Is private > public?

For reading instruction, not necessarily

Conventional wisdom deems private schools – with smaller classes, stricter discipline, and alternate teaching styles – superior to their public brethren. And many are. But parents of dyslexic children should ignore stereotypes and dive deeper into each potential schools’ philosophy and curriculum.

Consider the thoughts of a parent who transferred her 8-year-old last March from a private school to a public elementary.

“Public school has exceeded our expectations in every way!” the mother e-mailed at the end of the school year. “Since attending public school and practicing spelling every day, (my child’s) challenges around spelling have largely disappeared and she regularly gets perfect scores on grade-level spelling tests. She is motivated by achieving a high score and gets daily practice in and out of school (through homework).”

Her daughter’s previous school was a well-respected, progressive institution that used “inquiry-based” learning, in which students work together to “discover” answers and figure out things such as scientific method, mathematical patterns, and rules of spelling and grammar.

“I’ve now seen first-hand the cost of this approach, especially for students who may struggle in a given subject area (whether because of a learning difference or not),” the parent wrote. “This has me reflecting a lot on how many children diagnosed with learning disabilities actually just aren’t getting high quality, evidence-based Tier 1 instruction.”

Her daughter, who was diagnosed with mild dyslexia, has benefited from “more explicit direct instruction, regular daily practice of core skills,” and “clear feedback” (my emphases). Her norm-referenced percentiles “show substantial growth in just the few months that we’ve been in public schools,” the mother glowed.

Note the keywords here: Daily. Explicit. Direct. Regular. Clear. Struggling readers benefit less from “discovering” a core principle rather than simply having it pointed out to them, and then practicing it in a structured manner. It’s often good to use a method called guided discovery where the teacher subtly steers students toward the correct answer, making them feel like they discovered it for themselves. For example, a tutor might ask, “Is the vowel saying its name? Is there a consonant sound after the vowel? Why does the vowel usually say its name (long sound)?”

Another example is choice & contrast questioning, in which the question is framed in the form of two options – e.g., is the first sound in dog a /d/ or a /j/?; Is /sh/ spelled with a “s” or a “sh”? – or even three: Is the vowel sound in hot an /a/, an /u/, or an /o/?

Student-led, experiential learning models work very well for many students. What works best for dyslexic learners, though, has been well documented – and does not align with most inquiry-based methods or other alternative models, some of which delay teaching reading until as late as third grade.

So be careful, parents, when investigating private schools and weighing school choices. If you have a struggling learner, you can’t assume Private School X is a good fit, or that Public School Y isn’t. Sound reading instruction transcends labels.

This mother “absolutely made the right decision,” she said. At the same time, “my disappointment in (the former school) has grown as I’ve learned more about the gap between what they do and what would support kids like (my daughter) and all kids to thrive academically.”

Healthy food for thought. Hope it’s helpful.