Subscribe to our Blog
The Best Way to Help Students Who Are Slower
Our very own Stephen Hurley has his own blog. Who knew? Here's a link to his latest posting. Stephen writes about his son's skating lessons, and how his son's teachers are recommending that his son remain in level 2 and not progress to level 3 with most of the children in his original group. It seems the instructors are "firm and confident" in the need for children "to master certain basic skills before proceeding". They say that if kids are moved along too quickly, without proper mastery of the fundamentals, they will eventually hit a wall". Stephen agrees with this decision, and goes on to muse about the value of ability grouping in the primary grades.
Of course, the problem with ability grouping is that it encourages the achievement gap to widen, as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The Swiss have a different solution, as described in this article from our archives. Essentially, it is to protect all of their students from failure by ensuring that all of the children progress at the same pace - even though it means that more able children progress more slowly than they might, at least at first.