The idea that schools have a responsibility to meet the needs of all children raises an obvious question. If age is the best criterion for school entry, and grade retention is not a viable option for most children, what can be done to help children who are less ready for school than their peers?
The answer to that question is, there is a great deal we can do. In a recent article in the journal Educational Leadership, Robert Slavin and colleagues reviewed research on the effects of various programs designed to prevent early school failure. They concluded that
.... a growing body of evidence refutes the proposition that school failure is inevitable for any but the most retarded children. Further, the programs and practices that, either alone or in combination, have the strongest evidence of effectiveness for preventing school failure for virtually all students are currently available and replicable. None of them is exotic or radical.
In their review of early intervention programs at the primary school level, Slavin and his colleagues focused on prevention of early reading failure. They found that one strategy stood out clearly from all others in terms of effectiveness – one-to-one tutoring, beginning in the first grade, for children identified as having reading problems. They concluded that "All forms of tutoring were more effective than any other first grade reading strategy," but those which used certified teachers as tutors were most beneficial.
Three different models using teachers as first grade reading tutors have been extensively studied and found to be effective. These are Reading Recovery, Prevention of Learning Disabilities, and Success for ALL (a comprehensive program that includes one-to-one tutoring). All three programs have been found to produce gains in reading that averaged 75 percent or more at the end of first grade. Programs using specially trained non-teachers as tutors produced gains that were more modest, but still substantially better than those from any other intervention. Equally important, follow-up studies suggest that the gains from these tutoring programs persist at least up to the end of third grade.
Other interventions besides one-to-one tutoring can also have positive effects on early school success, but the gains tend to be smaller. Reducing class size can increase reading achievement modestly, but the reductions must be significant to be meaningful. Reductions in class size on the order of 35 percent or more have been found to produce gains of around 10 percent in reading performance, for example.
One-to-one tutoring is an intensive early intervention strategy that can greatly improve the chances for at-risk students to achieve success. No one intervention, however, can significantly improve school performance in the long run unless accompanied by the kinds of general improvements in curriculum and instruction discussed earlier in this report. In the words of Slavin and his colleagues, "Intensive early intervention must be followed by extensive changes in basic classroom instructional practices if all students are to succeed throughout their elementary years." The short-term gains achieved by individual students will not last in the long-run unless the learning environment for all children improves.
Similarly, intensive early learning interventions like one-to-one tutoring will have only limited effects unless other factors that impede learning are also addressed. Children who are unhealthy or malnourished or who have inadequate support at home will have difficulty taking full advantage of any opportunities they are offered. Strategies that focus on children while ignoring the importance of the family to successful learning are doomed to failure. And the benefits of even the most effective interventions can be quickly reversed unless steps are taken to ensure continuity and follow-up in later years.
Parents are the most powerful and permanent forces in children's lives. They provide continuity for growth by helping children integrate what they learn both inside and outside of school. They influence their children's attitudes and dispositions toward school. And they possess invaluable information about their children that is invaluable in helping schools meet the needs of the individual child.
Parents should be partners with schools and teachers, and should be involved in decision-making about their children's educations. Schools must create an environment that not only encourages parents to become involved but also rewards teachers for helping them to do so. Such involvement goes well beyond the common role of parents as volunteers or teachers' helpers. This type of partnership requires that both parents and schools recognize that both are necessary to the success of children and that neither can do the job alone.
Much lip service is paid to the importance of parental involvement. Translating the idea into effective practice is more difficult. Too often, meaningful collaboration between parents and schools is hampered by mutual suspicion. Parents, especially those whose own school experiences were less than positive, may feel uncomfortable with schools in general, and that discomfort inevitably will be communicated both to their children and to teachers. Teachers, on the other hand, may view parents as uncaring or uninformed in their ideas about what their children need. These problems can be especially difficult when parents and teachers come from different cultural backgrounds.
Research indicates that most parents, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds or different cultures, care deeply about and want to be supportive of their children's educations. Many of them do not know how to be involved, however. Language barriers, historical patterns of exclusion, and feelings of insecurity and low self-esteem may make some parents reluctant to offer or seek support. Parents also face time constraints that may limit their ability to attend meetings and other school functions. Activities that are scheduled without regard to work schedules and family needs may be interpreted by parents as a sign that their input is not valued. Ironically, poor parent attendance at these activities may be erroneously viewed by teachers as indicative of parent disinterest.
The essential first step toward increasing parent involvement is an acknowledgement that parents, teachers, and schools all want essentially the same things for children. They want them to be motivated to learn, to master basic academic skills, and to be socially competent. They want them to succeed in school, though they may differ in their understanding of what it takes to achieve that success.
Once a serious commitment has been made to involving parents, schools can do a variety of things to help them and create an environment in which they feel welcome. At the heart of effective parent involvement is open communication. In its Standards for Quality Programs for Young Children, the National Association of Elementary School Principals points out that this communication "must be two-way – not a situation in which educators talk and parents passively listen."
Communication between parents and schools should take multiple forms. Parents should be informed regularly about the philosophy, curriculum, goals, and progress of the school and its programs. Specific examples should be provided to help parents understand how general principles translate into real educational experiences for their children. A variety of different approaches (including newsletters, the telephone, the popular print and broadcast media, and even faxes and e-mail and computers) should be used to ensure that the information reaches as many families as possible.
