Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 14, 1990 TAG: 9003133211
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: associated press/
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
In "Learning to Read: the Quest for Meaning" (Teachers College Press, 1990, $22.95), Malcolm P. Douglass says reading groups based on supposed ability carry with them "all the odious qualities of real-world segregation policies."
Groupings of kindergarten and first-grade children, Douglass says, are usually based on tests that give an "incomplete report on reading ability or achievement." Yet, teachers and administrators use these tests in a mistaken belief that children learn best when they learn with others of the same ability.
Some teachers even designate groups with names such as "bluebirds," "yellowbirds," and "crows," Douglass says. "Even small children know that everyone would rather be a bluebird than a crow," he says.
In reality, Douglass says, with young children just learning to read, differences in ability are slight and "human variation is so great it is not possible to form a truly `homogenous' group on any measure."
Yet, he says, once these groups are formed, they are likely to label students in a way that will last beyond their elementary school years. He says the effects of such groupings can be seen in junior high school, high school and even later.
Studies have shown that when a child moves from one group to another, he generally is shifted to one of lower expectations, not higher.
"Early on in the child's school experience, then, we see a system that assigns each boy and girl to an instructional group that carries with it either the sweet smell of success or the sour one of failure," Douglass writes.
"From the beginning, each youngster is assigned a status, an implied sense of worth, one that, because of its relative permanance of the groupings thus formed, will be reinforced as years go by."
by CNB