My last post criticized Science of Reading (SoR) advocates for not fighting against third-grade retention or believing it’s good remediation for reading problems. Third-grade retention based on a test is a ploy to drive parents to take their children out of public schools.
Some parents with children who have dyslexia, who believe in the SoR, say they’re also fighting against third-grade retention. They were especially vocal in fighting it in Tennessee, This included the state’s Decoding Dyslexia organization.
However, that doesn’t mean everyone on board for SoR fights against retention, especially those who’ve been given clout over public education.
Former governor Jeb Bush and President George W. Bush helped make the third grade into the year a student could be retained, and those who are a part of ExelinEd, Jeb Bush’s group, endorse third-grade retention.
Bush promotes the SoR in this Fox News opinion piece, with a picture of Governor Ron DeSantis, and implies teachers fail to teach reading. He’s for school choice, pushed third-grade retention, and can likely be considered the person behind it.
Combining the factors above, claiming teachers don’t understand the SoR, harmful third-grade retention, and school choice, one can see a pattern of pushing for public school privatization.
From ExelinEd:
A Comprehensive K-3 Reading Policy establishes support and intensive reading interventions for K-3 students to ensure they read on grade level by the end of third grade. The policy also requires third grade students to demonstrate sufficient reading skills for promotion to fourth grade. For students severely below grade level and who do not qualify for a good cause exemption, retention provides struggling readers the additional time and intensive interventions they need to catch up with their peers.
This ignores the research indicating that retention doesn’t work. Also, ask why the former governor didn’t emphasize lowering class size in K-3rd grade. There’s research supporting lowering class size in those grades especially.
Journalist Emily Hanford, who reactivated the reading wars with her Sold a Story writings and podcasts, has said little about third-grade retention.
She recently received an award for her work from former President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush, so speaking out on this terrible practice might be awkward.
And the International Association for Dyslexia suggests intervention is more important than retention. They don’t address the damaging consequences of third-grade retention for students, only that something different needs to be done with the curriculum in the retained year. They list the changes that need to occur before retention can be changed.
While retention policies are receiving a lot of attention due to a push to improve 3rd-grade reading, early identification and intervention are more likely to improve student performance. What we have learned from states like New York and Florida is to not just repeat the same 3rd-grade curriculum; we have to do something different.
Only when all of these components are in place, will third grade retention legislation achieve its lofty goals of evaluating the progress of all children starting in kindergarten and ensuring their success long into the future by building a strong foundation for future learning.
According to the research, retention may have a short-term but not long-term benefit, and it certainly doesn’t address how a child feels when they’re retained or how it can damage self-esteem for a lifetime!
It’s also disappointing that Education Secretary Cardona has not spoken out on third-grade retention. Where is he on this matter? Education Secretary Cardona, End Third Grade Retention and High-Stakes Standardized Testing!
There are many well-known advocates of the SoR who focus on cognitive psychology and brain science that don’t speak out on the developmental and psychological harm that occurs with third-grade retention.
No one can say that third-grade retention is evidence-based, considering there’s been much research against it, and many alternatives can replace it, as has been noted repeatedly in past research, making third-grade retention nothing short of bullying.
While many parents stand against third-grade retention, those who believe in the SoR, who continue to push such a harmful practice, show they know little about reading, child development, and psychology. They’re wrong, and third-grade retention will continue negatively impacting children.
There needs to be an end to third-grade retention in this country.
The Harm Caused By the Third Grade Reading Ultimatum April 5, 2022
Education Secretary Cardona, End Third Grade Retention and High-Stakes Standardized Testing! March 11, 2021
The Haunted Third Grade Classrooms Children Fear: Enter and… Stay Forever! October 29, 2019
Force and Flunk, Tougher Kindergarten Lead to Parental Dissatisfaction with Public Schools July 21, 2019
FORCE & FLUNK: Destroying a Child’s Love of Reading—and Their Life October 9, 2017
Jeb Bush, Retention, and the Failed Ferris Wheel of School Reform October 1, 2016
What’s Scary to Kids: Having Dyslexia and Being Held Back in Third Grade! October 31, 2015
For You Michigan! You Are Wrong about Retention! October 17, 2015
13 Reasons Why Grade Retention is Terrible and 12 Better Solutions May 30, 2015
Retention’s False Promise: Instead—Better Alternatives February 13, 2015
Setting Children Up to Hate Reading February 2, 2014
They should carefully track the number of students who they think need to be retained because that’s the number of kids they have left behind with their jacked up curriculum. Pushing everything down to teaching first in kindergarten etc. when the large majority of children are not developmentally ready to do the phonological processing necessary to read. I saw the handwriting on the wall ten years ago & told my daughter to put my grandkids in private developmentally appropriate kindergarten & then show up at their public school a year later for kindergarten. Their peers don’t know they have been retained and they are better able to handle the insanity of the curriculum and sitting in a desk all day etc. They are both, a boy & a girl now on “grade level “ & mature enough to handle most of what goes on. Insane what they have done to a highly productive public school system, if it had been done by a foreign power it would be considered an act of war.
I agree with you about kindergarten. This pushdown began with NCLB and after all this time it has been terrible for children. Thank you, Mary.
If you were a principal, when would you expect a teacher to have 99% of their students reading without pictures?
For anyone reading this, we send our children to a regular public school that has teachers who will tell you it’s their mission to have most of the class reading by Christmas and that all of their students will be reading by the end of Kindergarten. There are many schools like this and they have become a refuge as the lucy calkins schools who denounced all phonics implode. Just heard another story of a neighbor who stuck it out talking about their new dyslexia diagnosis and summer of hardcore tutoring that will be happening before their child goes into 2nd grade.
