Testimonials

Many lead teachers have already used Pathways in their classroom. Below are several comments that have been made regarding Pathways.

October 13, 2005

Please send me six Cleversticks books. I am anxious to integrate this unit into my curriculum, as we have just enrolled a boy from China. He came knowing about 25 English words and phrases and in just three weeks is beginning to put together words and sentences and identify many common items. This will be a tremendous blessing to him and to his classmates.

I have assembled a Bible Center and added a Bible journaling time to get some experience with those two pieces while waiting for the theme books to arrive.

I’m excited about this program, and I pray that we will be able to extend this program into grades three and four and Kindergarten as soon as possible. This program is well-planned, based on the current brain research and learning styles. We are blessed to have the opportunity to revise the material to make it our own. As I see it, that is a very prudent way for our leadership to use the money God has entrusted to us. It would take many years, a number of qualified people, and many more millions of dollars to come even close to the quality of this program. . . .We are in desperate need of a new reading program as our current one is sorely outdated. Our denomination can be proud that we will be on the “cutting edge” with the adoption of this revised program.

Debbie (K-3 Teacher, MN)

December 15, 2005

Here is what I am currently doing in my classroom:

My students are using the writers’ workshop and love it.

We are also doing sentence punctuation/capitalization daily on the board and the kids love it.

We have just begun the “reading for fluency” program and it is going to be rewarding.

We also spend time daily working on spelling drills even though we are using the Small Schools Spelling Program.

We are using trade books for guided reading as I have done for the last 8 years and my kids look forward to reading a lot.

I use mini-lessons as they are needed for teaching content for the writers’ workshop and they are well received.

We will be using Cleversticks after Christmas break. The program is easy to integrate and teach. The students welcome the change and the routine it brings. It takes some rethinking on my part as a teacher in planning. It does free up time in many respects once the program is going and adding an element at a time as they come along is easy. I would not do it all at once by any means. I explain what each element is supposed to do for them and the students are eager to try each. It will be great once the reading books and other parts are in place, but we can do a lot to get ready as we look forward to the program.

It is freeing me to be able to get rid of some of the homework in English especially. We have enough computers that we only have two students assigned to each one and we have a couple of extra if we have doubling up problems. They are really helpful as we get ready for publishing.

This program is easy once we break out of our comfort zones and apply it.

Thanks, and I am looking forward to more books being readied. This will make it ever so much easier to integrate for other teachers once everything is in place. It is rewarding to experiment and it is working, but the tools must be in place before training can begin. We have begun to build our library instead of exchanging gifts at our Christmas party. And the $35.00 mandated per student spending goes a long ways with discounted books.

Greg (Gr. 1-8, WY)

This teacher has been using the strategies with her class, even though she does not have any of the 3^rd and 4^th grade literature:

November 28, 2005

I should have written sooner. I’ve been experimenting with transitioning to a type of Writers’ Workshop for English. We’ve been doing much more writing and much less textbook and worksheet, while still hitting the same topics from the textbook. Here is what my students have to say about it:

• They love it.
• Don’t have to use the books. They are boring.
• Writers’ Workshop seems more modern.
• Didn’t like doing the worksheets.
• Like writing reports with partners.
• Like working with people.
• Like doing the typing of the final copy of the writing. (I’ve been integrating word processing here.)
• Don’t get as “hand” tired with this writing.
• They claim they are doing less writing (when I’m actually having them write more)!

I’ve also experimented with literature circles and using a trade book. We read Stone Fox and used the SDA Literature Unit that goes with it. The kids loved it and have no desire to go back to our Life Reading Series (me either, but…), although my goal is to try and do a good portion of it in between doing literature books. Funny, but I’ve had single students read the book before, but with the whole class reading the book there was a great deal of enthusiasm generated. And I was very impressed with the discussions we were able to have and the depth of insights the students exhibited. The students wanted me to share what their thoughts on it are:

• The book kept us on the edge of our seat.
• Got very involved in the feelings (voice) of the story.
• Liked the group excitement.
• Liked picking your own vocabulary words (old series used words that many felt they already knew).
• Liked writing questions instead of answering them.

They are very excited about the new reading program and can’t wait. Of course, they all move on the 5 th grade next year and will have to wait another year before they can enjoy the new series.

I just want to say how much I appreciate the foresight, organization, effort—everything—that has gone into the new series. It is going to be such a joy to teach this way.

Fran (Gr. 3-4, CO)

March 7, 2006

When I first heard about this new reading program I had some real reservations. I was very traditional with most of my reading, using the

Life Series and adding a few of my own things. I was concerned how I could teach all the grades and cover everything the students need. I recently finished 2 units of the new Pathways program with my students in Grades 1, 2, and 3. While I was doing the Pathways Program I used the textbooks for stories for guided reading with my class. When we finished we went back to the Life Reading Series. I decided to give them the tests for the units they had only read in guided reading with me and had not done any Skilpak or the skills related to the stores. I just wanted to see how they would do.

