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Is Your Child Being Taught From a Script?
If your child's teacher is using an increasingly common system of
instruction known as "scripted teaching," he isn't just following lesson
plans that take the form of simple outlines. Instead, he's using a
series of tightly worded scripts that tell him exactly how to explain
concepts, ask questions, and respond to students' answers.Scripted teaching is intended to standardize instruction across classrooms and eliminate the risk of poor instruction by teachers who aren't as experienced or haven't received as much training as others in their field. While scripts are especially common in reading classrooms (popular scripted reading programs include Success For All, Open Court, and Direct Instruction), they're also popping up in other subject areas. More and more school districts are now using scripted math curricula, for example.
The rationale behind scripted teaching makes sense to a lot of people. Advocates argue that we already have a body of research-based instructional techniques that have been shown to be effective at improving student achievement. In an ideal world, we'd train every teacher to apply these practices in their classrooms. But since that kind of professional development is extremely expensive, packaging up the pedagogy itself in the form of a scripted curriculum is a cheaper option. With the federal government's Reading First program providing millions of dollars worth of funding to schools that use "proven" methods of reading instruction, scripted teaching is becoming attractive to districts struggling with financial difficulties.
http://www.education.com/magazine/article/Scripted_Teaching/