Why is it OK to group kids for learning by age but not by ability?
Shouldn't ability be more important when determining what the child is capable of learning and mastering than date of birth?
I'm truly baffled that anybody would think it's inappropriate to group by ability.
Best answer:
Answer by MIA - adios amigos
What if you have a 10 year old working at a 4 year old level? do you really think it's beneficial for a 10-year old to be put in JK because that's their "ability" level??
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Who said it wasn’t ok?
This happens all the time in the schools in my country, especially the high schools.
If you’re good at math, you have math with other kids who are good at it. That makes sense. You don’t put a kid who excels in english into a class full of kids who are barely passing the subject. That’s just stupid.
I think they should be grouped generally by age, and then further grouped by ability. I think a school grade should be two ages grouped together (like everyone born June 2008- June 2010 together) and then placed in classes by ability.
The main point to not group by ability is that if you are a low achiever in a low achieving group, you will most likely stay a low achiever.
Kids learn from other kids – a high ability kid can help the low ability kid – the low ability kid can strive to be more like the mid ability kid………KWIM?
EDIT My frame of mind when answering this question just assumed we were discussing elementary age kids….I can see grouping more towards ability grouping in high school – in high school things should be gears to where you are going after high school – harder classes for kids going to college, more skills of life classes if your going straight to a trade.
EDIT Here children don’t normally skip grades, but they will send children out to an upper grade for a certain subject if they REALLY excell in it – and that seems like a good idea to me.
it is weird to me that nobody has a problem grouping by ability in sports but many people have a problem when it’s for academics.
i understand people have concerns about kids’ being permanently stuck at lower levels, but it is just incredibly unproductive, imo, to try to teach something a child isn’t remotely ready for yet, or, on the flip side, to stick a kid in a class where in september they already know everything that’s going to be taught by june. i think frequent reassessment of who belongs where would help get rid of the “tracking” fears and allow everyone to be taught something that’s actually useful to them at that point in their academic development. my son’s class, for example, reshuffles the kids at the beginning of each new math unit based on a pretest for that unit. that, to me, is a great model. nobody’s stuck in the math ghetto, but nobody’s wasting their time on material that’s wrong for them, either.
*grade skipping does not seem like a good substitute to me, not only for social reasons but also because it does nothing for the kids who excel in some areas but are at grade level or even below in others.
My son is in the gifted program and is reading on a junior high to high school level. It certainly would be terrible if he had to sit in a room of other 8 years old and sound out Junie B Jones books until he wanted to scream from the boredom.
Kids ARE grouped by ability, no? Generally everyone starts K at the same age, determined by the cutoff date set in your state. That way there is at lease a starting point of an equal playing field. After that, they can skip grades (2nd is the most common) if their ability truly exceeds the others in their age group/grade level. Plus, within each grade level there are groups for reading and math based on ability level, all the way from 1st through 12th. In elementary school is is usually group A, B, C. then in middle and high school is is by the class they take.
ETA: Is this no longer the case in public school? My kids go to parochial school, but I had no idea public schools were no longer grouping by ability. I guess this Q was more of a point than a Q. Point taken.
Because the people who make the rules know they wouldn’t have been in the top groups by ability and can’t accept it.
I just know it costs me a huge amount of money each year because, having gone through that system myself, there’s no way in hell I’m gonig to make my kids endure it.
My kids’ “grouped by ability” involved passing entrance exams.
Edit: desmeran, I couldn’t agree more. My kids’ primary school saw nothing wrong in giving out chestfuls of shiny stickers to the kids who won multiple races on sports day, but giving a sticker to the kid who came top of the spelling test? Never. That would be Wrong, and make the other kids Feel Inferior.
It was fine to make my kid feel inferior for not being able to run fast, apparently.
I’ve had my daughter in mixed-grade classes since kindergarten, for exactly this reason. The kids are grouped by ability for each subject or project, rather than just by age/grade-level. And the older or more advanced children help the others, which benefits everyone. I wish more schools would recognize the value of mixed-age learning.