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Robin Dehlinger's avatar

You are 100% correct. I am a recently retired district level administrator in a Florida district. Retention of students in 3rd grade does not solve the problem and, as you indicated, if they just repeat 3rd grade without targeted intervention, it’s likely nothing will change. Rather, intensive reading support and continually progress monitoring can and does improve students’ reading skills. Generally, 3rd grade struggling readers need intensive support into middle school and, if focused appropriately, students can achieve proficiency before they leave middle school. The goal should be to enter 9th grade on level so that students can continue in the regular curriculum without having to take even more intensive support classes rather than interesting electives. The challenge for teachers and administrators is to identify effective, specific intervention and implement it effectively. That can be very challenging, if appropriate support isn’t provided for teachers. By that I mean small group/class size, focused curriculum, and ongoing progress monitoring. When I worked with teachers and school administrators, we preferred to call this an acceleration model, not a remedial model. Students deserve a positive approach that emphasizes their strengths and focuses on expending their strengths. Kids know when they are lacking skills and want to learn and achieve. I truly hate it when we label kids when they are 8-9 years old because they didn’t hit the accepted target on a standardized test that, in my mind, is unreasonably long, boring and stressful for them.

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Bill Whitten's avatar

It seems like the remediation/retention debate tends to ignore the big red flag - we’re pushing kids into academics at earlier & earlier ages that may not be developmentally appropriate. No matter how much we may want to go fast, if you try to build the house before the foundational concrete has properly set, bad things happen.

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