A high school English Literature teacher and department head in Alberta, Canada, writes a heartfelt post via the 'Of Impossible Worlds' blog with suggestions for changes to the curriculum for English:
A Word on Curriculum
https://ofpossibleworlds.wordpress.com/ ... urriculum/
...First of all, beginning in Grade 1, dispense with the “balanced literacy” farce. If we can sort the mechanics of reading in these early grades, I won’t be faced with teenagers who can “kind of” read. Implement a solid systematic synthetic phonics program, and perhaps include a check at the end of Grade 1. I know this is a controversial suggestion, given that the UK has had a phonics check for years and many people still decry it, and that the proposal in Australia seems to be causing heads to explode, figuratively, of course.
There’s been a lot of pushback against constructivist approaches to teaching math, which seem to have a strangle-hold in Alberta. The issue has been taken increasingly seriously here, with thousands of parents and teachers petitioning the government to adopt a more explicit and evidence-informed position with respect to this subject. There’s a significant body of research in the field of cognitive load theory which suggests that we are all subject to the limitations of working memory. Applied to math learning, this means that if students are taking time to make simple calculations in addition and division, this overloads their working memory, creating an obstacle when higher-level functions are necessary. The idea is that the more we promote automaticity by moving elements of a process into long-term memory, the further we can stretch our functioning, since we clear thinking space in working memory.
The same principle applies to reading. If we explicitly teach and drill grapheme-phoneme connections, students can “chunk” those symbols into words, largely making the mechanics of reading automatic. From there, we use those fundamental principles as we teach new vocabulary, and embark on increasingly challenging texts. As well, it is in these early years that we should begin to explicitly teach about grammar, syntax, and mechanics. This element should continue through to the end of high school, as an unambiguously articulated component of the curriculum.
Do read the full post - which I suggest applies to many countries and contexts and not just Alberta, Canada!