When would I expect my child to be reading if I send them to Nancy Bailey Elementary? My children will come in knowing their letters and sounds along with being well behaved. Can you guarantee they will be reading by the end of Kinder?
I would not push your children to read by the end of K, No. I assume you think third-grade retention is fine, and that children will be reading well by third grade if their teachers insist they read by the end of kindergarten. K never used to involve such pressure to read. While some children enter K reading, others don’t. We never used to expect Ks to read by first grade. For those who don’t, who need extra time to learn, do you think they have a reading problem? I find this harsh, and I’m betting any child, made to feel like they’re behind or not doing well at reading, will not care about it for years to come, and/or they’ll be inappropriately diagnosed with a learning problem.
NCLB has wrapped children up in failure. They hear everything said about reading and whether or not they’re succeeding. K, as the new first grade, along with third-grade retention, hasn’t worked in 20 years, so why are we still doing it?
Also, your obsession with pictures is strange. Pictures are helpful. Children exposed to many picture books early are often the children who enter K reading.
Answer the question, when will my child be reading if I enroll them in your school as a Kinder?
When will they be reading if I enroll them as a 1st grader?
We are real parents in the real world with real teachers. We need real answers and clear expectations.
I would suggest any parent who is not given an explicit timeline immediately find another school. Just state your timeline like I’m a parent considering your school. If your response is by the end of 4th grade, just state it loud and proud.
I think retention after 3rd grade is atrocious. Why would you wait that long? I think they should be held back if they aren’t reading at the end of Kinder or 1st grade, whichever one is their first year of structured literacy instruction.
Children don’t always learn to read at the same time in lockstep. Teachers can tell through assessments and observations, and if children show up to school with disabilities, whether they need extra help.
Most classes are like a bell-shaped curve. There will be children who need extra help learning to read, children in the middle who pick up reading quickly, and children who have advanced reading skills. But formal reading used to begin in first grade.
The research indicates that children do better when socially promoted than if they’re retained. It’s important to provide remediation, however.
Retention is painful for a child no matter what grade, and many children later drop out. One problem is that retained children physically develop faster than their peers.
Some would agree that the earlier a child is retained the better, but even then, the risk that a child will have low self-esteem and be larger than their classmates by late elementary or middle school is a concern. It also isn’t necessary. There are acceptable alternatives.
What about soccer? Just because you sign your kid up for soccer and they are given the same coaching that all the other kids get, doesn’t guarantee that they will be any good at it. There are many variables. I can just see you demanding of the soccer coach to give you a guarantee that your child will be acing soccer just because you dropped them off each time they had practice. It is the same thing with learning to read. It is a high level skill. Some children because of intellectual disabilities never have the ability to grasp the high level phonological processing that must go on to read. Some children have ADHD and their brains are pinging all over the place and they do not have the attention span to do this processing. Other children come from homes with a high amount of generational or situational trauma and they are in such states of fight or flight that they can not calm their brains enough to learn to read. Some children were born premature and they are developmentally delayed as compared to other children their chronological age. All of these factors and many more play a part. If we were talking about making shoes or some other product where we could possibly control all of the variables it might be different, but children are not an inanimate object that can be controlled.
Like Nancy stated there is a variety of aptitudes in every group of children high, medium and low. The practice that was in place to give children the time and space to learn and not rush them, or stress them about it was very sound and we were mistaken to ever leave it. We had the greatest academic success during that period of time. Now, not so much.
This is excellent. Thank you, Mary.
PARENTS
If you get a rambling nonsensical response that doesn’t answer the incredibly simple question, you need to have a plan of action.
#1 Teach your child to read BEFORE they go to this school. Hooked on phonics, 100 lessons, the homeschool parents, or even a set of Bob Books make this fairly easy. I can teach a kid to read in a week now that I’m versed in early literacy.
#2 Just find a different teacher who isn’t overloading the SPED department with dyslexia instructional casualties.
Thomas, you need to quit insulting teachers. I am pro-teacher and if you send any more comments insinuating teachers are failing to teach reading I won’t post them. Simply, because you have no proof of anything you say.
Furthermore, I don’t know about all the resources you mention but Hooked on Phonics has a troubling history. See the link below.
Also telling parents to teach their children to read before school puts pressure on the child. I would recommend caregivers read to children, participate in library story hour, and ensure their children see reading as a pleasurable activity. Jim Trelease’s The Read-Aloud Handbook is a great resource.
Here’s the scoop on Hooked on Phonics. It isn’t pretty.
https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/hooked-on-phonics/#:~:text=It%20was%20this%20difference%20that,%2C%20June%2F%20July%201991).
The fact that the Bush brothers, Bill Gates, and even Emily Hanford feel they can chime in about instructional practice is evidence that they don’t understand the professional rigor necessary to teach children. Few of these so called reformers bother to spend anytime in classrooms. Most of Handford’s complaints about reading instruction come from anecdotal “conventional wisdom”, not actual practice. Being Governor does not mean Jeb Bush is suddenly an expert on teaching especially since he was coddled in elite boarding schools growing up. The decision to retain a child should not be made based on make believe data but on actual facts like drop-out rates for retained students. If Florida was honest about it’s poor eighth grade NAEP results they would have stopped this nonsense years ago.
Thanks as always, Paul. Excellent. I especially appreciate your point about anecdotes. For example, when a parent says, my child didn’t learn to read in first grade, the teacher or school failed, it doesn’t provide the necessary information. We know little about the child, their background, the school, the teacher, or even the school reading program, etc.
I struggled working under regimes that abused data to justify the actions of the district or state. It didn’t help that they were supported by entities who profited from their decisions. Whenever a higher up would trumpet, “Do it for the children!” I would cringe at the cynicism.
Thank you. I agree, totally.