The Pros and Cons of the McGraw-Hill Curriculum (The Way I See It)

I was recently asked if I would recommend the McGraw-Hill Curriculum.   I have worked with this series to lesson plan with teachers in 2nd-5th grades in four different schools this year.  We use this curriculum for our whole group, as a part of our differentiated instruction, and for intervention.   I have not used any other curriculum, so what I discuss below is not a comparison of this curriculum with any other. Instead I am going to give you the pros and cons of it to help you make the decision for the needs of your school.

The stories- Our kids are loving the stories!  They are high interest and engaging.  Our kids actually love to read them and I've even heard them talk about the stories outside of the classroom and have referred to them to make text connections throughout the year.  This is a major plus for the curriculum. 

Reading Writing Workshop-This extra book is wonderful.  We use it to model a benchmark/standard (in Florida we have benchmarks until next year).  It is great to have a short piece of text to use to model a concept.  And, because they wrote the text to closely follow what the students will do in the anthology, it is perfect for this purpose.  It really helps our teachers go through the gradual release model.  We use the RWW on days 1 and 2 of instruction and model the graphic organizers and how to take them to writing.  Then, students work in groups or independently from the anthology or paired text.  It is working out very nicely.  This is another huge plus.

The resources- There are SO many resources with this series!  This has been both a pro and a con for us.  On the positive side, it offers many choices for our teachers.  There are tons of activities, teacher "helps" and even Tier 2 materials.  Another great thing about the resources offered is the interactive lessons for a projectable whiteboard.  If you would like the negative side of all of this, you could go back and read this section again.  :)  I've come across so many teachers who were frustrated because they couldn't fit all of this into one day.  Some teachers have tried to teach what is listed in the sample lesson plan in one day.  It just isn't possible in a 150-minute reading block.  After I've explained that they could pick and choose, they felt much better.  Teachers have access to Webinars on every aspect of the curriculum.  They are able to learn at their own pace and review whenever they want.  The technological components are outstanding.  The kids just love them.  The Lesson Planner is amazing.  I love how you can re-order the plans and delete things you are not going to use.  This makes it so easy to not just plan, but teach. 

Readability Levels- I know Common Core advocates complex text, but complex doesn't always mean difficult.  What I mean is, there are quite a few stories that are 2 Lexile levels above the grade level it is intended for.  Complex could mean the text structure or how many narrators there are in a story.  There are many different variable to take into effect.  This makes it very hard for struggling readers to feel successful.  You would think the materials listed for ELL and approaching leveled readers would be at a lower level, but after checking the Lexile and readability levels they are not.   Students become easily frustrated because they cannot decode the words.

Graphic Organizers and Scripts- At first glance, these appear to be an amazing resource.  Finally a curriculum provides SOMETHING to help teachers teach a lesson.  The DEA (Define, Example, Ask) and Close Reading Scripts are a great way for new teachers or teachers trying to learn a whole new set of standards to teach at the beginning.  But, they are very basic.  All of the graphic organizers follow the same pattern (Clue, Clue, Clue, Theme; Detail, Detail, Detail, Author’s Purpose).  Oh, if it were this easy!  It doesn’t take into account students who struggle with finding the RIGHT details or determining which clues to select.  It assumes all kids learn the same way.  Experienced teachers quickly determine that we have to teach a little deeper.  It needs to be more rigorous.  Again, what the curriculum provides is a great start, but if we are to get our kids to where they need to identify, analyze, and synthesize what they learned, many kids need instruction that goes a little deeper. 

WonderWorks Intervention- The concept is wonderful. However, the reality is not this cut and dry.  WonderWorks Intervention takes the story from the anthology and writes it at a lower readability level.  It is designed to close the achievement gap and is written at 2 years below grade level (the grade level of the story).  Students are supposed to work one week after they have already dissected the story.  It asks additional questions so that students really understand what they are reading.  There are plenty of assessments to determine if your kids really understand.  And, if it is determined by the assessment that the student has mastered the skill, it even has an exit plan.  Students are not intended to be in intervention for the rest of their lives.  There should be a way for them to exit.  It is a great plan. 

But then, there’s the reality.  Many times, the teacher is not the interventionist.  The interventionist usually not a highly skilled teacher (which is the foundation of effective intervention) The interventionist often times relies on the teacher’s guide as a script to direct their teaching.  They do not just know higher order thinking questions.  In this case, the interventionist must have a highly scripted lesson to follow.   This program does not offer that.  Also, because the story is the same as the anthology, the interventionist and the teacher must communicate often to ensure that the plans are followed in both programs.  How many of us ever speak with the interventionist outside of an RTI meeting?  It just doesn’t happen.  The pacing guides change, or the teachers decide to do another story, or there is an assembly that pushes back the timing during whole group.  This throws off the balance of everything.  There is one last thing about WonderWorks that is a little difficult to execute, and that’s the exit plan.  Many teachers just don’t feel comfortable with an interventionist exiting a student from intervention.  There must be an RTI meeting just to talk about the possibility.  It is a wonderful concept in an ideal world, but it just doesn’t work this way.  If I could, I would have an additional program for intervention next year. 

Differentiated Instruction- For those of you who work in schools where the majority of the students are on grade level, you will love the resources provided for D.I.   There is an on grade level, approaching level, challenge level, and one for ELL.  The books are tied directly to the story the kids read in whole group.  The lesson components also follow the Tier 1 program.  The Essential Question, skill, graphic organizer, and vocabulary are all the same.  This is a great way to reinforce all of the newly learned material.    The stories are also very engaging and the lesson plans provided to the teacher are thorough. 

The biggest drawback lies in the levels of the texts.  Teachers have to be very careful in assuming that the approaching level reader is actually a year below the student’s grade level.  If the story in the textbook is a year above and sometimes almost 2 years above, then the approaching leveled reader will be a year below that one.  The text will be too difficult and the teacher should select something else to instruct with.  I have even found that the ELL reader was at a higher level than the on grade level books!  This is not a hard fix.  Teachers just need to double-check the levels.  Fortunately, they are listed in the teacher’s guide.