I’m in a 6th grade classroom and we are still
teaching students about nouns, verbs, and how to find the main idea in a story.
I feel like these are ideas that students start learning in 2nd
grade, and that they should know these concepts by now. However, when I teach
lessons, many students still struggle with those ideas and concepts. I realize
that students work on learning more complex aspects of main idea and other
standards; however, I think that many times the expectations are similar
between grade levels. This means that teachers spend time every year teaching
and reteaching the same concepts.
Since there
are so many concepts to teach each year, the classes only spend a few days
going over each topic. It doesn’t seem like long enough to go over the concepts
in depth, which may be a reason that students need to be retaught the same
ideas every year. I was wondering if anyone in grade school thought that they
were able to spend a reasonable amount of time on each standard (especially
ideas that students are being introduced to for the first time), or whether the
teachers seem to speed through them in order to cover all of the topics before
testing?
Students definitely start learning about those concepts in 2nd grade- that's where I am now and we're going over those things for sure. I feel like we spend a reasonable amount of time on each topic, especially if we are planning the right way and integrating across topics and planning together with literature, writing, science, social studies, etc. I think right now, the biggest barrier to accurately covering the standards, is the time lost in changing policies and procedures. Metro seems to be constantly changing the way they want teachers to change the structure of their literacy block, or adding i-time, etc. and teachers are so confused about what/how they are to be teaching, and that really makes it hard for teachers to teach what they need to be teaching in the right way.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest thing I'm thinking right now about these issues is how students seem to master concepts one year and then move on to the next year and need to be re-taught them all over again. I have heard so many complaints from my teachers in second grade this year that my students don't know the concepts from first grade, but the first grade teachers last year would tell you that the students completely mastered the material. What happens from year-to-year that our students seem to have totally mastered the material and then they just lose all of it? How can we teach better so that our students continue to retain their knowledge from grade-to-grade and we avoid problems like the one Heather mentioned?