Reading in Kentucky

Yesterday I had lunch with a colleague, and I mentioned the fact that when we looked at interventions, Kentucky's were all "store bought". She suggested this might have something to do with NCLB and the caveat that all programs used must be research based. I found this to be an interesting idea, and when I was at Boyd County Middle School today, I spoke with Debbie (who's the Grade 6 principal and in charge of RTI). I asked her what she thought of this theory, and she thought there was probably a lot of truth to it. She pointed out that yes, interventions and strategies need to be "research based" and thought that perhaps teachers were grabbing onto commercial products because that is how they advertise them. She also said she felt teachers were very stressed, more so now than in any of her previous 27 years of teaching. She said teachers were having to learn about RTI, core content standards, and something else (which I have forgotten), so they tend to just reach out for entire packets. I can most certainly understand that.

I came back from BCMS and talked with Jody. Karen had mentioned her theory of why 8th and 10th/12th graders do successively worse on international tests, and Jody said that was a well-established theory: to wit, that textbooks are introduced in 4th and 5th grades but children aren't taught to read them. In other words, they are not taught strategic reading skills. We looked up MSU's elementary education and could not find any mention of strategic reading for 3rd-5th grade. Very interesting. Of course, we'll need to check syllabi, but it does LOOK as if our elementary candidates learn reading basics, and literature, but not how to teach strategies. I hope I'm wrong, and if I am, I'll blog my "wrongness!". Middle school candidates have the "Reading in the Content Area" course as a response to this 4th grade drop off problem, but I wonder how well it's working. I am interested, VERY interested, to learn about attitudes toward teaching reading in the content area in both New Zealand and Kentucky. Honestly, we have a study of a lifetime here... so much could be done.

Anyway, today marks the one month (4 week mark) for our trip. We're doing really well with our preparations; we just need to keep learning as much as we can about Kentucky so that we'll ask the right questions and observe the most useful things. SO glad there are four of us going!!!