I was more than pleasantly surprised that my students did very well on the two unit tests. In fact several did better than they normally did.

I saw real growth in their reading and I feel that we will all see that when we get the program up and running.

Beth (Gr. 1-8, Chesapeake)

May 30, 2006

It is hard to believe that we are nearing the end of this school year already!

My class greatly enjoyed the "Will We Miss Them" endangered animals unit. As I mentioned to you, our school had Parent-Teacher Conferences when we were about half way through the unit. I was able to show the work of each child to his or her parent: the vocabulary booklets, the concept maps, the animal journals, the two-column notes, and their work dealing with QAR questions.

The parents were very impressed. Many also voiced that their child had mentioned the "new" reading program, and that their child really enjoyed it. I was also pleased with how the core book part of the program "hooked" the struggling readers and brought them along. It sort of "evened the playing field" in our classroom. One of my struggling students volunteered to share her journal in front of the class for the first time this year!! She also participated during this unit in an enthusiastic manner, something that I had not seen previously during the Life Reading series.

I was also very pleased to receive the latest copy of the Journal of Adventist Education, which was completely devoted to reading. It is wonderful!! It lays a strong research base and supportive rationale for the Pathways program. I am so glad to see it. It explains so many of my questions. I am sure it will be helpful to teachers of students in the middle grades, for it explains more of the changes in emphasis that will be implemented in their classrooms. As I read the articles, (I'm about half done) I often turned to the bibliography section to see which researchers/authors were cited. I was pleased to see the high caliber of content. I was excited to see one article lauding the practices of an educator, who was a presenter at a one-day seminar that I attended a few years ago on phonemic awareness. I have already implemented some of the practices.

I was proud of the work that some of the professors prepared for the Journal of Adventist Education. If these folks are the ones training the new teachers entering the teaching profession, won't the new teachers be very well prepared for the Pathways program?

I'm looking forward to beginning to plan for next year!

Chris (2^nd grade teacher in Ohio)

June 2, 2006

I know you are extremely busy with the Reading program. I just wanted to share with you a little of my experience this year using Pathways or a least an adaptation for my grades one to eight.

I am very excited about what has happened in my language arts program this year as I have incorporated more of the strategies and developed my reader's and writer's workshop programs in more depth.

Many of my student's have expressed their excitement about the program and I have seen marked improvement in some of their comprehension skills (as reflected in other subject areas). I had 1 first grader and so was able to use the Pathway materials we worked on. My problem is sticking to the time. There is so much supplemental material that can be used that it was hard to move on to another theme. I had no second and seventh graders but did have 3, 4, 6, 8.

Although it was a lot of work putting together materials for each of them I felt it was well worth the effort. I just wanted to let you know that the program is going to work well in a multigrade classroom.

I have already started to work on new ideas for the coming year. I would appreciate if there is a way for me to get some of the ideas from 3, 4 you are working on this summer.

Barb (Gr. 1-8, MI)

March 22, 2008

While my students were reading Yuki in the new Pathways series, we learned about Alaska! Then when we began our unit on Texas in social studies, we began to compare the two states. I have done Iditarod projects in the past with other classes and decided to again introduce this study as a class project.

When I checked the Iditarod website, I found lesson plans, names of teachers who volunteered on the trail, and names of vets, pilots, and other volunteers. I was amazed as I researched and read about the huskies and how the mushers love and take care of their dogs. So, I talked with the class and the Iditarod watch began.

The teacher who would be traveling on the trail was from a Lutheran school in Arizona. When I contacted her I assured her that she would be in our prayers. She wrote back, thanked me, and asked if I would like to have my students make a quilt for a school in Alaska. The quilt would connect the two classrooms with a common cultural thread. She gave me the requirements, and we were off!

The students were so excited! We started praying for this new classroom and the students. When I asked my class about what they wanted to share with our special school in Juneau, they suggested that they share a part of Texas and compare it with Alaska. Each student designed a quilt square. Each square compared and contrasted Texas and Alaska. As one student connected the project with the book Yuki, she responded, “This is awesome, Mrs. B! What else can we make?”

We are grateful to an amazing mom who sewed our squares together to for a quilt. The quilt traveled 3,922 miles to Juneau, and is on the Iditarod blog for teachers with 36 other quilts traveling to Alaska from around the USA and Japan. Our room was the only one from Texas, I believe. There was one from Texarkana, but I don’t know if it was Texarkana, Texas or Texarkana, Arkansas.

I don’t know who was more excited – me or the students. Neither do I know what was more thrilling – making the quilt or watching the mushers travel across Alaska. In either case, the students were richly rewarded and even developed spiritually as they developed a concern for the mushers as people. The students wanted to pray for the mushers. Several asked, “Please can we pray for the mushers too - they need the angels’ protection.”

Our quilt was received and the students at the Juneau school had their pictures taken with it. The teacher has assured us that the quilt “will make a great memory for years to come.”

You can see it on our website. Visit www.acatedu.org and go to photo gallery.

I just wanted to pass this on to you. Thanks for reading.

With much appreciation,