Reading Town Reviews

Where do I even begin? First of all, the validity of RT’s reading assessments is terribly misconstrued. Books are not leveled with Fountas and Pinell, so expect a student to go from reading an early emergent book to an emergent book within a week ( which is not because of actual progress at all, but simply invalid assessment). I’ve had 1st graders ask me why they were given a book with 8 words per page one day and 30 words per page the next. I’ve had some even question why the workbooks are SO easy, and indeed, it’s because they too know that what they do at Reading Town has nothing to do with DOE curriculum. Secondly, the workbooks consist of dry, reductive, and recall based exercises which are not and cannot even be differentiated for students who are more cognitively and intellectually advanced. Gifted learners need open ended questions, exploration, and inquiry even if you’re simply teaching phonics —look, “look at a picture of a bee and write the first sound in the word” is not learning, it is drill. Then, worst of all, RT only values their GT students because of the dollars pathetic , mindless parents invest into thinking GT programs are a pipeline to Yale (rarely ever the case, more like suicide if a child has been drilled on test prep since the age of 3). So, when I have had students who refuse to do the work, question the stupidity of the activities, and pose higher order thinking questions; instead of management considering the child worthy of GT, they insist that the student is simply lazy. This alone proves that Reading Town is not an educational facility at all, but a mere trade stock post for Asian schools exporting watered down ESL workbooks. Management is totally aloof in terms of pedagogy and CCLS , management is tailored to Eastern forms of teaching that exemplify learning as drill work and rote memorization. Parents,please reconsider your options. You can easily buy the same work books on Amazon without having to pay $2,000 to have a teacher tell your child “turn to page 6”.

There are some fundamental issues with the material teachers are given. As another poster said, it is very rigid but also very unorganized. The supplementary material is rather weak and there is not enough time given in the schedule to allow teachers to provide in-depth explanations. It was often a struggle to cover all the material assigned (example: Daily Quiz, activity (pref.), vocab test, review, 2 ~5 pages of the workbook, 1 ~2 books of reading in 25 ~45 min times frame). You don't have enough freedom when creating the syllabi. There are some areas of weakness that you have to incorporate because it's part of the franchised method of teaching. Management did not seem to have much guidance from the corporate office. This usually meant decisions were not communicated well or the franchised method of teaching was not well understood by managers. This allows staff to gain new skills (management, creativity, etc.), but often at the cost of receiving vital guidance to properly hone them. Training was non-existent and the staff was heavily watched through CCTV and sit-in observations. You were expected to be free of any mistakes. There was very little forgiveness for newbie mistakes and the natural learning curve for a new job. Teachers were nitpicked frequently (even if the classes were successful). It was quite nerve-wracking. Many students were bored with the assigned subject matter; I believe this was because lower-level classes used very basic, repetitive books (Pre-K & K level) for students who are in elementary age-range. It will be up to you (and your additional lesson activities) to make the material interesting and you might have to sacrifice other vital parts of your lesson to do so. The placement tests did not account for gaps in writing vs. speaking vs. comprehension, which often caused additional problems for students when conducting classes. Most teachers were overworked. There were not enough hours in the day to plan and prepare for classes within the allotted work hours.