Open Court—In the Media

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Cohen, Jodi S. "Detroit Reading Program Struggles: Lack of Books Hurts Learning." The Detroit News, November 12, 2002

Response:  I talked to two Detroit first grade teachers on Tuesday. They both love Open Court. One said last year out of 31 kids she gave 17 F's in June, meaning 17 of the children couldn't read at the lowest levels. This year out of 31, first card marking she has only three that she didn't give A's or B's to. She feels less frustrated and the kids feel more successful. She also told me, that she got a student Monday that was in his fifth school so far this year. He knew the story they were reading and was eager to start to work. Please know I am not advocating for Open Court. I'm just reporting what these Masters students told me.

Response:  I think we have teachers here who would react the same way. It scares me that they don't think twice about any primary reading program that gives an F to a six year old. I have to wonder what their classroom instruction looked like. I had twenty-some (varies much) last year and I can't say that any of them failed except for the little boy I spoke of last year, my homeless guy, and I don't think it was nearly so much about his failing as a societal failing. There were several I was concerned about, as their path to literacy was so bumpy, but one boy, previously retained in kindergarten and referred during the year for support services, came to hang out with me after school one night this week and read to me very fluently at a level F. Now granted, he is a second grader but he is a child whom many despaired would never learn to read. I felt this way too but just kept plugging away with him and he was just beginning to be successful with primer level text as he left my room last year. Kids keep teaching me the same lesson over and over...Never Give Up!

Response:  This sort of reasoning frightens me, the idea that a child can move in and out of schools and classrooms, weaving his or her way through similar experiences in all situations. I can't see OC meeting the needs of the children here who do the same, as very frequently there are prolonged periods on disenrollment woven in as well. It is this kind of reasoning that led me to use some leveled books in my teaching, so that when a child leaves me I can say he or she is fluent at Level X or works instructionally at Level Z. That's all I really need to know about my incoming kids, and if I don't know, I know how to get to it pretty quickly.

Helfand, Duke. "Reading Taught the Scripted Way." The Los Angeles Times, July 30, 2000.

Johnson, Darragh. "Differing Reactions to Mixed Scores."  Washington Post, August 15, 2002.

Ryan, Joan. "Teacher's Time Rarely Her Own: Federal Mandates Limit Classroom Ingenuity." The San Francisco Chronicle, March 21, 2004.

Responses to the above article

Schemo, Diana Jean. "California Leads Chorus of Sounded-Out Syllables." The New York Times, February 9, 2002.  

Strauss, Valerie. "Relying on Science in Teaching Kids to Read." Washington Post, February 26, 2002. p. A11.  

"Success Attributed to Open Court Reading Program, High Expectations." Business Wire, April 2002.
This article describes and links to the new McGraw-Hill Education report, "Results with Open Court Reading," which documents impressive improvements in reading performance at eight elementary schools around the country that have adopted the Open Court reading program.