when the objective of the students was to find out what number they were. It was awful hard for the students who were sitting at the bottom, and hard for all the other students, listening to the top students bragging how smart they were, and how dumb the rest were.

Here is the link, and it is the seventh document.
http://govdocs.ourontario.ca/results?q=critical+pathways+in+education&submit=Go&w=c&q2=critical+pathway+in+education+critical+pathways+&fz=0

A link, that shows critical pathways in action, the planning process.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:eVkabZ5KNvsJ:www.tcdsb.org/assessment/slp/20092010/0387.pdf+Critical+pathways+in+education+in+Ontario&cd=41&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca

Here is an Ontario link, that tells you the why of critical thinking.
http://www.cpco.on.ca/News/PrincipalConnections/PastIssues/Vol12/Issue1/teaching_learning.pdf

Another link:
http://www.tcdsb.org/schools/St Jane Frances stuff/TLCP in Perspective J. Virgilio.pdf

The last link:
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/.../teaching_learning.pdf

I haven’t time right now to write much about specifics. To answer some of From Europe’s concerns, here is a snippet from the TDSB Promotion, Transfer and Retention Policy statement:

PROMOTION:
The student has successfully completed the curriculum expectations of the grade and has achieved Level 1, or higher in English/French (extended or immersion), mathematics, and in at least two thirds of the remaining subjects.

NB:  Copies of the Promotion, Transfer and Retention: Grades 1-8 procedures are available in all elementary schools.

To get an idea what is required for “Level 1” performance, go to:
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/grade1.html
and scroll down to “Resource Documents Specific to This Grade” and examine some of the “Exemplars” documents. These give annotated instances of Level 1 (and other) performance of students with explanations of what factors influence that judgement. Note that a student does not have to produce a “Level 1” response independently: he can have “intensive teacher support.”

A student who met the transfer criteria above would have to be several years below grade expectations in multiple subject areas. The majority of students with this profile in the primary grades would be students with cognitive disabilities.

Re letter formation: skills such as pencil grip and letter formation are not in the curriculum at any grade level.

“TRANSFER:
A student is transferred when he/she has not achieved Level 1 in English/French (extended or immersion) or mathematics.

OR

A student is transferred when he/she has not achieved Level 1 in at least two thirds of remaining subjects.”

In either scenario, children who have a learning disability, the majority will obtain a level 1 or higher, identified or not identified, including language arts and math. The way it is defined is typical, who gets transfer, or even requires the extra out of class time, for tutoring in reading. As a result the majority of students who are showing signs of struggling in reading and numeracy,  sitting in grade 1, who would benefit from direct instruction in reading, are not considered at-risked students, based on what I call very subjective data, Making a pass, making a level 1.

Furthermore, by judging on grades, teacher’s observations, the major signs of a reading, writing, and numeracy problems can be ignored by the teacher,school and the board. Stats will show, the majority of students who are showing signs such as the dropping of vowels, the slow-laboured handwriting, the skipping of words, replacing or adding words when reading aloud, or even the obvious signs of not being able to sound out words, are at high-risked for failing grades,  SE services that do cost more at the higher grades, and other related educational factors, where a student learns to think they are dump, or hates school with a passion.

I can see how the public education system, can side-step parents concerns, by convincing them the problems that parents observed are discounted, in favour of promoting misconceptions that it will go away in time, he or she needs to read a lot more, and many other suggestions, that really only helps the child to keep up to the class, but over-all improvement, if any is very slow, and laboured. As parents seeing a level 1, we should be happy, that our child is progressing according to her ability, and to relax, your child is passing the mandated curriculum.

“A student who met the transfer criteria above would have to be several years below grade expectations in multiple subject areas. The majority of students with this profile in the primary grades would be students with cognitive disabilities.

Re letter formation: skills such as pencil grip and letter formation are not in the curriculum at any grade level.”

Translation, the majority that would meet the criteria for transfer, are usually the ones who are perceived as behavioural problems, that will disrupt the whole class, plus having severe cognitive deficits. But not the quiet child sitting at his desk, who tries they very best to read, and write, but are showing every sign of a reading, writing deficits, only receives the mandated curriculum, and the questionable intensive help from the teacher in the regular classroom. Questionable, depending on the skills and knowledge of the teacher in the processes of reading and writing. Specialized targeted help, by reading specialists, SE teachers are only there, if the child is failing in all core subjects, but first they have to have an assessment to meet the criteria in receiving support from SE services.

