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After 5+ years of developing our literacy beliefs and embedding promising practices, we are currently examining reading resources to help support our work.
We know no one resource will meet all our kids’ needs, yet even the idea of writing an ELA curriculum feels exhausting considering the last three school years.
Where you are on this, and what insights do you have from your experiences?
Right now we are examining three resources: Wit and Wisdom, EL Education, and Core Knowledge. All are highly rated on EdReports.org.
A concern when acquiring a resource like this is it can become the curriculum, and teachers feel like they cannot diverge from the manual to teach readers first. Yet how do we achieve consistency?
The key to me is the professional development/learning/support that needs to accompany any resource we might acquire.
Matt, another idea! Pam Allyn's The Complete Year in Reading and Writing, K-6; theoretically sound instructional guides to meaningful reading, writing, and thinking—with embedded literature and assessment and lots of room for professional decision-making and creative points of departure. Consider ordering one guide to see if the entire set might provide the support your staff is looking for: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Year-Reading-Writing-Kindergarten/dp/0545046335 Truth in disclosure: I was her editor.
This is a question I've been asking myself all year. The classes in my school have a wide range of ability (my school is specifically for kiddos with emotional and behavioral disorders and it affects their academics in different ways). A traditional reading program just doesn't seem like the right fit for our kiddos, so I have been writing a curriculum that can be adapted to developmental levels. It has been A LOT of work choosing materials, developing staff to be able to deliver a curriculum that is so open-ended, and shifting the mindset to teaching based on where the kids are, right now, academically, rather than where they "should be" based on a program. Some days I think "holy cow this would be so much easier with a program" but then on days like today, when I see reading data coming in with reading levels going up like they haven't gone up before, I think "huh, this is good for these students."
Carrie, I share your interest in developing our own curriculum that's more responsive to our students' needs. How do we build that same enthusiasm and capacity with all our colleagues, especially the last two-three years? More a general question for all...
Hi Matt, This is a question that i have been thinking about in so many of the schools I partner with. Every school is different however overall I have seen that it's important in the lower grades to pick a solid phonics program. There are so many choices out there but I would explore both speech to print and print to speech to see which one resonates more with your staff. For the language composition bit, I have found the greatest success in using tools such as the Active View of Reading to build integrated units that connect to already existing science and social studies standards. It feels hard at first but in my experiences it ends up being easier because teachers can address multiple parts of their curriculum in one unit. It's been overwhelming for schools to buy resources that have knowledge that compete with what they already need to teach in science and social studies.
Thanks Leah for commenting and continuing this conversation.
Questions came up for me while reading what you shared:
- How do we define a "solid" phonics program? You explained some criteria...will students see the connection between rich texts and the specific skills being taught?
- I love the idea of using the Active View of Reading as a guide for building integrated curriculum! What barriers have you found to this work, if any?
- What coaching questions do you come back to when helping teachers who feel overwhelmed by all of the options and expectations? What keeps them grounded?
Don't feel obligated to respond...just sharing publicly my own thinking to your response as I read it.
Hi Matt, In terms of a strong phonics resource I look for qualities such as efficiency, spaced out practice (rather than expecting mastery at the onset, as well as plenty of decoding and encoding practice in connected text with the goal that those types of text are a bridge (not a destination) for students who need it. Personally I favor speech to print programs because I have seen faster growth in more efficient ways leaving more space for other parts of the curriculum. The barriers to using the Active View of Reading is time to plan the units and push back from teachers who might want a curriculum already laid out for them. I tend to suggest pulling a literacy cadre who wants to do this together. I'm writing about both of these topics next week on Substack :)
We are also looking at EL Education and Wit and Wisdom but I agree with your concerns. I am the curriculum specialist now, but when I was in the classroom I used a variety of resources including F&P, Lucy Calkins UOS and Pam Allyn's guides, but we have found it is hard for many teachers to create their own curriculum so we had moved exclusively to UOS but that is even more open ended than some teachers like. I hate the idea of teachers being committed to a program and not their learners. If anyone has used EL or Wit & Wisdom I would love to hear your thoughts. I have read that some teachers feel EL is very structured and hard to personalize?
Right now we are examining three resources: Wit and Wisdom, EL Education, and Core Knowledge. All are highly rated on EdReports.org.
