For This Day
Volume 5 Issue 3
FOR THIS DAY A Vision for Grammar School English
by Wendy Powell,
CDA English Department Head
In my sixteen years of teaching at CDA, I’ve mostly taught students in grades 5 through 11. But since my focus in this article is the vision for grammar school English education, I want to reassure you that I have also had one brief and shining moment as a grammar school teacher.
I taught second grade on Wednesday, February 12, 2003. The scheduled substitute for second grade came down with a cold. At the time, I only taught on Tuesday/Thursday, so when I received a call to teach second grade on Wednesday, I agreed to step in. I was given an impressively, down-tothe-minute, organized lesson plan. The class of 15 delightful students guided me through the opening routine and helped me with the elaborate coding of the phonics lesson. Then at one point, the third-grade teacher put her head in the door, “Hey, I’m testing and the second-grade boys were really noisy on their morning bathroom break yesterday.” It had distracted her class. “Can you make sure they stay quiet today?”
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As the mother of five children, three of them boys, I felt I could manage this. When time came for the boys’ bathroom run (10:02 a.m.), I told them that today I was sending them on a covert military operation. I let them know that their mission was to get to the bathroom and back without being seen or heard. The boys grinned and left. I kept the door open to listen. Not a sound. However, I started to feel concerned when the boys had not returned after about five minutes. According to the schedule, they were allowed three minutes. After ten minutes I informed the girls the boys were M.I.A. and stepped into the hall to look for them. I was surprised to see all seven of them silently commando-style crawling down the hall back to class. Things went smoothly until after lunch. It was the day of the Valentine’s celebration with a program of crafts and snacks. The last two hours are still a blur, but I remember pressing rather limp, damp, glittery cards for Mom into sticky hands as the students trundled out the door and down the hall. The classroom, so well-ordered when I’d arrived that morning, looked like a cupcake had exploded.
I left that day with a renewed admiration for my grammar school colleagues.
The grammar school years, both at home and at school, are filled with learning and wonder. Our vision for grammar school
“I have discovered it to be the most accurate predictor of student success: Does your child read on their own for fun?”
English is both simple and rich. When I talk to new families about bringing a logic or high school student to CDA, there is always one question that I ask them. I have discovered it to be the most accurate predictor of student success: Does your child read on their own for fun?
Reading is important for two reasons. The first is obvious. Reading is an important skill and the key to learning almost everything else. As students read and are read to, they enrich their vocabularies, expand their interests, and extend their attention spans. They pick up a remarkable amount of spelling and an understanding of the rhythms of skillful writing. All this happens at a subconscious level because on the surface they are just enjoying a remarkable story. The second reason captures the heart of classical education. Stories form our loves. They change what we admire, what we desire, and who we want to be. That’s why choosing what to read is so important. Being told that lying is bad is not nearly as effective as hearing the story of the boy who cried wolf.
It is important to know that children are ready to read for themselves at different ages. One of my children learned to read before her fifth birthday and almost before I finished teaching her all her letters. Another didn’t really catch on until halfway through second grade. Admittedly, my not quite five-year old turned out to be an exceptional reader. In high school, she scored a 750 on the critical reading section of her SAT. But my nearly seven-year-old reader’s score was a 770. In other words, the age of the student when he or she learns to read will make no difference in the long run. For both types of students “reading comprehension” will be developed by being read to at a level well Coram Deo Academy
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beyond what they can write or read on their own. There are a few practical ways this works in the home component.
First, make sure that you are reading out loud to your children every day. When you finish reading, have your children tell the story to you. You can discuss the reading if you like with simple questions: What character did you admire most? What do you think they should have done? If children can repeat a story back to you then you know they understand it. You may also want to write down the student’s oral narration. The core of comprehension is simple: Does he know enough about this subject and its vocabulary to understand what the passage is saying? If not, the solution is more reading.
