Sep 11, 2022·edited Sep 11, 2022Liked by Natalie Wexler
Natalie, have you ever considered John McWhorter for a podcast or interview of some kind? He’s already a huge proponent of phonics to help Black children, and has off-hand expressed disappointment for Education not being a better equalizer. I bet he would find your work enlightening!
Phonics is the start, but Content is king. That’s why we built title specific, lexile leveled, content connections for 500 popular k-5 titles, included with the two million books we have gifted to date, and make them available for educators. Content Connections include four post book activities: like text-to-self, text-to-text, text-to-world, and creativity.
That’s why The Library of Congress recognized #kidsreadnow as 2022 literacy innovator.
I find what little I know about your thoughts on reading and writing research insightful and helpful, and I'll likely buy one or more of your books. I must admit, however, that I am put off by your insistence that our response to the pandemic had no effect on educational progress. I saw my extremely privileged kindergartener stagnate for many months, and I can't imagine that the effects on poor kids who were forced to endure Zoom school (without parents with time to closely supervise and/or tutor or hire tutors) were anything less than catastrophic.
Your point seems to be that we have long-standing issues with pedagogy and achievement, and I'm with you all the way. I just wish you could make that point without exonerating highly controversial deviations from educational norms with consequences we've yet to fully comprehend.
Thank you for this. This makes sense. Unlike other states, we had little disruption to attendance at schools in our district in Tennessee. The state governor wants districts to provide summer schools with the threat of holding children back in third grade to make up for poor reading levels. There is no discussion of what is being taught and the district is obviously on the defensive. We do have the curricula you have endorsed, Wit & Wisdom. I have got a first grader here and I'm disappointed in myself that I didn't investigate earlier how dark and depressing this is. Teachers are skipping pages that contain the 'bad bits'. I also wonder if testing and scores at an elementary are useful.
Natalie, have you ever considered John McWhorter for a podcast or interview of some kind? He’s already a huge proponent of phonics to help Black children, and has off-hand expressed disappointment for Education not being a better equalizer. I bet he would find your work enlightening!
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/27/opinion/racism-test.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Phonics is the start, but Content is king. That’s why we built title specific, lexile leveled, content connections for 500 popular k-5 titles, included with the two million books we have gifted to date, and make them available for educators. Content Connections include four post book activities: like text-to-self, text-to-text, text-to-world, and creativity.
That’s why The Library of Congress recognized #kidsreadnow as 2022 literacy innovator.
I find what little I know about your thoughts on reading and writing research insightful and helpful, and I'll likely buy one or more of your books. I must admit, however, that I am put off by your insistence that our response to the pandemic had no effect on educational progress. I saw my extremely privileged kindergartener stagnate for many months, and I can't imagine that the effects on poor kids who were forced to endure Zoom school (without parents with time to closely supervise and/or tutor or hire tutors) were anything less than catastrophic.
Your point seems to be that we have long-standing issues with pedagogy and achievement, and I'm with you all the way. I just wish you could make that point without exonerating highly controversial deviations from educational norms with consequences we've yet to fully comprehend.
Thank you for this. This makes sense. Unlike other states, we had little disruption to attendance at schools in our district in Tennessee. The state governor wants districts to provide summer schools with the threat of holding children back in third grade to make up for poor reading levels. There is no discussion of what is being taught and the district is obviously on the defensive. We do have the curricula you have endorsed, Wit & Wisdom. I have got a first grader here and I'm disappointed in myself that I didn't investigate earlier how dark and depressing this is. Teachers are skipping pages that contain the 'bad bits'. I also wonder if testing and scores at an elementary are useful.