I agree that kids need direct instruction and modeling.
I’m talking about a curriculum without instruction that uses recall worksheets which are lower level thinking skills. (Convergent thinking)

Thanks for the comment.

I use Siegfried Englemann’s direct instruction approach, and my four-year-old daughter has grown into a beautiful love of reading. She didn’t/doesn’t adore every lesson, but reading Little Bear and Frog and Toad (on an instructional level) is the highlight of her day. And, truthfully, mine.

And although it might not sound like it so far, I suppose I walk a middle road. Direct Instruction is, in my view, an incredible way to build the foundation of skill necessary for all the depth, beauty, and variety a constructivist education can offer. I see direct instruction as playing a vital role in early reading instruction as well as basic math facts. Past that, bring on the inferring, the peer tutoring, the analysis and deconstruction. Kids can do so much more advanced thinking than we give them credit for!

But I’ve seen first-hand the result of programs that offered too much abstract thought without first tying the children to a consistent method. (Read: ill-run Investigations math) The majority of these fifth-graders couldn’t do simple multiplication — and some struggled with adding/subtracting three-digit numbers –and I was busy using a curriculum that wanted to investigate three or four different (and marvelous, I truthfully say) different algorithms for division.

thanks for sharing your story, Alexis. I’m so happy you found such a great school!!

Thanks, Tracey!Unfortunately, I think that some of the math facts – while for sure need to be understood conceptually with the concrete before the abstract – have to be memorized.

I’m thinking this applies to math too. My son had a drill test for addition in 1st grade. It’s making me think what’s the point. Where else in life are we drilled to solve a math problem – unless we’re tipping at a restaurant.