When I was growing up, I was in an accelerated Reading program all through Elementary School. From 1st until 4th grade, for a brief portion of every day, I would go to a next higher grade classroom, and participate in their reading assignments, lectures etc. To my knowledge, this was something that had never been done before, and has not been done since. Not that it didn't work, but perhaps that it initially worked too well, and killed itself. I went to Elementary school from kindergarten until 5th grade. But Scott, why weren't you in that accelerated program in 5th grade? Well, it was because for me to take part in a 6th grade level reading course, either I would have to be bussed into town to the Middle School, or my 5th grade teacher would have to devote time to a special program just for me. So instead of having me work on other materials during the instruction for the reading portion of the class, I was made to do the exact same work again. Exact same work again. I aced the reading portion of my 5th grade class, but when I went to Middle School, I almost failed my 6th grade Reading class. If I hadn't worked my butt off during the last week of that class, I would have gotten an E as opposed to the C I ended up getting. It was entirely my fault, I just didn't do the work for the final part of the class, and with the way grades were weighted it would have sunk me. I never thought about it until now, but I didn't have a real reason for not doing the work, apart from the fact that I just didn't want to do it at the time. During the years when I was in the accelerated program in Elementary School I loved Reading "class", but I almost failed that class in 6th grade.
I was in a lower reading class in 2nd and 3rd grade... who knew that I wasn't paying attention and falling asleep in class was due to the fact I was above the norm... certainly not my teachers... no no
Posted by: Susan at June 2, 2003 10:13 PM