Thanks so much to each of you for your responses. I’m looking into each of them!
I’ve told my son’s teacher that I think my son (and others in the class) could benefit from going back to probably 2nd Grade level instruction in writing composition (2nd Grade was a real waste in his school due to teacher problems….I wasn’t concerned as concerned as other parents at the time because my son was still ahead academically, but behind in motor skills - that was my focus). I’ve mentioned to my son’s currrent teacher (4th Grade) that I think my son (and others) would benefit from a structured approach to learning writing skills because those skills were not taught in the past. I’ve asked her to provide me with an idea of how she is planning to tackle this (being sure to let her know that I realize this is not a problem she created and she is in the awful position of having to catch these kids up). She seems annoyed at this request and just forwarded me a sample curriculum which seems to include the skills they should learn, but not how they will learn them.
I don’t think I’m going to get anywhere with the school. I think I have to get him help outside school.
Thanks so much for your help! I’ll be back in touch.
Lori
The Great Curriculum Gap
This is a common problem, and yes you will have to do it yourself. I call this one The Great Curriculun Gap. Two examples that are so bizarre they are funny, unless you are the parent or student involved:
The kindergarten teacher explains that in this district we have “play” kindergarten and we are most interested in developing social skills, not concentrating on academics; in the SAME district, the Grade 1 teacher insists that she doesn’t teach the alphabet, since that was all done in kindergarten.
The junior high language specialist explains that they have adapted the Frtench program to the students’ needs and they do not do the full book 1 (five chapters) in Grade 8; rather, they do three chapters in Grade 8 and finish book 1 and start book 2 in Grade 9, etc., finishing thirteen chapters in by the end of Grade 10. In the SAME district, the senior high language specialist explains that they have books 4 and 5 with five chapters each plus two supplementary readers to cover; there is no way they can go back and do chapters 14 and 15 over. So nobody ever teaches chapters 14 and 15 — which just happen to be the ones that teach little details like the past tense …
Parents and students get left holding the bag, and one way or another you either catch up or get left missing vital skills. Students can get by for several years because the whole class is missing the same skills so the teachers let it slide — but sooner or later you have a major test or college entrance and the glaring holes show up — speaking of the mathematics problems that are so widespread.
Do teach the missing skills yourself, and be mean and insist that the level of the rest of the class is not the ideal to aim for.
Lori,
Doing it yourself is the right decision, unfortunately. The teaching of writing skills is woefully inadequate most everywhere. When they do have kids writing, it’s usually just journaling (creative, therefore good), without any explicit instruction in structure and style (uncreative, therefore bad). It doesn’t surprise me the teacher is not much interested. When the kids get into seventh and eighth grade are expected to already know about topic sentences, structure, style, doing research etc. so they are not taught then either—it all ends up with a bunch of kids just floundering through.