The Narrowing Curriculum
The big story in education this week is the front page story in the New York Times talking about how the social studies and sciences have been receiving less attention because of the reading and math mandates of NCLB. Joanne Jacobs has a great cross-section of what other bloggers are saying, and the NPR bit by Claudio Sanchez is also very concise and worth listening to.
From my perspective, I'm firmly on the side of those who sacrifice the "encore" subjects to increase time spent on the core areas, math and reading. I know that as I plan for the week I always make sure that I work in every area of the reading curriculum first, followed by the math. Any time that's left over can be split among art projects, social studies lessons, health, recess, or science.
The big idea is integration, which is truly the ideal. As a first grade teacher, though, I have a problem with that sometimes. Take this quote, for example, from The Instructivist Blog:
"Reading" is not some abstract, isolated skill but a practical tool that can be applied to many fields. Couldn't you learn a lot of history and science by reading? Whatever happened to reading across the curriculum?
The trick is, there are some skills in reading that have to be learned in isolation, particularly in the lower grades. This is the entire point of the Reading Wars: the idea that students can learn to read just by reading opposed to the idea that you have to specifically teach the skills of reading.
The idea of "reading across the curriculum" is a valid one, though. In the social studies especially we do quite a bit of reading about explorers, families, and whatever the topic of the week happens to be in Scholastic News this week. To take this full circle, though, the kids who get the most out of SN are the ones who can a) read along and b) comprehend what they're reading. For those who can't, it's just one more thing for them to dislike.
From my perspective, I'm firmly on the side of those who sacrifice the "encore" subjects to increase time spent on the core areas, math and reading. I know that as I plan for the week I always make sure that I work in every area of the reading curriculum first, followed by the math. Any time that's left over can be split among art projects, social studies lessons, health, recess, or science.
The big idea is integration, which is truly the ideal. As a first grade teacher, though, I have a problem with that sometimes. Take this quote, for example, from The Instructivist Blog:
"Reading" is not some abstract, isolated skill but a practical tool that can be applied to many fields. Couldn't you learn a lot of history and science by reading? Whatever happened to reading across the curriculum?
The trick is, there are some skills in reading that have to be learned in isolation, particularly in the lower grades. This is the entire point of the Reading Wars: the idea that students can learn to read just by reading opposed to the idea that you have to specifically teach the skills of reading.
The idea of "reading across the curriculum" is a valid one, though. In the social studies especially we do quite a bit of reading about explorers, families, and whatever the topic of the week happens to be in Scholastic News this week. To take this full circle, though, the kids who get the most out of SN are the ones who can a) read along and b) comprehend what they're reading. For those who can't, it's just one more thing for them to dislike.
posted by Ryan at 4:50 PM
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