A concern when acquiring a resource like this is it can become the curriculum, and teachers feel like they cannot diverge from the manual to teach readers first. Yet how do we achieve consistency?
The key to me is the professional development/learning/support that needs to accompany any resource we might acquire.
Matt, another idea! Pam Allyn's The Complete Year in Reading and Writing, K-6; theoretically sound instructional guides to meaningful reading, writing, and thinking—with embedded literature and assessment and lots of room for professional decision-making and creative points of departure. Consider ordering one guide to see if the entire set might provide the support your staff is looking for: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Year-Reading-Writing-Kindergarten/dp/0545046335 Truth in disclosure: I was her editor.
Thank you Lois. Knowing you were the editor gives me confidence in the resource.
I am engaging in this work now as well. I am interested in what you are finding and what process you are using to review this curriculum.
This is a question I've been asking myself all year. The classes in my school have a wide range of ability (my school is specifically for kiddos with emotional and behavioral disorders and it affects their academics in different ways). A traditional reading program just doesn't seem like the right fit for our kiddos, so I have been writing a curriculum that can be adapted to developmental levels. It has been A LOT of work choosing materials, developing staff to be able to deliver a curriculum that is so open-ended, and shifting the mindset to teaching based on where the kids are, right now, academically, rather than where they "should be" based on a program. Some days I think "holy cow this would be so much easier with a program" but then on days like today, when I see reading data coming in with reading levels going up like they haven't gone up before, I think "huh, this is good for these students."
Carrie, I share your interest in developing our own curriculum that's more responsive to our students' needs. How do we build that same enthusiasm and capacity with all our colleagues, especially the last two-three years? More a general question for all...
Hi Matt, This is a question that i have been thinking about in so many of the schools I partner with. Every school is different however overall I have seen that it's important in the lower grades to pick a solid phonics program. There are so many choices out there but I would explore both speech to print and print to speech to see which one resonates more with your staff. For the language composition bit, I have found the greatest success in using tools such as the Active View of Reading to build integrated units that connect to already existing science and social studies standards. It feels hard at first but in my experiences it ends up being easier because teachers can address multiple parts of their curriculum in one unit. It's been overwhelming for schools to buy resources that have knowledge that compete with what they already need to teach in science and social studies.
Thanks Leah for commenting and continuing this conversation.
Questions came up for me while reading what you shared:
- How do we define a "solid" phonics program? You explained some criteria...will students see the connection between rich texts and the specific skills being taught?
- I love the idea of using the Active View of Reading as a guide for building integrated curriculum! What barriers have you found to this work, if any?
- What coaching questions do you come back to when helping teachers who feel overwhelmed by all of the options and expectations? What keeps them grounded?
Don't feel obligated to respond...just sharing publicly my own thinking to your response as I read it.
-Matt
Hi Matt, In terms of a strong phonics resource I look for qualities such as efficiency, spaced out practice (rather than expecting mastery at the onset, as well as plenty of decoding and encoding practice in connected text with the goal that those types of text are a bridge (not a destination) for students who need it. Personally I favor speech to print programs because I have seen faster growth in more efficient ways leaving more space for other parts of the curriculum. The barriers to using the Active View of Reading is time to plan the units and push back from teachers who might want a curriculum already laid out for them. I tend to suggest pulling a literacy cadre who wants to do this together. I'm writing about both of these topics next week on Substack :)
We are also looking at EL Education and Wit and Wisdom but I agree with your concerns. I am the curriculum specialist now, but when I was in the classroom I used a variety of resources including F&P, Lucy Calkins UOS and Pam Allyn's guides, but we have found it is hard for many teachers to create their own curriculum so we had moved exclusively to UOS but that is even more open ended than some teachers like. I hate the idea of teachers being committed to a program and not their learners. If anyone has used EL or Wit & Wisdom I would love to hear your thoughts. I have read that some teachers feel EL is very structured and hard to personalize?
Thanks Debbie for commenting. We are just exploring these resources now. I appreciate your comment about "committing to the learners" first.
I love Lucy Calkins UOS. I wish she had some for high school US and World History ready to go, but I am adapting as I can...
Good point Mandy about our tendency to "anchor" ourselves to the present resources. Will they prevent us from venturing out to more promising ideas?