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Interesting comments! I happen to agree with you even though I have encouraged these so called reading strategies over the years and made some gains. In my opinion now, there’s far too much emphasis on comprehension strategies and not enough focus on actually teaching kids to read using the ‘big six’ oral language, phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. One particular example that comes to mind is where teachers spend way too much time teaching kids how to figure out word meaning in context when the students have little knowledge of the vocabulary in the overall passage. This strategy should only be reserved for situations when the student understands about 90% of the vocabulary already. We have to teach reading not reading strategies, I’ve changed my mind on this after much conversation with educators in the field, research and observation (I’ve also earned my master’s degree in the teaching of reading).

Queens Parent,

Class discussions about literature? Themes? Motivations? Character? 

Please, continue down that road and you’re in danger of having kids who are critical thinkers, and who incidentally build up a store of general knowledge that aids in that thinking. Keep going in that direction, and you just might wind up with young people who are knowledgeable, discerning and skeptical: and then where would we be, in a democracy or something?

I was forced to drink the strategy/TC Model kool-aid for a while when I was a coach. I still can’t believe we were told to have 30 kids (well, more like 36 in one of my classes) reading different books. Class sets were a no-no. Chucking all that when I went back to teaching full time was a huge weight off my back. We now do class novels, but the kids also select independent books for book reports around a topic or theme- the Holocaust, Newbery books, non-fic science, non-fic SS, Dear America series, etc. And I do strategy work- but it’s a supplement, not the foundation. Good literature, and opportunities to write and talk about it is most important. I do shudder a little to think about the drive towards non-fiction though. So much is lost when we abandon great fiction, drama and poetry.

Looked at that link Miss Teacher. It is excellent and highlights the problem that my older son is now having. He can read the words of Grapes of Wrath but doesn’t really understand it. He has no knowledge of the dust bowl, the depression or migrant workers. He spent many hours memorizing vocabulary words from the book for a test. He even wrote them on index cards with the definitions (the way he studied in middle school). He barely passed. It seems instead of just matching words and definitions (which is what every vocabulary test in public school has always been) his test consisted of creating a sentence for the words or filling in blank complex sentences with the correct word. One just requires memorization, the other requires complete understanding. He has now learned to study differently, read differently and to really listen to those class discussions. More importantly, besides just reading he is gaining knowledge about so many other subjects. He has learned more about reading in the first few months of high school then in all the years previous.

Queens Parent,
The kind of education you described is not limited to Catholic Schools, it is the rule rather than the exception OUTSIDE of NYC, particularly since Diana Lamm, Joel Klein, the Workshop Model, and test prep came on the scene. The suburban school experience is totally different from NYC, mainly because involved and informed parents will not let it happen. Also, many kids in the ‘burbs already come to school either reading or having the skill set to make the transition to fluency much easier. This is what happens when you have a lawyer, a wealthy businessman, and now a magazine executive running a school system. The love of reading and erudition has been removed for a generation of kids, and the joy of teaching for many, because their focus is not Children First but how to find jobs, contracts, deals for their pals, and breaking the organized labor movement. Science and Social Studies are neglected in the early grades because ELA and Math are what counts most on the assessments. I gave my daughter’s 4th Grade Social Studies essay questions ( she attends school in a Suffolk County public school) to one of the SS teachers at my high school. The kids in HS could just about handle what my daughter handled with ease. Veteran teachers know what to do to give kids a well rounded education; Bloomberg continues to replace veteran teachers with TFA folks who think the test prep curriculum is “the bomb”. It is, but not the kind they think.