Many of the kids who are struggling, do not meet the criteria according to the school’s assessment, because many of them have only two problem areas, usually in the phonological processing areas, including phonemic awareness. One must have multiple problem areas, that will range from 5 to 9 areas. It is here, where it is difficult to determine if the child has a learning problem due to poor instruction, or a cognitive deficit.

The children who are just barely passing in language arts, reading, but with great difficulty from the very beginning of grade 1, are usually the ones with learning problems, and their first assessment will occur at the grade 4 level, or higher. By that time, the psychological damage to the child’s psyche that has been inflicted upon the child, will make it that much more difficult for the school to help these children, in the educational component. It is pretty hard to work with children, who have not only developed coping skills, that often interfere with the learning processes, but you are also dealing with the negative track that is a continued loop, that they are dumb.

As for children who are receiving the Ds and Cs, they are called the under-achievers and are slated for wonderful talks with the guidance counselors, improving their self-esteem, conveniently ignoring the low reading skills the student has.

And we wonder why, the public education system is in the mess it is in. A system, that does everything from A to Z, so they claim, but completely ignoring the essential skills needed to do everything from A to Z.

None of this makes any sense.  There is talk about assessment, but how do they assess children?  There are no standardized tests, except for EQAO.  Teachers now say that they don’t have time to even put out a report card before Christmas, so who’s assessing these children?
I really have to wonder how often these assessments are done, and if they are, why don’t parents know about them and secondly why aren’t these assessments put on the children’s report cards, rather than the edubabble/nonsense which is currently written on the rpcds?  I strongly suspect that, in most schools, this is a lot of hot air and nothing more; otherwise we wouldn’t have to be told about it on SQE.

EQAO is not a ?standardized? test in the sense most people mean. It is not normed, but scored holistically (and therefore inevitably subjectively). EQAO is in the category of tests commonly called ?performance assessments? or ?holistic assessments.?

The TDSB does not use any norm referenced tests (examples familiar to readers might include the Canadian Test of Basic Skills, Canadian Achievement Test, SAT-11 (in the USA), and the like. These are extensively field-tested and validated statistically so that the scores are valid for the areas assessed.  Most Ontario schools use ?performance assessments? exclusively. The most widely used (required in all primary classrooms in many boards) is the Developmental Reading assessment.  You can see a video of a teacher giving the DRA here:

http://onceuponateacher.blogspot.com/2008/08/dra-2-online-for-you.html

This takes many hours to do and must be done by the classroom teacher at least once per term. She will also do running records, another form of assessment, and what are called “miscue analyses.”

Some boards use a similar test from PM Benchmarks or the new Fountas and Pinnell reading assessment. They are all very similar, and give children a reading level based on Reading Recovery levels. The expectation for Grade 1 is that students will achieve Level 16-18 by the end of the year. Teachers do the test individually with each child every term, and they report the findings to parents and the Board (data is kept centrally). The DRA score does not go on the report card, but it may influence the report card grade.

Other assessments given (as in the Critical Learning Pathways) are also performance assessments and holistically scored like EQAO, using exemplars and anchor papers. You can see how this works by studying the exemplars I referred to in the link in my previous post.  Assessments are regular but are not standardized in the way readers may remember from ?the old days.? 

You can probably find better links, but here is one explanation of ?performance assessments?:

http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/OR/ConsumerGuides/perfasse.html

Also Google ?standards-based assessment? and ?authentic assessment.?

All student assessment is supposed to be of this type.  The TDSB does not use norm-referenced assessments. Few boards do, and the only ones I know of are Catholic boards.

Nancy’s comments may describe situations and procedures in NL but not in Ontario or the TDSB. Students do not need to be considered “special ed” to receive support and all schools have procedures in place to help students who are struggling. starting in K. These procedures are laid out in board and ministry documents. I will try to find links later. Lunch supervision calls.

Bev, as far as I can tell, assessments checking to see if a child is learning to read, are not done with any frequency. Assessment in the public education system, is mainly on subjective data, such as grades on tests, classroom work, homework assignments completed, and teacher’s observations.

The system does not allow, a student to be assessed at how well they are reading, writing, in their given ages. Hence, there is a wide variety of student’s abilities where most are all over the map. So the grammar, spelling, syntax, oral speech and writing mechanics, the mistakes are left uncorrected.

When parents do approach the teacher with their concerns, they are told they are within an acceptable level, given their ages, and in time this will work itself out. If a parent persists, it will be explain further, that if it does not correct itself, perhaps this is where the child has reached their potential.  Translation, the school is not going to do anything about it at all. The school is only concern with grades and achievement levels.