To be effective in promoting parent involvement, formal communications like these should include procedures for letting parents know that their reactions and comments are valued. One way of fostering this understanding is to conduct parent surveys, both written and by telephone, and ensure that future communications acknowledge this feedback. Incorporating parent concerns in program evaluation materials can also let parents know that their concerns are taken seriously.
Equally important are less formal opportunities for communication. When they contact the school, parents should be assured either of reaching someone in a responsible position or at least of receiving a prompt response. Teachers should be readily available to meet with parents, and should be provided with time on the school schedule to do so. Every effort should be made to accommodate parents who make the effort to visit or contact the school, even though the timing may be inconvenient.
Teachers can encourage interaction with parents by sending notes home that elicit a parent's response, by calling parents directly to talk about their children, and by visiting parents and children in their homes. Actively soliciting parent's input and advice about problems involving their children can contribute significantly to a feeling of empowerment.
Teachers and schools also should see their role in part as educating parents to help them become more knowledgeable about the overall operations of the school and more effective in working with their own children. Sending home appropriate materials and suggestions about ways parents can reinforce classroom experiences can be very helpful in both involving and educating parents.
Schools must also be more cognizant of the outside forces that affect children and their families. Active involvement in helping families obtain the kinds of comprehensive services they need to alleviate economic, health, social, and emotional problems may be beyond the resources available to many schools. Acknowledging the impact of such problems on children, and offering support without blame, can help encourage parents to seek solutions on their own, however. And more and more states and communities are exploring innovative ways to help families obtain needed services. Schools should be integrally involved in such activities.
Efforts to increase parent involvement may take time to bear fruit, especially where it has been neither common or encouraged in the past. With time and commitment from the schools, however, such efforts should gradually increase parents' understanding of schools as well as their willingness to become involved. And as they become more involved, they should also become more effective in teaching and supporting their own children, which should, in turn, make the schools' job easier.
Parent involvement should be a top institutional priority in all schools, but it is especially critical when schools attempt to implement developmentally appropriate curriculum changes. Parents who are kept well informed and involved can provide vital support for such changes. The skepticism and suspicion of parents who are alienated from their children's schools can doom them.
In the predictable but varying course of child development, continuity is a critical element. Every time a child moves from one grade or educational setting to another, there is a risk that earlier progress may be lost because of poor communication or inappropriate teaching methods. Strong evidence exists, for example, that the highly publicized "fade out" of benefits three or four years after Head Start graduates enter school more often results from inadequacies in the schools many of these the children attend than from problems with the Head Start experience itself.
In its 1992 report Transitions to Kindergarten in American Schools, the United States Department of Education found that few schools give adequate attention to helping children make the transition from preschool (or home or child care) to kindergarten. Only 10 percent of schools surveyed had any provision for systematic communication between kindergarten teachers and previous teachers or caregivers. Only 12 percent of kindergartens had considered children's pre-school experiences in designing their curricula.
The importance of easing transitions is not limited to the move to kindergarten, however. Every move to a new grade involves another transition – and another opportunity for problems to develop. The importance of communication between teachers about children's individual strengths and weaknesses may seem obvious. But, in a school characterized by inflexible standards and curricula, such communication may be perceived by teachers as a waste of time. They "know" what they are supposed to teach and what every child is supposed to learn at each level. The unique needs of the individual child are of secondary importance in this kind of educational "factory."
One of the most important steps to providing continuity is to ensure that programs at all levels – pre-school, kindergarten, and primary grades – are developmentally appropriate. Responding to the unique needs of individual children is a key component of developmental appropriateness. Programs that do not feature regular communication about children are unlikely to be developmentally appropriate.
Further complicating the situation is the fact that different classrooms within a given school, and even a given grade, tend to span a broad range – from developmentally appropriate to traditionally academic, with many variations in between. Developmental appropriateness is not something that can be imposed on teachers overnight. Some teachers will take longer than others to fully accept new philosophies and practices that may seem very different from what they are accustomed to. While it is important to move steadily toward developmental appropriateness, it is equally important not to force teachers to change more quickly than they are able.
Formal written policies designed to facilitate transitions among these varying classrooms can provide an important building block for moving teachers in the desired direction. The mere fact of communicating with other teachers about differences between children should serve to reinforce the validity of developmentally appropriate practice and help reluctant teachers understand and accept the concept.
One approach to easing transitions that has gained popularity recently is multi-age grouping, or the ungraded primary. This model breaks the traditional abrupt transition from grade to grade down into numerous smaller transitions that can be more easily managed. It also allows maximum flexibility in responding to every child's needs. Transitions into and out of an ungraded primary can still present difficulties that must be addressed if the benefits of multi-age grouping are to be realized and sustained, however.
Another strategy some schools have tried is housing pre-school, kindergarten, and one or more primary grades in a single location to facilitate communication and information sharing between grades. While this approach can be effective in easing transitions between the levels involved, it also may result in increased problems when children have to make the transition to the next higher grade that is not part of the combined program.
It is important to note that physical proximity by itself does not necessarily lead to open communication. In at least one case where preschool and kindergarten programs were located in the same building, the two groups of teachers still had little or no interaction after several years – many did not even know each other by name. This anecdote highlights the importance of making communication about students a standard of everyday practice, especially among teachers at adjacent levels.
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