Second, make sure that you are reading great books to your children. The goal is to stretch their moral imaginations—for them to learn to love goodness, truth, and beauty. The language should be rich and beautiful. There are plenty of “one of the enormous advantages of whole books…they open the mind to beauty and adventure and courage and hope that a child, in our society especially, may very well never otherwise encounter.” -Christine Miller, Classical Educator
web sites and books that have lists of the best children’s books. So much of what is currently “popular” is mediocre and banal or worse. Consider these offerings from the latest Scholastic Book Club flyer for elementary students: Goosebump’s Slappy World, Creepy Pair of Underwear, Hensel and Gretel: Ninja Chicks. For advanced readers they offered Descendants 2: A Classic Battle between Wicked and Evil - These Kids are Made for Trouble. Books like this are what educator Charlotte Mason would have called “twaddle.” Classical educator Christine Miller writes about the importance of choosing the best books:
The real value of good literature is in the life and beauty that it introduces to a
child. The child reading the book is meeting people and characters. By the time he is twelve, if he has read widely and well, he will have met and become familiar already with just about every type of person he could hope to meet in life. And not only persons, but life situations; problems and joys. The child reading a whole book is naturally internalizing the situations, problems and solutions, safely through books. He is accepting and rejecting ideas, values and traits, without knowing that he is doing it. This is one of the enormous advantages of reading whole books that have literary power. Wisely chosen, they teach about life, they open the mind to beauty,
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adventure, courage and hope that a child in our society may never otherwise encounter. Enlarging, familiarizing and internalizing are at the heart of the grammar of literature.
Third, read lots of poetry. Consider this quote from A.T. Quiller, author of the Elson Grammar School Reader:
“I believe that if, for one-half hour a day, a teacher were to read good poetry aloud with his pupils, not fretting them with comments, not harrying them with too frequent questions, but doing his best by voice and manner to hold their attention, and encourage them to read in their turn, pausing only at some salient beauty, or some unusual difficulty, above all
“The only way we learn language is through exposure, and young children acquire language with astonishing ease.”
giving the poetry time to sink in--I believe thoroughly he would find himself rewarded beyond all calculations. For a child’s mind is a wonderful worker if we only trust it. A child’s imagination is as susceptible of improvement by exercise as his judgment or memory.”
Before 1700, almost all great literature was written in poetic form. Reading poetry has the additional benefit of preparing students to read the great poetic works. Do not be afraid to read poetry or stories from other eras or with some difficult language. The only way we learn language is through exposure, and young children acquire language with astonishing ease.
Lastly, provide rich non-reading experiences that widen your children’s world. One of Adam’s first tasks in the book of Genesis was naming the animals. Our world expands as our vocabulary grows. Have you ever learned an unfamiliar word and then suddenly noticed it keeps popping up everywhere? It was there before, but you had not realized it. Imagine taking a walk in the forest. Now imagine that you are walking with Mary Ligon, our high school Biology and Environmental Science teacher. Her experience would be richer than most of ours. I hear birds singing, but she hears robins, cardinals, chickadees, a tufted titmouse, and a painted bunting. She “names” different ferns, flowers and trees; she is walking among friends. When my daughter, Rebecca, was in kindergarten, her teacher brought in a variety of apples one day. The students looked at them and observed the differences. They also learned their names, ate slices of each one, and picked their favorites. They made a chart showing how many students picked each apple. I think it was technically a math lesson, but the produce section of the grocery store was a Coram Deo Academy
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different place for Rebecca after that. She knew a lot about those apples. She still likes Golden Delicious the best. Have your children take pictures of birds in their backyard and sketch them, have them bring in leaves from various trees and find out what they are. Their world will expand, their vocabulary will expand, and they will become better readers.
Read great books. Growing great readers is important, not only for academic success, but more importantly for moral development. By drenching our children in the best literature, we develop both their minds and hearts. Theologian and college professor, Vigen Gurioan, says, “Our ability to transmit moral truths is limited. We cannot make our children good. But we can help them learn to love what is good.”
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Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7
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image and photo credits: Image 1 - oil painting, The Fairytale-Three Reading Girls by Walter Firle (1859-1929, German) Image 2 - collage of book covers, free online images Image 3 - personal photo of Mrs. Powell reading to her grandchildren, Isobel and William Image 4 - portrait by Nick Glover Photography, November 2016, www.nickgloverphotography.com
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