Open Court—Hearing from Teachers
It's not a matter of choosing to use mindless worksheets or choosing not to use them, Open Court DEMANDS that workbooks be done on a daily basis. And if a teacher is mandated to follow the OC curriculum exactly, there are more worksheets and mindless stuff than can possibly be done in the day.
For instance, there's really no place for writers workshop or readers workshop in OC. "Writing" means filling in the blanks. "Spelling" means filling in the blanks. "Comprehension" means filling in the blanks. District members come around the room to be sure the curriculum is being followed. District mandates end of unit testing and other testing to be sure the curriculum is being followed. Thought and independence are considered insubordination.
As for math—we have mandated workbooks for that, too. District assessments that must be met and are designed to show wether or not teachers are following the curriculum.
There's an incredible lack of autonomy for teachers once these store bought curriculums have been mandated.
June 2004
I wasn't criticizing those who have to use Open Court, but I WAS criticizing Open Court itself, as well as any program that presents "fill in the blank" as the only way to learn something. Fortunately for me, I am in a district that not only rejected Open Court in favor of Hougton-Mifflin (our only two choices in California, as you know, and one HAD to be chosen), but which also allows teachers to teach the best way they know how. Unfortunately, we have many many many teachers who just follow the HM manual and use its supplements and NO other supplementary material, but that's another story. :-)
June 2004
I've just finished my second year with 5th grade Open Court. I hate it! Last year I was afraid I was going to get an "Unsatisfactory" evaluation. I was harassed throughout the year. This year, who knows why, I seemed to be in the good graces of the principal.
I have several theories about it, one having to do with the specialist Open Court sends to us once each month from California. I took advice from the WLU last summer to look at the objectives and then set up my room and my plans to teach those objectives in my own way. When the specialist came to visit (because of last year the principal sent her to observe me first) I met her at the classroom door and guided her through the room showing her the charts, bulletin boards and index cards my students had done and continued to be involved with that demonstrated learning of the objectives for the unit we were studying. She claimed she was impressed and I heard from people in the office that she went straight to the principal to exclaim about what I was doing. She never asked to look at the workbooks nor observed me teaching. She continued to support me through out the year though after the first visit she only took a minute to peek in from the doorway or came in to say hello to my students and then left.
But I don't feel good about the teaching/learning this past year either. Mostly this is due to the mandate that each student read each selection from the anthology, one per week, and take the Open Court assessment on it. Most of the selections are difficult to read because the students lack prior knowledge and interest. Some were difficult for me to read. The tests are open book and mostly ask about picky details. We spent way too much time reading these selections and discussing them so that students could pass the tests.
I am still looking for a way to get through these readings and the tests in the shortest amount of time so that we can have time for book clubs and investigations/inquiries. I don't see my students becoming better readers and certainly not enjoying reading with these selections and assessments.
June 2004
This year was our first year with a full day Kindergarten for all. But there is little time to draw and absolutely no time to nap. The brand new painting easels the principal purchased for all the K's last year had to find new homes outside our school because there is no time for painting. Open Court is the reason for all this. There is so much that has to be done in Open Court in Kindergarten that there is no time for the rest of what made K so much fun and enhanced learning. Most of the K teachers are feeling terribly stressed trying to fit all the mandated worksheets and activities into the day and to get all students to the level expected at the end of the year. We will have some very large K classes at summer school this year because so many kids have not.
June 2004
Whenever one asks Open Court trainers how they expect students to master anything in a program which does 5 minutes of this and 10 minutes of that, they always say, "Ah, but we use spiraling instruction; that way, if a child doesn't get it the first time, they'll get it the second or the third. Just stick to the pacing schedule and all will be fine." I wrote to the company asking for research in support of this practice. Their reply was, essentially, that it was just obvious (apparently to anyone but me). I understand that it's a good idea to revisit a concept, but never spending a substantial amount of time on it at all? Does anyone know of any research on either side of this issue?
Response: I agree that part of the problem with OC is the amount of time spent on each segment and the scattershot, cha-cha-cha, move-them-along fraqmented nature of the instruction. Isn't another major drawback though the fact that not only is the instruction standardized but that it is fragmented not only internally but from relevance to how the skills are actually used?
