I have recently become aware of a totally outrageous fact about the reading program at our local elementary school. At our school there are two rankings of readers the Alligators and the Bears. The Alligators are the higher ranking students and the Bears are the lower ranking students. Now the students become aware of these rankings and what they mean very early on. They start out being labeled the smart ones and the dumb ones, and you may nicely call it Alligators and Bears, but the kids know what you mean. It is not bad enough that these kids have to spend all their time feeling like the dumb ones, but these kids were ranked this way about 4 months prior to kindergarten. That’s right. They are labeled this way before they ever get into school and based on one quick overview test and interview and on one persons opinion. If they don’t perform well on that particular test, then they are ranked as a bear. And even worse yet, if they are ranked as a Bear, they then are a bear for the rest of their school career. I was informed directly by a reading teacher at this school that once your child is a Bear, they can never be an Alligator.
What an amazingly negative concept! Can you believe that a school would create such a negative air around their reading program? They will never be able to be an Alligator. How horrible is that? They place them there and no matter how they succeed from their on out they can never rid themselves of the stigma of being dumb. Now the parents think that their kids are dumb and the kids think that they are the dumb ones and they have to stay like this forever, because of one test when they entered school?
I just think that we should build are kids up, not label them dumb at 5 and keep them in that category for the rest of their lives. I saw a child go from a Kindergarten reading level at the beginning of 2nd grade to a third grade reading level at the end of 2nd grade, and this child will remain a bear forever and ever even though he is actually on grade level now. A child who can go up 3 reading levels in one year is not stupid. I think that reading is a developmental process and that we can not force kids who are not developmentally ready to read before their time. Labeling them in this manner just creates for them a feeling of failure right from the start. Now I notice with many of these lower 2nd grade readers that they do whatever they can to avoid having to read. Of course they do, I mean if you had something that everyone was telling you that you were a failure at, wouldn’t you give up.
I think it is important to teach the children that hard work pays off, and that through hard work you can do anything you set your mind to, even become an Alligator.
Posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 9:54 AM by Carol Ann