ABILITY GROUPING FOR READING IN ELEMENTARY AND

A great many studies have compared ability grouping (e.g. tracking, streaming, cross-grade grouping) and within-class grouping (e.g. reading, mathematics groups). The trouble is that interpretations of results of often ill-designed studies are likely to be diametrically opposed. Slavin (1986), for example, notes that "almost without exception, reviews from the 1920's to the present day have come to the same general conclusion: that between-class ability grouping has few if any benefits for student achievement" (p. 2). Yet, the practice "is nearly universal in some forms of secondary schools and very common in elementary schools" (p.2). Slavin (1986) remarks that most teachers report using and believing in some kind of ability groups (e.g. NEA, 1968; Wilson & Schmits, 1978).

In recent years, however, many districts have been reexamining a

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onal materials, financial resources, and political pressure groups may dictate less than optimal instructional methodologies. Not to be discounted is the "group effect", i.e. the contribution of the group members to each other; in this perspective, theoretically at least, the more contributing members, the richer the individual inputs, and the easier for individual members to bond with other members with like achievement and/or aptitude levels (thus forming functional subgroups which may or may not be catered to by the teacher). There may be, however, an ideal limit to the number of group members, before the class becomes unmanageable and learning rate declines. The Joplin Plan and Cross-Grade Grouping Cross-grade grouping is the norm today in middle school and above in the United States. It allows teacher specialization: the best mathematics teacher is not forced to teach English and vice versa. In elementary school, though, the exposure of young children to other than the hometeacher is said to risk weakening the affective bond between children and hometeacher. Indeed, the elementary schoolteacher is to a large extent the surrogate mother-figure, reason for which some schools ensure that children have the same hometeacher fo
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Approximate Word count = 4710
Approximate Pages = 19 (250 words per page)