What I mean is that our brains seek relevance and meaning. They do not retain that which is irrelvant. So OC is internally fragmentmented i.e. First this—now that without transition—but the skills as taught are also disconnected/fragmented from the authenticity that makes those skills relevant to real-life application.
Ellen Langer out of Harvard did research that indicates that skills taught in isolation are inflexible and tend to not transfer to authentic use.
February 2003
I have been advocating at my schools for years that we spend more money and time on non-fiction reading for a variety of reasons including the need for building students' knowledge of their world.
Now that we have Open Court I have been told I should be very happy because it includes many non-fiction selections beginning in Kindergarten. However, the selections chosen for these anthologies assume that the students have background knowledge on the topics they are reading about and they often have no relevancy or interest for our students. I have given several examples of this from our fifth grade anthology before. A fourth grade teacher complained about several in that light. The one I remember was a selection (remember these are almost always pieces of longer works thereby leaving out information given in the original text itself) about alternative medicine. There was reference to herbs and massage. The kids comprehension was extremely low not simply because they lacked prior knowledge but also because they had no interest in it. Nor is there time available in the school day to develop interest or knowledge what with all the workbooks that concentrate on things li ke parts of speech, punctuation, spelling, topic sentences, noun-verb agreement.
At the same time that we are now expecting the students to read more non-fiction we are mandated so much time to spend specifically on reading—meaning the reading program our district has chosen—there is less and less time for using supplemental readings for the other subjects. So social studies, science and math times are limited to the one text provided which is often above many students' comprehension level and dry as dust.
And there has been no attempt to bring the reading program and the rest of the curriculum into alignment so that we could integrate subjects with one exception. In fifth grade our students take the dreaded MEAP social studies and science tests. This year we were told when we finished the first theme in Open Court to skip to the fourth theme, "Building a New Nation" because several questions on the social studies test deal with Core Democratic Values. We can also skip to that part of the history text at that time.
I believe we must speak up to demand more non-fiction for our students but we must include in the discussion what we know about children and learning and the need to keep it/make it relevant to them.
February 2004
I'm with you, except possibly about loving the grade I'm now teaching. I like my students this year a whole lot better than I did last year but I'd rather be teaching the first or second grade—if Open Court wasn't mandated. I think I can deal with OC at this level a lot better than I could at the primary level. I just had a look at one of the little paper booklets the first grade gets to take home each night for reading practice. It's awful! There is nothing predictable, no rhyme, no repetition, no story, and very little support from the pictures. The teacher told me the booklet I saw was supposed to be used with the lesson about the words I and is. Each of these words was used in the book once.
I loved teaching writing to the little ones. I'm struggling now with teaching fifth graders who have never had the opportunity to write anything other than reports that were mostly plagiarized in 3rd and 4th grades (getting A's because there were no grammatical or spelling errors) and two to three sentence "stories" using sentence starters and a bank of words in first and second grades. When I mention Kindergarten writing the K teachers look at me as though I had a big crack in my head.
I have a self-contained class with one special each day for one hour (2 for science, 2 for computers and 1 for health/gym) and 45 minutes once a week in our new school library so I'm not plagued with the short period. It would be easier if the specials were all at the same time each day or all in the morning but that's life and it's better than many other situations. I am supposed to teach all the language arts—based on OC—math and social studies and one period of science, one of art and one of music. I am able to integrate a lot of social studies with language arts and of course teach reading strategies as we read the social studies and math texts.
I'm concerned that I am not doing much about assessing my student's reading other than helping them to pass the required OC assessment each Friday based on the selection they were required to read and discuss from the anthology. I need some guidance about what and how. Suggestions?
November 2003
Last year I was fortunate enough to be on the Leadership team that choose the new Houghton Mifflin program for our district. We rejected the Open Court unanimously, but this program also has some "issues".
I began using this new and "complete" program with my class this summer. I already feel as if all of the good teaching practices that I have learned in the last few years have been tossed aside. We are back to using worksheet after worksheet after worksheet. There is so much whole group instruction and "teacher talk" that by the end of the day, I'm tired of hearing my own voice. I am sure I must sound like "Charlie Brown" to the students! Where is the meaningful and inspiring instruction?
