We’ll begin with the special entry. It was done by Dana Palubiak and is used with permission;

‘She Gave Us a Way In’: A Teacher’s Defense of Lucy Calkins

We must adjust, not abandon, reading curricula

In 2021, my 4th grade students compared segregation in the children’s picture book The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson to their own playground. Lucy Calkins was already a villain in education headlines. Education researchers and curriculum-evaluation organizations criticized her popular Units of Study reading and writing curriculum for not aligning with the “science of reading.” They argued her materials lacked evidence-based research and didn’t emphasize phonics enough, especially for early readers. But in my classroom, Calkins’ curriculum was magic. In Room 13, she helped my students name things, hold things, and read material that mattered.

She wasn’t perfect, but she was crucial for my students.

With the aid of Calkins’ curriculum, my 4th graders were synthesizing across texts and making meaning across genres, time periods, and ideas. We read about the American Revolution, wrote cross-text research papers, compared authors’ perspectives, and learned how to hold more than one truth at a time.

Calkins’ curriculum uses a workshop-style model that prioritizes student choice and independent learning. I taught her reading and writing units in 3rd and 4th grade, and across my 30-year career, they were among the most meaningful tools I used, not because they were easy, but because they came alive when taught with intention. They opened things up.

Yet Lucy Calkins has become a lightning rod for literacy criticism in education.

Much of the criticism likely stems from low scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. In 2019, only 34% of 4th graders in my state of Missouri and 26% in the nation performed at or above the “proficient” level in reading. And while critics point to low NAEP scores, I can tell you my students were deeply engaged with the content.

I saw my students write real literary essays about justice and identity. Many of them picked thought-provoking texts like The Other Side, which follows two children who live on opposite sides of a fence in a racially segregated town. My students were able to connect the picture book to their lived experiences in Brentwood, Mo., a district that called itself “Mayberry” after the quaint town on “The Andy Griffith Show.” In a place like that, seeing and naming exclusion mattered. When my student Malik wrote, “The fence in The Other Side isn’t just wood, it’s the way adults look away when someone gets excluded,” I knew the curriculum was working.

Calkins gave us teachers more than sentence frames. She gave us a way in and anchor texts that opened conversations about power and justice to young learners. Her American Revolution unit made kids ask hard questions about whose voices were centered in our country’s history. Her World War II unit included the picture book Rose Blanche, a haunting story about a young girl in Nazi Germany who discovers children being held in a nearby concentration camp. That book helped us talk about moral courage and what it means to act in the face of injustice. When my student Janne quietly connected Rose’s story to her own family’s silence about surviving World War II in Europe, I saw what happens when we trust kids with hard truths.

However, getting students to that point wasn’t easy. Was the curriculum perfect? No. I had critiques. I saw the reading gaps, the struggling 4th graders who needed more phonics, the English learners who craved more scaffolds. I adjusted things. That’s what good teachers do.

The real problem wasn’t Calkins. It was the state and district leaders who adopted her work with no scaffolding, no differentiation, and no investment in teacher growth.

Hanford labels Balanced Literacy practices as failed practices. If this is really the case, then how can she explain reports like this: https://goodmorningwilton.com/board-of-education-stories/

This blog outlines the pushback that Hruby and others have made on Hanford’s position:  https://doctorsam7.blog/2024/04/27/seeking-common-ground-using-common-sense-the-social-media-version-of-sor-myth-vs-reality-part-one-by-dr-sam-bommarito/

So I must concur with Dana’s defense of Calkins. Some things can and should be done to improve reading instruction. But the first step is to recognize that no side has all the answers. All sides must stop using strawman versions of the other sides. Instead, we need to examine each side’s best features. By doing that, we may find common ground and build a system on the best of what all sides offer.

Dare to Dream

Dr. Sam

The guy in the middle taking flak from all sides

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