TDSBNW thank you!

After looking at all the math samples but specifically level1 math samples I am in a state of shock.
Good grief it is absolutely crazy! Who comes up with that nonsense?

At least, we now know that these are the expectations.

Bev is asking the same question I have, why aren’t the student’s assesed levels for each subject put in the report card along with the address of this website listing the samples?

At the very least, parents have a right to know what the expectations are and how they are assesed.

Children who have been identified by the teacher as needing extra help, needing accommodations in the classroom, will received the same level of support from the teacher as a group. It is not based on the needs of the child, but the needs of the group. Any accommodations over and above what is common in the classroom, are not present, unless the child has a vision or hearing deficit or a physical problem that does not allow to child to function normally.

Such accomodations for students who are preceived as normal, with or without identified learning problems, are not allow to have electronic readers, electronic dictionaries, the use of FM systems, hand-out sheets outline the important background knowledge and things they need to learn, prior to the lesson, and such other luxuries as being instructed in a one to one situation that is prefectly suited to that child. Even here, going to the tutor classes. was a complete waste of time for my child, because of the instruction methods. For one to one reading instruction, is another form of what I call torture, based on non-science methods. Research has pointed when a child is reading orally, and the child stumbles over a word, wait 4 seconds or so, and tell the child the word. Yet, it is general practice across Canada, to force these children to sound out the words, who do not have the ability nor have been taught properly to sound out words, when the teacher does not have the knowledge of solid research-based literature, telling the reasons why, and what oral reading improves on, and that is fluency, and not the ability to decode words, nor sound out words. Even here, even though at that time I did not have that knowledge, at home I would tell my child the word, and here too I was scolded by the teacher. I was supposed to teach her how to sound out words. How is she ever going to learn, if she cannot find the right strategy on her own and read independently, are words that was repeated many times.

The structure and procedures are heavily dependent on the teacher’s knowledge and how the teacher applies the knowledge. The system is design to hinder the flow of children receiving SE services, and the bottle neck occurs at the junction of the regular classroom and SE services, where the general teacher acts as the gatekeeper.A child who needs help, are dependent on the teacher and his knowledge.

As for teachers meeting with each other on a regular basis, to discuss goals, problems, and individual problems, great idea in theory, but in practice, maybe questionable. Again here it is the process, that is at fault. Even here children like my kid, are rarely identified as needing help, because they are passing their core subjects. In NL they have the same procedure in place, and my child is only discussed in the same context. She is doing very well, in comparison to the other students who are struggling in learning. The reading and writing difficulties are still ignored, because she is well above the other students, in terms of grades,  with identified learning problems. As a result, it is very difficult for a parent to obtain specialized targeted help for reading and writing at the school level. The parent is force to go to private services or do it at home, if there is no private services in the local area. For parents in rural areas, our only choice is to do it yourself, or hope for the best, and let the school do it. As I have discovered, teachers are not well-versed on the learning processes, to be able to effectively use the knowledge to the benefit of each and every child.

As for reading assessments, there is quite a few good ones that are freely available to anyone, including all schools that are well-researched and validated over many years. Quick assessments to show problems in fluency, word decoding, phonemic awareness, and other measures, that take about 10 minutes. These assessments are meant to guide the teacher, and let the teacher know, if they should change teaching methods, and to be used as hard data, for a formal assessment - a pyscho-educational assessment. I too, brought them in, and were quickly dismiss by the school. Probably, a number of parents from Ontario have gone down this road too, and were dismiss as being sub-standard to the assessments used by the schools.

As for performance assessments, children who have difficulties in the areas of reading and writing, are children who do not have all the subset skills needed to passed a performance assessment. Often what happens, is the material is downgraded so they can pass the assessment. Open-ended or extended response exercises, extended tasks, and portfolios that illustrates the improvements the student has made over time, are very hard for children to expressed their knowledge, when dealing with weak reading and writing skills from the get-go, based on the assumption they have learned and process the prior knowledge that was taught previously in class.

In answer to From Europe (and possibly Bev), those exemplars you see online at the link cited are available at every school and virtually every classroom. Teachers often have the Exemplar books handy (I believe parents can also get them, from the Ministry for free) for report card interviews.  Many schools also have display boards where they post work (usually without the student’s name) at the various levels so that parents can see what is required.  The mark on the report card is derived from these assessments: grades are NOT to be averages of test scores or classwork but a grade “representing the student’s most recent and consistent level of achievement.” Work NOT done is not to be factored in. D is a Level 1, C a Level 2, B a Level 3 and A a level 4.

