Quote Originally Posted by starrysky
Wow, this is a very elaborate system. See, that's what I like about American education - the stress on the individual approach and the greater freedom for the teacher to choose something that would be more enjoyable for the students.
Yes, it is. Our county started using it... oh, about five years ago I want to say. It is called MAPr (Measures of Academic Progress Reading) and it is a computerized testing program. The children read passages and then answer questions. If they get the question wrong, it gives them an easier passage. If they get it correct, it gives them a harder passage. It also tests them on vocabulary as well. So it spits out a report telling teachers and parents how well the child does on: word recognition and vocabulary, literal comprehension: narrative, interpretive comprehension: informational, literary response and analysis. And then based upon that, assigns the child that Lexile score range. So this way, if a child bombs out on say, understanding the main idea of a story, it will bring down their overall Lexile score. HOWEVER, it is an area that the teacher and/or parent can work on with the child to improve. Everyone knows, this is the problem area for the child and everything else is fine.
Quote Originally Posted by starrysky
The problem with literature lessons today is that kids don't want to read. I do think it would help to solve the problem if there were more choice, freedom and creativity in our schools and if the best titles of the world literature were included. It's just too boring and ineffective to have to read about characters and events that you don't necessarily care about and relate to, and then have to write a composition about the stuff that you have no thoughts about. The fact that we'll never agree about what stuff should be read at school only shows that the teenager or at least the teacher should be able to choose for themselves.
This is true everywhere! My older daughter is an avid reader and my younger one... well let's just say she and AlexB would get along just great! However, just recently my younger one FINALLY found an author she loves! James Patterson. He usually writes adult books and he switched over to young adult just for this reason. He wanted to get more kids to read. His series of books called "Maximum Ride" and Daniel X and the new one Witch & Wizard (which just released in UK but will not be out in the US until Dec 25 boo hiss) are VERY popular among the tween/teen set and my younger daughter who NEVER likes to read.... well she read all of them NONSTOP! The first max book is even being made into a movie!

Now about the schools here in the US vs. Russia... I have written about this previously... my daughters attend a magnet school for the performing and creative arts and the teachers there try to make learning as creative as possible. So they don't always have to do written reports. Sometimes they can write a new ending to the book or create costumes and do research about the time period and write a diary as one of the characters. The school itself is also very relaxed. They can chew gum, wear flip flops, all sorts of things that make me go "say what?" because the principal would rather pick her battles on more important issues and keep the kids in school and focused on learning.