ERN Discussion Forum

the effects of chronic absences on academic achievement in grades K-3 for sp ed ctudents

Lilly — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 01:55:59 GMT

I have been looking for articles and research connecting chronic absences to academic achievement regarding students with disabilities in grades K-3. Other than acknowledging that the two are related, I really haven't found a lot of information - and not just for Sp ed classrooms but also for reg ed classrooms at those grade levels. This surprises me due to the importance placed on teaching the foundations of learning at an early age (setting the stage), not to mention the fallout of poor motivational patterns for attending school. Why has so little been said about this?

Forum: Identifying potential dropouts

DIBELs Does Not Predict Comprehension

Lynette Zimmer, Ed.D. — Thur, 18 Sep 2008 16:42:08 GMT

DIBELS is not an appropriate instrument to predict reading comprehension in the first place. Odd any study should suggest otherwise.

Forum: Teaching young readers and measuring comprehension

Do you agree with Sharon Palsha?

Larry Sterne — Thur, 05 Jun 2008 20:33:07 GMT

For those who attended the June 5 audioconference with Sharon Palsha, I would be interested to hear whether you share her strong opposition to grade retention? What has been your own experience?

Forum: Retention

Retention K or Gr. 1

Phil Rizarri — Fri, 30 May 2008 20:15:06 GMT

The ability of a student to get developmental gains isn't it in large part dependent on the teacher and appropriate learning materials? Failure is not an option?

Forum: Retention

Effective behavior management

Tom Stuart — Wed, 21 May 2008 17:44:42 GMT

Most research of the past 5 years backs up this article. The basic foundation of CHAMPS and/or COMP are the concepts of rules and procedures being the building blocks for academic achievement. Most "experts" are in the classrooms and they agree.

Forum: Effective behavior management strategies

The developmental purpose of Retention

Jane Sherman — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:52:31 GMT

I am an elementary School Psychologist in a suburban area in Central New York.

The issue behind the decades-old debate about considering retention is about READINESS for learning. However, many of the articles I see currently focus on the fact that academic achievement and/or cognitive ability are not improved by retention, but in developmental theory, these are not the areas of contention. Readiness for learning impacts the long-term educational, as well as social/emotional functioning of the individual.

I believe the studies focused on immediate outcomes as addressed in this article are flawed because of the basic hypothesis as well as the design of the studies do not address the more difficult to measure long-term outcomes of individuals.

I agree that retention should not be seen as an intervention, but rather whether a child is ready to put his ability into action.

Forum: Retention

PLAN for reading textbooks secondary level

tom wright — Fri, 09 May 2008 04:48:07 GMT

Very important for students to understand PLAN (plan, locate, ?,note) . An example is math books like Illinois math. The description in each chapter is too high level math language for 80 % of the students to understand. Using PLAN the student can decifer this language. (actually Illinois math should be rewrittten with text that 80% of the student CAN understand).
Students end up NOT reading the text in chapters in math books in middle and high school because they are in esoteric math language and too compact - explaining material in too concise a way- with too much material covered. Then when they do the problems they are confused. Leading to the majority of student's GREAT frustration with math learning and failure to understand concepts involved. Resulting in the dearth of math and science majors in the U.S.
All teachers and students should know PLAN and use it for all subjects.

Great simple article with potentially very effective results. The same concepts are taught by the best reading teachers in the world like Evelyn Woods and other speed readers. Also, Adam Robinson in "What Smart Students Know"

