Here’s some spelling data that may be of interest: this year, for the first time ever, I did not give weekly spelling tests to my students. After giving the students one spelling assessment at the beginning of the year, I taught brief spelling minilessons throughout the year based on the words I saw the students frequently misspelling in their writing. Some of these spelling minilessons were whole-group (if the problem was fairly prevalent); others were small-group, and others were one-on-one.
Just recently, I gave the students an end-of-year spelling assessment. When I compared their growth to that of past classes, I found that the students made the same amount of growth as they had in previous years, when I had done similar minilessons but had also employed the weekly tests.
So I managed to get rid of the weekly spelling tests (and the dreaded spelling homework!), saved some class time in the process (which we used to do more actual reading and writing), and got the same exact results as before.
Can someone remind me again why spelling tests exist?
Here’s an interesting situation: in my school, we’re going to be cutting one section out of our third grade, going from four teachers down to three. The reason is not what you’d expect (budget cuts), but instead, it is based on our superintendent’s belief that research has not shown that smaller class sizes benefit students except in K-2 classrooms. So I throw this out to all of my readers as an honest question: Does class size matter in third grade? Is there any research you’ve seen that would answer that question one way or another?
Obviously, as a third grade teacher, I can’t help but believe that class size matters a great deal in more than just kindergarten through second grade. The Google searches I’ve done have taken me to a variety of fuzzy articles that are more public interest pieces than academic studies… hence my request for serious links (taking either position) from anyone who knows of any!
It’s that time of year again. With June approaching, parents are beginning to ask how to make the most of the approaching summer vacation. Here are my tips toward helping your child continue to make academic gains all summer long.
1. Keep your child immersed in good literature. Trips to the library are vital to helping your child continue to discover new and exciting books and authors all summer.
2. Maximize real-world learning opportunities when they arise. Your child should be making change whenever he wants to buy something. Follow a recipe together! Play board games involving strategy or, better yet, try chess.
3. Find great educational websites that can replace other forms of “screen time.” From Multiflyer to Funbrain, there are lots of great free sites out there for your child to try. If you’re willing to pay some cash, $99 will get you an amazing one-year subscription to BrainPop’s learning videos. Beginning in June, my own Online Math League site will be unveiling a $39-per-year subscription that will give your child access to a library of online math problems (complete with instant, detailed feedback after each problem) while also giving him access to a series of fun competitions throughout the 2008-2009 school year. (I’ll write more about all of that once it goes live.)
4. Form skill-building habits and rituals. I give my son an allowance of 25 cents each night (as opposed to a larger weekly allowance). On a busy night, I toss him a quarter, but when there’s time, I try testing him with groups of lesser coins that may or may not sum to 25 cents. Then he makes trades for larger coins and bills. My son and I both view this as just a normal part of his bedtime routine, and THAT is the key to raising smart children. You must work to create “Habits of Intelligence” that you’ll frequently do with your child without even thinking about it. Make the car ride automatically a place where your child reads a good book, or get in the habit of having your child keep a running estimate of the total cost of the groceries every week as you fill up your cart. Finally, whatever you do, when speaking to your child, use an expansive vocabulary!
I think it’s important to note what is NOT on that list. Please don’t spend all summer drilling your child on the basic math facts. Don’t force your child to slog through books that he doesn’t really want to read. Don’t print out a bunch of math worksheets for your child to slog through. Suffice it to say that summer is a time for your child to be a child, so let the learning take place through more fun and natural means.
Let me expand on yesterday’s post about a poorly written math standard in Michigan, because that standard is just one way in which we make math much more inaccessible than it should be.
Take multiplication: the most common way of saying 4 x 7 is “four times seven.” But to a third grader, honestly, what does that phrase really mean? Why not say “four groups of seven” instead?
Similarly, we should read 5 + 6 as “six more than five” (or “five added to six”) as opposed to the inherently meaningless “five plus six.”
10 – 4 is “four less than ten,” not “ten minus four.”
When we change 4/10 into 2/5, we did NOT “reduce” that fraction (at least not according to the standard definition of ’reduce’), yet that’s exactly what we often say.
And when we solve a problem like 28 + 24, what exactly are we “carrying?”
My plea: Ban words like plus, minus, times, borrow, carry, and reduce from your elementary math classroom, and replace them with genuine phrases that represent what is actually occurring.
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently published an interesting article entitled “America’s Most Overrated Product: the Bachelor’s Degree” which asserts that “college is a wise choice for far fewer people than are currently encouraged to consider it.” Definitely worth the read.
Designed for 5th graders in Michigan, this is the word-for-word text of my least favorite math standard ever:
“N.FL.05.14 Add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators through 12 and/or 100, using the common denominator that is the product of the denominators of the 2 fractions, e.g., 3/8 + 7/10: use 80 as the common denominator.“
It’s almost as if someone is purposely trying to ensure that students cannot possibly understand what they are doing in math class. (And I love the line that says we’re working with unlike denominators “through 12 and/or 100″ — do we get to pick or something?) Anyway, I can picture this scene playing out in classrooms around the state:
Teacher: “OK, kids, today we’re going to learn how to add 3/4 + 1/8. First, let’s find a common denominator for these two fractions. What could that be?”
Student 1: “Eight.”
Teacher: “No. Remember what we talked about yesterday? The State of Michigan says you’re supposed to multiply the denominators of the fractions you’re adding. So what is the common denominator that we should use?”
Student 2: “Thirty-two.”
Teacher: “Good! So now, let’s convert both fractions into thirty-seconds. We can do that by cross-multiplying across the fractions…” [editor's note: cross-multiplying was required in the previous version of this standard but mercifully is no longer specifically deemed mandatory]
Student 1: “Wait a minute. Isn’t three-fourths the same thing as six-eighths, so we could just…”
Teacher: “QUIET!! If we cross multiply we get 3 x 8, which is 24. So three-fourths is just 24/32. Then if we cross-multiply the other way, we get 1 x 4, which is 4, so the second fraction is 4/32. So we add those up and get our answer, 28/32.”
Student 1: ”Isn’t that just seven-eighths, since…”
Teacher: “NO!! Reducing fractions is a 6th grade benchmark. 28/32 is the only correct answer for 5th graders in the State of Michigan. Does everyone understand what to do?”
I see the algorithm mentality everywhere in math: we borrow, carry, invert and multiply, and cross-multiply our way through math calculations instead of truly understanding numbers and what various problems mean. It just infuriates me when the benchmarks teachers are told they must teach toward serve to exacerbate this sort of teaching without understanding.
There’s something I’ve never been able to understand about the way some adults interact with children. I call it “The Phony Voice.”
I’m sure you know what I mean. It’s the guest speaker who speaks naturally to adults before a presentation, but then hops up an octave and goes into patronizing mode when speaking to children. It’s the sugary sweet, fakey-fake, I-could-never-sustain-this-for-a-whole-day voice, and kids pick up on it right away. Even by second or third grade, when this occurs, I’ve had students shoot me quizzical glances as if to say, “Are you kidding me?” But the owner of The Phony Voice never picks up on the students’ amazement, and it seems a bit rude to try to correct the person in between sentences.
So to everyone who reads this blog: please, speak to children in a dignified manner. They can handle it.
Posted by mpullen 
Posted by mpullen 
Posted by mpullen 
