Another round of 'did your school do this?'

You certainly learn something new everyday, and on an outing to the library with two of my neighbor kids, I learned something new about our local school system. The 6th grader explained to me that in reading, if you miss five words, you're not getting it and you need to give up trying to read the book. I'm almost sure I don't need to ask because I wouldn't think anybody else would be brought up in such an idiotic enviornment for education, but did anybody else have teachers with this ideal in school? Give up if you miss 5 words? Aside from giving up, what the hell is that supposed to teach the kid?

That is absolutely insane.

Indeeeeeeed, it's no wonder the poor kid can't move up from the 2nd grade reading level with them knocking him back every time he misses a few words.

My son is gone until tomorrow morning, but I am so anxious to ask him how his teacher handles missed words. He is in sixth too. I am SURE it is not like that, of course, but this now has me curious.

Isn't that what reading is all about? Learning new words and using context clues to figure out the meaning?

That's certainly what I thought, because when I was in school there was no option of give up or don't get it, you HAD to learn it and you HAD to get the curriculum. And here's what I was thinking of, there are millions of words in the English language, most of which are above a 2nd or even 6th grade level, how is crippling this kid's known vocabulary to a strictly elementary school level going to help him when he's grown up and out in the real world where you don't have the option to comfortably give up when something is too hard?

Nope. Never happened when I was in school.

Supernova wrote:You certainly learn something new everyday, and on an outing to the library with two of my neighbor kids, I learned something new about our local school system. The 6th grader explained to me that in reading, if you miss five words, you're not getting it and you need to give up trying to read the book. I'm almost sure I don't need to ask because I wouldn't think anybody else would be brought up in such an idiotic enviornment for education, but did anybody else have teachers with this ideal in school? Give up if you miss 5 words? Aside from giving up, what the hell is that supposed to teach the kid?

Five words? I don't agree with that at all.

I don't follow. If you're reading it, how are you missing any words?

I'm not sure this kid has it totally right. I'd like to talk to the teacher and find out the whole story. I know that when it comes to testing reading ability, if there are more than half a dozen words on a page that the kid doesn't know, can't read, etc, we drop down a level and try testing them one level lower. Maybe this kid got confused. I've NEVER heard of anything like this in any of the schools I've ever been at and there are a lot of them.

Impact wrote:I don't follow. If you're reading it, how are you missing any words?

Like if you don't know how to pronounce them and say them wrong, that's what he means. He tried reading the first page in a book of Indians and when he didn't know how to pronounce Indianers he said 'that's five words, it means it's too hard and you have to quit, that's the rule the teachers have and that's how I was taught'.

Ludicrous. If someone is reading a book and comes across words they don't know, then chances are they will infer the meaning from the context…either that, or at the very least it may make them curious enough to look up the definition of said word. In scenarios like this, the literature is more educating/enhancing their vocabulary at the same time. But they want to wonder why schools are failing; it's because everyone has such low standards and expectations.

I have never heard that before in my life!