On Jul 27, 2007, at 10:15 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Hello, > > Here is my question. > "I'm a pre-service teacher at Wayne State University. I will be > doing my > student teaching in the Winter, and I am curious about the number of > student's > being passed on to the next grade level without being fluent readers. > Why > are so many kids being pushed through to the next grade in spite of > not being > capable of the material? Does this do the child a disservice in the > long run > or is it better for the child to remain with his peers?" > > Thanks, > Juliana
Juliana, Retention is one of those things that "sounds good on paper" but in the end should be used very rarely. We very often hear the complaint "out there" from the general public and from the business community that kids are being sent on to the next grade without being able to work on grade level. There are a couple of things to think about: We want students to be fluent readers and cabable with the material at their grade level, to be sure. However, content knowledge is not all there is to school. When a child is retained, there is a lot going on that we don't see, and self-esteem is part of that. You will hear a lot of people putting self-esteem in an "either/or" context. These people will say that we worry more about self-esteem than about the child being able to do grade level work. But it doesn't have to be either/or. And a child who is internally defeated is not going to learn more. I believe that in most cases it is better for a child to go to the next grade and for that child to then receive some interventions, or a different kind of learning environment. Notice that I said "in most cases." In my sixteen years of teaching, I advised retention for only two students (both were in 2nd grade), both of whom were not only struggling, but who were socially immature in comparison with their classmates. This was after many conversations, many conferences, many interventions. The parent of one of these students agreed and about four years later came back to me and said it was the best thing we ever did. The parent of the other student disagreed, eventually moved to another school, and I lost track of him. It is not that noticeable in first or second grade, or even any of the elementary years. But when a child is sixteen and all his or her classmates are fifteen, that makes a decided difference. I have read that students who are retained are more likely to drop out of school. This isn't something we want. Thanks for your question! Renee "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
