re: From an 11th Grade Teacher at a good suburban high school

Reading is not merely recognizing the words independently, but also comprehending the material as a whole. My wife is a new 2nd grade teacher at an urban school. Her 1st few weeks was spent assessing their skill sets. Not a single child scored 1st grade 12th month, which is what one would expect going into 2nd grade. Most scored at various ranges in kindergarten in all subjects. As a teacher how do you teach 2nd grade material to kids that are that far behind?? My first instinct was, WTF were the previous year teachers doing. It's not that, it's parental involvement. With the sheer volume of material that has to be taught during the day, it is a necessity the child review at night with the parent and it's not happening. At most 10% of the parents participate. Then, of those that do, they aren't able to help because they lack the intelligence(keep in mind it's second grade) to assist the child. On a measuring task one parent didn't know how to measure centimeters. Several parents didn't know the Executive, Judicial, and Legislative branches.