After looking at all the math samples but specifically Level 1 math samples I am in a state of shock.
Good grief it is absolutely crazy! Who comes up with that nonsense?

The Ministry comes up with this stuff. It is old news now, but it started around the middle 90’s.  You will be thrilled to learn that EQAO is marked exactly the same way. It is pretty well impossible for a student to get below a Level 1 unless he doesn’t write anything.  EQAO also is weak in what psychometricians call “inter-rater reliability.” That is, different markers are likely to give the same paper different levels. They try to overcome this by extensive training and use of anchor papers and daily reliability checks, but individual opinion is stubbornly resistant to homogenization.  As for students with reading or writing difficulties, they are allowed scribes or may have parts of the test read to them (this is also true for in-school assessments- a student who struggles with literacy is to be given the chance to have material read to him and dictate his answers. This is mandated and checked up on.)

There is a real effort to inform parents of how this holistic grading and performance assessment business works, but it is so different from their own experience that many struggle with it.. So do teachers.

Far from not testing enough, we are assessing kids to death, and there is no chance a child will not be identified with learning issues early on . The DRA (mentioned above) certainly picks up struggling readers, and some schools use DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Early Literacy Skills)—http://dibels.uoregon.edu/—which flags children with difficulty in phoneme blending, phoneme segmentation, letter identification, oral reading fluency, and some other skills.see http://dibels.uoregon.edu/; ,materials are free; homeschoolers can register and download the assessments. They are of the “benchmarking”  kind and give a measure of whether the child is meeting milestones and whether intervention is needed. Whether the right intervention is provided is a completely different question .

I had a good belly laugh at Nancy’s suggestion that teachers across Canada are hectoring students to “sound out words.”  No offence, but that is the opposite of the case. Nearly every province espouses Balanced Literacy, which considers sounding out words to be an absolute last resort, after such helpful strategies as “Get your mouth ready!” and “Look at the picture!”  Children are taught to use the beginning and ending sounds in words to “predict” the word, not to read through the word.  Goodman, Marie Clay, Frank Smith and other gurus feel that sounding out words will damage a child forever. Teachers generally encourage children to predict the words, not to sound them out. “Sounding out” is not forbidden, but it is definitely discouraged.

Sounding out words was the last resort in the grade 1 class. And that was done out of desperation on there part, while at the same time I was pressing for that assessment. Now looking back, I can understand their confusion based on what was taught to them in teachers college, and the use of a whole language instruction.
Any teacher, based on what they know, would think she was doing this on purpose, to get the teacher upset for the fun of it. Although they would see her face, just on the verge of tears.

She is the classic case of the one that does not fit in any category or grouping.

She had no problem with sight words, had above average verbal vocabulary,  oral speech was excellent. But at this time, part of the requirement, they also had to spell them. It was at this time, I put two and two together, there is something seriously wrong, when she is having so much difficulty reading a page of words, and yet with single words relatively no problem. I was told by the teacher, since she had no problems with sight words, good oral speech, and above average vocabulary, she should be able to predict the word, or figure out meaning by the picture. Well, they tried their best in the classroom,and the methods were failing. Than the sounding out the words. The next strategy, was to instruct me how to help her predicting the words, or figure out meaning by the picture.

At this junction, it all came together in my mind. Those nightmare nights, I discovered those methods would not work for strange words, and it was a hit or miss for words that she had been exposed to. I than change my methods, and since I am stuck in the boondocks, without a computer, I hit the library for a refresher lesson on what I was taught.  Two books, and pretty old at that,  I formed a method, and if it did not work, I improved on it, and it was trial and error.

One night, I discovered she needed to hear the word first, before she could sound it out. So we go go through the story book, she would tapped her finger on the word, signaling to me, to say that word, Any words she skipped, we go back to that word, and I would say it. It was often the little words that she would miss, even following along with her finger. Words that she should have known, she would either replace the word with a different word or tapped her finger for me to say the word. Along the way, the type of fonts, spacing of words, the type of paper became important. At that time I did not know the why, but I started to seek our books in the children section, that were not on the school list. She began to read better, and even the teacher notice it too, until the day she picked up a book, that she had never been exposed to and read it to me. She was reading the picture, and looking at the words, and guessing the word, using her vocabulary, the words she she knew that might be a good fit. It was fairly accurate.

