Acceleration Supports Equity, Remediation Denys Equity
Providing remedial education or instruction to students working below grade level has deep roots in our schools. Continuing such instruction is a problem. The use of remediation continues to deny equity to our marginalized students. Remediation is the concept that something in broken and needs to be fixed. As a young reading teacher, I was assigned to teach remedial reading to students who were reading below grade level.
The common practice was that the individual student was evaluated to determine what level they were reading at and then instruction at that level was begun with the intention of eventually bringing the student up to grade level. So, if a fourth-grade student was reading at a beginning second grade level, reading instruction was commenced at a second-grade level. Instruction proceeded to include all of the skills a proficient second grade reader was expected to have mastered.
By the time the school year came to a close, the fourth grader in remedial reading had now mastered second grade skills and if they were really fortunate, begun working on third grade skills. The only problem was, the fourth grader’s peers had spent the year mastering fourth grade reading skills were now beginning instruction on fifth grade reading skills and the ‘remedial’ reader was still significantly behind.
As a special reading teacher, I was highly frustrated. If I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, students would be closing the gap, not maintaining the gap. I knew I had to do things differently. The below level basal reader was out and grade level trade books (both fiction and nonfiction) replaced it. We started with a book that was a stretch for the student to read and moved up a level every time we started a new book. The student’s struggles while reading guided my skill instruction rather than trying to plug a hole for every missing skill; we just focused on what was needed at the moment. Students got excited about their special reading class and were proud to be seen carrying grade appropriate texts through the halls.
While students were excelling in their ‘remedial’ reading class and beginning to perform better in their regular classroom, there were still frequent stumbles and feelings of inadequacy as readers when around their peers. A fifth-grade teacher helped me find a way forward. She used solely trade books in her instruction and she arranged the order of what was read and when by pairing texts with either social studies or science content that her students were also learning.
She suggested that I use the same texts she used in class, but start her select students in reading the text a week before the rest of the class started. This allowed the students and myself to have a running start on developing background, mastering new vocabulary, and developing metacognitive skills around that content. The select students, since they ahead start, became experts and peer tutors in their regular classroom while reading the text with their peers. They were excited to demonstrate their reading skills in their classroom.
In other words, the ‘remedial’ reading class was now an acceleration class, where pre-teaching happened on very specific skills that students needed at that moment in order to succeed with a grade level text in their regular classroom. Some students needed this type of additional support or pre-teaching for an extended period of time. Some rapidly closed the gap and were exited from the ‘remedial’ reading class. All of the students made considerable progress in closing the gap in their reading skills. Gone was the frustration of having students end the year with a reading gap that was a big as it had been at the beginning of the year.
Equity in education is doing whatever it takes to ensure all students master rigorous grade level content. Therefore, remedial education that does not help students close the gap between the level at which they are performing and the level at which they should be performing is reinforcing inequities, not providing equity. It is delaying equity.
I have shared how I began, as a young teacher, to understand that traditional remedial education was not doing what it was intended to do. It was not closing the gap. Accelerated instruction is just-in-time instruction that fills the specific gaps that students are stumbling with at that moment in time. It is not the belief that all gaps must be filled before a student can engage in grade level content. The Michigan Department of Education has an excellent brief on Accelerated Learning. Check it out for more ideas on how to provide acceleration for struggling students.
Teachers are masters at planning instruction that provides background, vocabulary, and prerequisite skills for their classes as a whole when they introduce new content and/or skills. Providing this type of instruction specific to a small group or an individual student so that they too can master grade level content, is providing accelerated learning which supports equity in our schools. This type of instruction is one way of ensuring all students are mastering rigorous grade level content.
This blog is written by Dr. GwenCarol Holmes, a long-time educator and passionate advocate for all students mastering rigorous standards.