Is There An Alternative To Grade Retention?

National Association of School Psychologists, Edward J. Daly III, 
School Psychology Program, College of Education,  
University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH
   
Is the only option to follow the old football cheer, "Do it again -- Harder,
Harder"... or is there a better way to work with failing students?

"Hold em back", is a popular refrain frequently repeated around this time of 
year in our nation's schools. In fact, with the renewed national emphasis on  
accountability in education, student retention is being recommended more and 
more. In a recent, unscientific poll taken
by the National Education Association after a point-counterpoint column on 
retention, teachers called in their votes - 2 to 1 in favor. Phil Bowser - 
school psychologist and NASP Web Master - took the counterpoint, explaining the 
downside of retention succinctly, and in down to earth terms. Research 
repeatedly demonstrates that the downside of grade retention significantly 
outweighs positive effects by any reasonable standard but we still keep
doing it. Are there effective alternatives to use when working with failing 
students? The answer is, "Yes".

A Better Way to Work With Failing Students
A recent issue of the School Psychology Review (1997, Vol. 26, No. 4) has an
article " A Model for Conducting a
Functional Analysis of Academic Performance
Problems" by Daly, Dool, Martens and Witt
that talks about reasons why students are
having trouble learning and offers possible
interventions for each one. All behavior
has a purpose - even negative behavior. If
we understand the reason why a person
behaves in certain ways or the "presumed
function" of a behavior, it is possible to
intervene. Five common reasons behind
academic failure are outlined from those
requiring less time and effort to
remediate, to those requiring the most time
and effort to remediate. When a student is
struggling academically, try thinking about
these hypotheses and interventions
summarized below. The financial, emotional
and societal costs are a lot cheaper than
retention and the "cure" is relatively
simple.

 A Better Way:
 Academic interventions identified by the presumed function of the behavior:
1. The student is not motivated to respond
to the instructional demands. Increase
interest in curricular activities:


* Provide incentives for using
the skill

* Teach the skill in the
context of using the skill

* Provide choices of
activities



2. Insufficient active student responding
in curricular materials: Increase active
student responding:


* Estimate current rate of
active responding & increase
rate during allocated time



3. Insufficient prompting and feedback for
active responding. Increase rate of
complete learning trials:


* Response cards

* Choral responding

* Flash card interventions
with praise/error correction

* Peer tutoring



4. Student displays poor accuracy in target
skill(s). Increase modeling & error
correction:


* Reading passages to student

* Use cover-copy-compare

* Have student repeatedly
practice correct response in
context for errors



5. Student displays poor fluency in target
skill(s).

Increase practice/drill and/or incentives:


* Have the student repeatedly
read passages

* Offer incentives for beating
the last score



6. Student does not generalize use of the
skill to the natural setting and/or to
other materials/settings. Instruct the
student to generalize use of the skill:

* Teach multiple examples of
use of the skill

* Teach use of the skill in
the natural setting

* "Capture" natural incentives

* Teach self-monitoring



7. The instructional demands do not promote
mastery of the curricular objective. Change
instructional materials to match the
curricular objective:


* Specify the curricular
objective and identify
activities that promote use
of the skill in the context
in which it is generally
used.



8. Student's skill level is poorly matched
to the difficulty of the instructional
materials. Increase student responding
using better matched instructional levels:


* Identify student's accuracy
& fluency across
instructional materials and
us instructional materials
that promote a high rate of
responding.



For more information contact the first
author of the article Edward J. Daly III,
School Psychology Program, College of
Education, P.O. Box 210002, University of
Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0002.
Copyright 1997 by the National Association
of School Psychologists, ISSN 0279-6015

	(c) 1998 National Association of School
      Psychologists, 4340 East West Highway, Suite
      402, Bethesda MD 20814 301-657-0270.
	Permission is granted for personal use.

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