Forum: Giving students reading strategies for textbooks

Drinking

Steve Meyer — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:12:06 GMT

Great post

Forum: High school drinking and the transition to college

Kindergarten retention

Sue — Thur, 10 Apr 2008 20:31:14 GMT

I have taught Kindergarten for 11 years, which does not make me an expert by any means but it does mean I have had a lot of experience with 5 & 6 year olds. Over these 11 years, I have retained only 3 children (I wanted to retain 3 more) and have been the recipient of three children who were being retained. The research that I conducted in my classroom showed that children whose parents had positive views on retention and supported their child during this second year, made the greatest strides academically and emotionally. I am a firm believer that if a child has confidence in themselves they will strive to accomplish anything, even things that may be beyond their ability level. These children who were retained entered first grade with a higher self-esteem and a better grasp of those essential baseline skills that are taught in Kindergarten. They may not be at the top of their class but they are on level. The three children whom I requested to be retained and were not went on to first grade and never really successfully mastered letter sounds, word decoding, and basic sight word recognition, those essential pre-reading skills. They have no confidence in themselves as learners and are constantly getting into trouble because they don't understand what the teacher is asking but at the same time they don't want to look "dumb" in front of the other children in the class.
Children should have the chance to finish a grade level before we push them onto the next. Each year builds on the previous year and if they did not successfully learn the skills the year before they are going to continuously be behind. Retention, if done right can benefit the children who really need it. Children who may have a learning disability or other outside factor that inhibits learning will mostly likely not benefit from a second year in a grade level but rather a smaller class size and more one-on-one attention.

Forum: Retention

Response

Liz Tetreault — Thur, 10 Apr 2008 11:14:40 GMT

I absolutely agree with making educationally sound decisions based on research. When considering retention, there are cases where we can see the benefits: students who are developmentally behind their peers (birthdates), and students with educated parents who are willing to support their child in development. I would be interested in seeing the population/demographic information regarding the students mentioned in this article who had been retained - "From the sample of 21,409 children, the researchers identified 201 children who were retained in first grade and 471 who were retained in kindergarten" - not a large number of students have been included in this study. I've seen first hand the benefits of retaining students in 1st grade and the motivation students feel when they can perform the grade level expectations and keep up with their peers.

Forum: Retention

retention bad promotion good?

D Lesnjak — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:54:55 GMT

The article apparently measures children who are retained by the standards of the next grade level--am I reading that wrong? Is it a surprise that a student retained in Kindergarten is not progressing to Gr. 1 standards? I do not easily favor or promote retention in grade level but I support it in some cases where a student is young/immature for the grade but not otherwise having issues. I'd like to understand better how the study from this article was done. - Diana in WI

Forum: Retention

Swierpel

Dave — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:25:29 GMT

Class Size Alone Not Enough To Close Academic Achievement Gap
Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080228112004.htm

A Northwestern University study investigating the effects of class size on the achievement gap between high and low academic achievers suggests that high achievers benefit more from small classes than low achievers, especially at the kindergarten and first grade levels.

Interesting study that expands on the 1985 Project STAR study. I want to look more closely at this to see if it might influence our decisions about how to better use our existing resources. We have intentionally kept K-1 class sizes low believing it would help low achievers. We need to look closely at our own data.

Forum: What are you reading?

retention

Sharon Feaster-Lewis — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:33:39 GMT

I would like to see the studies that support the current practice of requiring students who enter Pre-K to already know information that once was learned during Kindergarten (e.g., counting from 1 to 100, counting by 5's, 3's, saying and writing the alphabet, writing their names, learning basic addition facts, etc.). It seems to me that students who don't have an advantaged situation at home and can't meet these Pre-K requirements start their school experience at a distinct disadvantage, and that this disadvantage would affect results of retention studies.... Conversely, students who do have an advantaged situation would start their school experience at a big advantage... Thanks.

Forum: Retention

retention

BB — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:52:09 GMT

The kindergarten curriculum now is what the first grade curriculum used to be. First grade moves so quickly andso much more is expected of them. I feel many K children are not developmentally ready for K curriculum. By the time they are developmentally ready to receive letters and sounds, words and sentences are expected. So, retention is needed for some children to get the solid basis that all further reading and writing requires. Ideally, I would love to see K-1 classes.

Forum: Retention

Dropouts in rural communities

Donna — Thur, 07 Feb 2008 16:41:51 GMT

My concern is the high dropout rate among students in rural communities (13 - 17yrs). What can be done to make parental interests and expectations more congruent with those of the schools in the rural districts?

Forum: Identifying potential dropouts