Now, it finally came together, she had very strong compensatory skills, a word that I had no knowledge of at that time,  and I called them coping skills, for a lack of the proper term. As her reading was improving, her paper work was improving. It was than she told me, I do it all the time, I look at the pictures, and figure it out without reading the words. Than I asked what about reading the words, I do that sometimes, if I see the word enough times, like you do with me in spelling. Than you are memorizing the words, and she said, of course, isn’t that how you learn to read.

Balance literacy, whole language are methods, that will not pick up the kids with strong compensatory skills. In the case of my kid, it was low phonemic awareness. In other cases, poor instruction. In other cases, they are weak in one area, other than phonemic awareness, which is the number one element and major predictor of the ability to read.

Today, I no longer blame the teachers, I blame the methods, that will 9 times out of 10, miss the child with strong compensatory skills. These kids can fool the best and most experienced teachers, and a novice, is a piece of cake for these children. The next chapter in my journey, was to convince the school she needed help. And that is another story for another time.

Some children do a better job hiding their reading weaknesses, and that depends on where there weaknesses are. The kids with the low phonemic awareness are the first ones to have trouble by grade 3 or grade 4. The others it will start in the later grades, especially the ones who are getting a B average or higher. And than there is the low-achievers, where you find the main bulk. Like my child in the primary grades, it is their attitude, not enough focus, blame the home environment, and by high school, these kids are pretty set in their ways.

Would it not be nice, if one is looking to raise the achievement, how about teaching the kids to read properly, instead of a lot of feel good lessons to make them feel better about themselves.

So, TDSBNW, the bottom line is that that they test these kids to death; yet when they see that their methods aren’t succeeding, they refuse to use proper instruction methods.
What’s the point of testing if the powers that be don’t want to improve?

To answer another of From Europe’s observations, and wind up back at why Direct Instruction programs cannot be used in regular classes:

Teachers are required to teach a range of students, including those with severe disabilities, in regular classes. The child with the developmental level of a three-year-old may be sitting in a Grade 7 class along with students who are ready for algebra and many others at points in between. Adoption of teacher-directed, specific and sequential skill instruction is fundamentally inconsistent with a philosophy of full inclusion. A respected educator now with the Baltimore Curriculum Project wrote a prescient piece on this topic back in the ‘90’s:

http://my.execpc.com/~presswis/inclus.html

Critics of the contemporary public education milieu need to read this commentary carefully and ponder his insights, which were prophetic and explain a lot of what is going on. Since the hidden agenda is a social one and not related to academic outcomes (the disabled students are also penalized in most cases in regards to academic and skill learning), it is not responsive to empirical evidence on matters of academic progress or outcome. Then, go and read the Special Education Transformation document from the Ontario Ministry, and the auditor’s reports on Special Education, which note that there is not only no interest in results but no way of documenting even what those results are, and you can see a pattern.

The significance of these factors for admirers of Engelmann, John Mighton and JUMP Math,  or sequential and explicit instruction in any subject, is that with full inclusion those approaches are impossible, and the most ardent Direct Instruction fan cannot put them into practice.  “Mainstreaming” and partial inclusion are not subject to the same critiques as they can easily be adapted to a more explicit instructional focus.  A key reason why Balanced Literacy is so entrenched is that it is “multilevel;” students at widely varying points in development can take something from instruction that focuses on Read-Alouds,  Shared Reading, Interactive Writing, and so on. A child in Grade 3 who cannot write and does not know the alphabet will dictate a sentence to the teacher, who will print in in large letters in his writing book and he will trace it, while making a picture to go with the Shared Reading story. A more advanced student might write a letter to the author, or write a dialogue between two characters.  This is what is meant by “multilevel.”  For more on Balanced Literacy, see these links:

http://schools.alcdsb.on.ca/mart/Curriculum Information/Components of a Balanced Literacy Program.pdf
http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/de/pd/instr/direct.html
http://faculty.uoit.ca/hughes/Contexts/BalancedLiteracy.html
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/pdfs/B7.pdf

Note that there is a lot of direct teacher instruction here—it is not discovery learning as generally understood. A sports metaphor is useful. It is like teaching tennis by encouraging kids to play constantly, but not to practice component skills, like serves, volleys, footwork.  The downside (or one of them) is that many learn extremely bad habits which impede their progress; some never become even minimally proficient, due to lack of foundation skills, and those with genuinely exceptional talent are likewise held back by lack of appropriate corrective feedback and sequential practice to mastery.

So, TDSBNW, the bottom line is that that they test these kids to death; yet when they see that their methods aren?t succeeding, they refuse to use proper instruction methods.
What?s the point of testing if the powers that be don?t want to improve?

