Mr. KUMON

comment left by Tex:

Copying sentences can be especially helpful for improving writing skills if done as Ben Franklin did -- from memory.

My 5th grade daughter is in her second month of Kumon reading, and this week’s worksheets include copying sentences from memory. First, she is instructed to read a short paragraph from a story. Then, she is given a few related sentences to write from memory. The instructions are: “Read the sentence until you can remember it. Then write the sentence.”

I had no clue about the value of this exercise, and I don’t recall that she ever had this in school. Now, I’m starting to understand how this can be beneficial. I’ll ask “Mr. Kumon”, (that’s what my daughter calls him) next time about this.

I don't know why I bother.

Obviously KUMON has already figured the whole thing out. Talk about reinventing the wheel.

I thought "text reconstruction" sounded like a good idea the first time I read about it in The First American by H. W. Brands. But until I saw C's results, I had no idea how useful this technique might be.

It certainly didn't cross my mind that text reconstruction would give me so much insight into what C. needs to work on. It's not just an instructional technique; it seems to work as a diagnostic tool, too.

This fall Ed and I are going to ask to see C's state ELA exam. I mentioned the vagaries of the ELA assessment in a Comment on another thread. C.'s score was 10 points below the cut-off for a 4, but he has a 95% "percent correct" average on the test. Apparently you need 97% or 98% correct to get a 4.

This sounds like a distinction without a difference.

Still, because of the number of multiple choice items, I assume C. had to have lost points exclusively on written responses, which makes sense. His writing isn't remotely as good as his reading. So we need to see his test.

I also assume the state isn't going to be able to tell us why he lost the points he did. The school probably won't be able to tell us, either, because they seem to be pretty much tearing their hair out over the whole thing, and rightly so as far as I'm concerned. The year before last -- the first in which the test was administered -- kids they thought had passed turned out to have failed instead, and scores on the front of a student's test report sometimes didn't match up with scores on the back of the report. Twice I was told the department had "calls into" the state and were waiting to hear back.

Maybe I'll put a call into the state.

I've got the number.

Point is: the whole thing is shrouded in mystery, as my friend M. would say, only in this case the mystery is coming from the state, not the school.

I think the text reconstructions will help. We'll have a more "granular" sense of C's writing when we see the scored test; we'll be able to look at his written responses and either spot what the state rubric found problematic or spot what we find problematic.

We'll see.

In any case, it's clear to me that cohesion devices are going to be a focus around here for the foreseeable future.


The Paragraph Book

Susan S has been using The Paragraph Book with her son this summer. I ordered it, too, on the strength of her recommendation, and while I haven't had time to dig into it, it looks terrific.

I especially like this piece of advice the author gives students about the structure of a paragraph:

FIRST
NEXT
THEN
FINALLY

acronym: FNTF

I'm going to teach this acronym to C. I'm not sure it will help with cohesion devices per se, but I do think it gives one a mental guide to paragraph structure.

Besides, the difference between "NEXT" and "THEN" is cool.


update from le radical galoisien re: cohesion devices--

Well I am sure the material must be very competent, it seems slightly ironic when a summary about text comprehension requires several re-readings to be comprehensible.

I wish I'd said that.