I am not saying that the entire program is a failure. There are many wonderful components to the program. However, some of it has been undermined by the state. A committee from the State Dept. of Ed., who are not associated with the publisher, have "revamped and revised" some of the assessment components of the test. The test is irrelevant to the subject matter in the texts that we are teaching. Go figure!
We are bound to use this program by state requirements as well as the federal Reading First Grant. At an underperforming school like mine, the pressure is very intense. The result will be that teachers will be teaching to the tests, worrying so much about low scores, that the true mission of teaching and inspiring students will be lost.
I don't know how we will ever "turn the tide", but I know that it is important that people like you keep educating teachers so they will know the difference, and writing to newspapers so others will hear the message. Thank you.
September 2003
I went to our usual teachers meeting with the CEO this week. He said he wanted to hear our concerns but especially wanted to know what we thought about Open Court. I told him that the fourth and fifth grade teachers in our school feel that our children haven't progressed in reading at all this year with Open Court and are frustrated trying to read the selections. He had me talk with the person in charge of the Open Court program in our district.
She started by asking me if I was using the phonics cards. I told her that my students didn't need the phonics cards because they are reading fluently but they don't have a clue what they have read. She got this gigantic smile on her face and even did a little hop of joy and said "Well, that's great that they are fluent readers!" Didn't address the lack of comprehension except to say she was going to see that we got vocabulary lists from the lower grades to teach our kids. NOT A CLUE! And she's in charge.
May 2003
Are the stories true that Open Court "Police" come in and monitor how you do their program, and instruct you to remove your literature books, restrict print on your walls, etc.? (I'm almost hoping it's true—This is a great way to mobilize even the most uninvolved people!)
Response: Unfortunately, some teachers I am working with don't care about some of the other real problems—phonics first, ad nauseum, etc.—will care about the above. So I need those kinds of stories and information. I'll fill in the gaps by reading Elaine Garan's book. I want to say to my faculty, and district, "We DON'T want this because,....." and give a good succinct answer that will make sense and sway them. Then I want to be able to fill in with more information for anyone interested. My district did mandate our use of the Open Court phonics program several years ago. I did use it as instructed for a brief time and dreaded even going to school. It was one of the most horrible experiences (45 minutes daily!) I ever had in the classroom, both for me and my first graders. I do teach phonics, but not this way.
Response: It is true that Open Court lessons in early Kindergarten omit print. When Open Court representative presented in our district her rationale was that the focus was on making the students "phonemically aware" and we wouldn't want to confuse them with print at the same time. I haven't found any support for this in the research. Kindergarteners have had print in their environment for five years, why would we keep it from them now? An expert teacher can assist the students understanding of how the sounds of language and print are connected in meaningful experiences through the shared reading of poetry charts, big books, interactive & shared writings, etc. This was one of many, many reasons why our district did not adopt Open Court.
Response: Yes. They also tell people to rearrange their furniture so the desks are in a horseshow. A teacher told me the other day that she gets diarrhea one Open Cult Cop day. And don't forget the in-services. People call in sick to avoid them. I was at a hearing where a district person scolded the audience for saying anything critical at the in-services. The person I was sitting with, who isn't a teacher, was shocked. "Who does she think she's talking to?" she asked. Us sheep, is the answer. My district did mandate our use of the Open Court phonics program several years ago. I did use it as instructed for a brief time and dreaded even going to school. It was one of the most horrible experiences (45 minutes daily!) I ever had in the classroom, both for me and my first graders. Imagine two and a half hours of it.
March 2002
Ask the proponents of Open Court or HM to define what reading is. Then, ask them to explain how the program meets that definition. I define it as the independent use of a system of strategies to obtain meaning from print with a word accuracy of at least 90%. I am not familiar with HM, but I do know that Open Court doesn't come close to meeting that definition.