No, it’s that when the administrators and curriculum monitors look at student results, they do not see what you see. They do not see that “their methods aren ‘t working.” They infer, instead, that they haven’t been rigorous enough in imposing and regulating these methods, so they will work harder, hire more “curriculum police” and monitor teachers more carefully to make sure they do not deviate from the prescribed regimen. It’s not like medicine, where if one antibiotic is ineffective, a physician will test to see which antibiotic is required and prescribe that one. In public education, the metaphor would be doubling and tripling the dose of the same medication, in the belief that more is better, and to ensure the patient took nothing else to supplement it.

The testing measures the kind of teaching currently required, not basic skills such as decoding, math computation, spelling or grammar. When the testing shows weaknesses in some areas (such as writing from a different “point of view”) they redouble their efforts because they do want the students toi improve.  What it boils down to is, instead:
—they disagree with you (and others) on what “improvement” in results will look like and consist in;
and
—they disagree with you on what methods or initiatives are effective and should be put in place.

They definitely don’t perceive the changes you wish to be “proper instructional methods.” They consider such methods to be retrograde and deleterious.

Thank you TDSBNW, for confirming and expressing into words, what I have not been able to do effectively, my firm belief that the present day practices in the classroom, breeds intolerance of children who differ from the norm in the academic areas of education.

It is this intolerance, children learned to compare themselves, on the basis of ability and the type of work they received in a normal day at school. The children with lesser abilities are not perceived by other children as having strengths, but rather they are perceived in the light of their weaknesses.

For children, we see in the various formats of the ‘stupid’, idiot, retard’ that are implied in their sentences, directed at students who have less ability. The children of better or best ability, tend to see the children with lesser ability, where the academic achievements, are based on luck, a fluke, the teacher went easy, rather than the effort of the child, because it is filtered through the impression of weak abilities, and not their strengths.

It is within the present day practices, along with the knowledge of the teacher, that promotes intolerance of children who differ from the norm. The children who differ from the norm, see themselves through their weaknesses, rather than their strengths. These children are motivated at first, to strive for the norm, so they will not be perceived as being different from the children who have strong abilities, in the areas that they are weak in. At some point, the children motivations shift, to a general acceptance that they are not book-smart, and they begin to work the system.

In school life, the teachers with knowledge, experience start to work the system as well, to help the children who differ from the norm. Parents as well, start to work the system, going down various pathways. Some pathways, are more harmful and limits the child’s future. Others are more pro-active depending on the parents’ abilities and skills. The sadness thing to see, is parents accepting that their child is slow, and they disengage themselves from the school, as well as the education of their children.

This makes it very difficult for the school, not only to meet the mandates of the board, and the ministry, but the individual teachers,  where multilevel instruction, and: ” They infer, instead, that they haven?t been rigorous enough in imposing and regulating these methods, so they will work harder, hire more ?curriculum police? and monitor teachers more carefully to make sure they do not deviate from the prescribed regimen. It?s not like medicine, where if one antibiotic is ineffective, a physician will test to see which antibiotic is required and prescribe that one. In public education, the metaphor would be doubling and tripling the dose of the same medication, in the belief that more is better, and to ensure the patient took nothing else to supplement it. - and it is here, the teachers become busy putting out the small fires, but do not have the time to put out the fires for good, where children see themselves through their own unique set of strengths and weaknesses, striving to reach their own potential, and not a set of external norms, that is someone else’s norms.

Before, I begun to re-teach my child at home, I had to correct the way my child perceive herself, so she would be motivated to become an active participant in learning the basics. At this junction, I truly started to appreciated the difficult job of teaching and set my sights on the system.

Thankfully, the school allowed me to use my methods, and the school did their job, in using methods, that promote learning in her. Now, it is a cooperative effort, to improved on her weak areas, and where the school is effectively using her academic strengths to promote active learning in the classroom, while I work on the basics at home

So, phonics is ‘retrograde and deleterious’?  What is most harmful to our students in Ontario is this monopoly with staff who have job security for life, and raises and enhanced benefits regardless of their success—and success is not happening in our schools.  Rather than look for ways to improve the system, they would rather continue beating the dead horse.  Do they not care at all about children?
They’re just too comfy and lack the intestinal fortitude required to do a real job; so, rather they hire consultants—typical of institutions funded by the public.  Again, more waste.
A public employee can retort with the usual ‘well, that’s your opinion’; however the test scores and ‘Sunshine on Schools’ provide us with facts which support many people’s opinions.