I wonder what everyone's opinion is concerning promoting a student, when he clearly cannot read, or is far behind the grade level he just completed. I feel that this is very wrong, and just sets that child up for continual failure.

However, I realize that we cannot have sixteen-year-olds in the normal third grade classroom.

I just finished reading the book Other People's Words - The Cycle of Low Literacy, by Victoria Purcell-Gates for my Literacy and Technology class. It was a "case study" of an urban Appalachian mother and son, who attended a "literacy center". The mother (and father) had dropped out in the seventh grade, both unable to read. Now the son had been promoted to the second grade, also unable to "read a lick." The mother had attended adult education classes - which still had not taught her to read. She had told her son's teacher she couldn't read, or help him with his homework, yet the school continued to send home notes to her. The school did not make any special effort to help her child!

I found this book to be distressing and appalling in its depiction of the families of illiterates. I also found it to be fascinating, and I read it in one weekend, because I wanted to know how Dr. Purcell-Gates turned this situation around. I can't understand how a school administrator can sleep at night, knowing that children are sittng in classrooms for which they are completely unprepared. It is criminal, in my mind, to stick a child who cannot read first grade words into a classroom where the other children can read at third, fourth, or higher grade levels! (I am not talking about an "inclusion" type handicapped child, who may be in a traditional classroom with "accommodations", because the parents and the school feel the child can benefit from being with his/her age peers.)

I am currently mentoring a nine-year-old child with ADHD, and emotional problems - he has been adopted by his grandmother, but was referred to the youth organization due to anger management problems. He has been promoted to the third grade, but he cannot read first grade words, either. I am realizing that his non-reading is a very complicated problem. I had naively thought that, since I taught my own two children to read when they were four, that I knew how to teach a child to read. Ha, ha - was I ever wrong! I don't know how to battle this child's negativity, and total aversion to the reading process. He has his mind made up that it is OK for him never to learn to read! He is a "normal" child when the task is anything other than academic, however!

I realize that students arrive at school with very different backgrounds, and some are woefully deficient in the reading readiness area, having been raised in home that place little value on reading. What can be done to aid these children to "catch up"? Obviously, enough isn't being done, or the drop out rate and illiteracy rate would not be so high. Our prisons are filled with the functionally illiterate.

I truly want to know why the schools don't "move heaven and earth" to help these children? Marva Collins manages to turn such children around, in her bare bones, no frills school in Chicago, so I know the solutions do exist.

Any comments from the "real teachers"? Am I too idealistic, and living in a fairy tale world? I am actually considering getting a Master's degree in Reading, after I finish my current (middle school mathematics) teacher certification courses. Please tell me if I am "all wet".

Because we feel that reading is simply the most important thing that an elementary child learn to do, my school has used our Title I money to fund a literacy specialist. We call her our reading doctor. Her role is to help children catch up at an early age to prevent the situations that you described. She works very hard with parents as well, providing them with hands-on, practical activities to use with their children. She also trains teachers and teacher assistants. In reality, it comes down to what you believe and value as a school, as to where you put your money. You need to come and spend some time with her.