March 2002
In my book Misreading Reading I have a chapter on the SINGLE study on Open Court, the Foorman study, that's been in a peer-reviewed journal. That study has been sufficiently discredited so that McGraw-Hill no longer mentions it in the "Research" section of its Open Court website. If you go to that website and click on the "Research" icon, you'll only find a ms. written by a Mc-H employee.
Mc-H is now saying that Open Court is "based on" scientific research, i.e., the NICHD, NRP report stuff but, of course, that not only begs the question, it still leaves the fact that the program has not been scientifically validated according to the very standard the advocates of scripted programs parade about, i.e., empirical evidence in peer-reviewed journals. This month the publication of the Foorman study is FOUR YEARS OLD (gee, how the time flies!) and to date nothing has followed it--that, btw, given the growth of Open Court sales, is in itself an amazing fact . I'd tell the Open Court sales rep that you're committed to empirical evidence in peer-reviewed journals and to come back after there is some beyond one discredited study from the last century. Gerry Coles
March 2002
Sound pictures? Yes, I know what you mean. They are the pictures of words that begin with a certain sound that are supposed to cue the letter-sound relationships. These drive second-language speakers of English crazy. A Spanish speaker looks at "butterfly" for B and says "mariposa" in his head. (Nancy, I bet you have some real Open Court examples.) It gets really confusing unless and until they get the "sound pictures" straight in English. I used to entertain myself while observing in classrooms to see how many ambiguous "sound pictures" the teachers had up around the room to torment their native speakers of languages other than English. And then there are the pictures in workbooks that you have to match up with the beginning sound. Now that's a lot of fun for bilingual learners, who may even have two or three different words for the picture in their native language, let alone trying to guess what "sound" the picture represents in the English they don't yet speak. I wonder how many Open Court teachers ever wondered why these kids may not be "getting it" with this program.
February 2002
I just looked in the Open Court brochure, and they also have Pre-decodable texts. Mostly rebus stories. They have blackline takehome books, too. They even show a "proposed classroom set-up" for "effective use of space." The kids look like they will be assessed to death, too. Pretest, midyear test, posttest; unit assessments; diagnostic assessments; teacher observation logs, student assessment record, class assessment record, rubrics for writing, portfolio, comprehension and inquiry. I didn't see anything about developmental or inventive spelling. But the kids get desk strips with the sound pictures on them...
February 2002
We had a presentation on Open Court today. The speaker didn't know what a questioner meant by "guided reading." Hmm, sounds like someone bowing to Marian Joseph to me. It seems like the district looked at open court and tailored their adoption criteria to what they have available. Even our new four point writing rubric matches up with Open Court. And Open Court says they are the only program that has the sound spelling cards for encoding and decoding "that the has asked for in its criteria." Why is the district only looking at two publishers when the state website shows nine as board adopted for 2002-2004?
February 2002
Inter-Office Correspondence to teacher from principal: During my visit to your classroom this morning I notices many supplemental books from either Rigby, Wright or other materials maybe from your reading recovery stock. I asked you when these books are used and you said that you teach with Open Court and use these other books also. It is very important to utilize only the Open Court materials during the prescribed reading time and no other trade books during the directed teacher lessons except for those books that Open Court recommends to complement the modules. It is obvious that you continue to do your own program. It is insubordinate {sic} to refuse to implement the Open Court reading program as prescribed. Your training in the area of reading is extensive and I respect your need to utilize your training but in lieu of the fact that we are an Alliance-Open Court school, we have made a commitment to this program and it is mandatory that the script be followed. Thank you for your immediate compliance to this direction.
Response: When I read things like this I wonder where we are as a profession of literacy educators and a democratic nation. I remember teaching in the '50s with McCarthyism over our heads and this kind of imposition about teaching about the United Nations, progressivism, and other "liberal" issues were suspect. I want there to be serious discussion in all professional teacher/researcher literacy organizations about the place academic freedom plays in schools. Certainly we have a professional responsibility to discuss the results of this kind of fear by administrators, teachers and others. By not speaking out those of us in teacher education and research institutions, we support beliefs that the role of commercial programs are more important than the knowledge and professionalism of teachers.
May 2000
Related Information:
Open Court—Hearing from Teachers
Open Court
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