School Retardation and The fact that a pupil may have started school at the age of seven or eight instead of six years or that he may have required an extra year to place him in a given grade does not in any way prove or indicate that there is anything the matter with his mind, as either or both of these circumstances may obtain in the case of a pupil of normal intelligence. Retardation in school is by no means synonymous with mental subnormality. Some of the factors contributing to retardation in school are the following: a The late entrance of pupils into the first grade.
b VaryinAL:gractice in promoting children into and out of the first g c Different standards of promotion from grade to grade.
d Differences in the health of pupils while at school.
e Varying degrees of regularity of attendance.
I Different degrees of familiarity with the English language.
g Differences in the mentality of normally intelligent children.
h The presence of mentally subnormal children in regular closes.
j Physical defects of children.
k Differences in the maturity of children.
I Differences in the home environment of children.
m Differences in the amount of time which children may devote to the preparaticn of lessons outside of school.
a Circumstances incident to the moving of families from place to place. • o The transfer of pupils from one school to another and from parochial to public schools within a city.
p Differences in the type of pupil left in the system when others have been removed.
q Differences in the extent to which communities offer inducements for pupils to leave school.
Rochester, N. Y., considerable attention has been given to the preventive and remedial measures used by elementary teachers against retardation. It is significant to note that where teachers have reported in detail their efforts to reduce retardation, they have enumerated meas ures all of which should be employed by every good teacher in her regular work with normally successful pupils as well as with those in danger of non-promotion. There is indeed little doubt that the most effective way to reduce retardation is to improve the teaching itself, and this is already the superintendent's constant problem.
Variations in pupils' progress through school and variations in the mentality of children are shown in Figs. 5 and 6, from which it is
clear that the factors listed above combine to bring about the result that while there appear to be actually more bright children than dull children, there are relatively fewer who make rapid progress through school than the proor tion making slow progress.
Preventive and Remedial The query naturally arises, now that we have this information about non-promotion, What is to be done about it? In several places, notably in - Many cities have certain features in their organiiation, which, entirely apart from the effort to improve the effectiveness of the in struction in the regular classroom, make it easier to grapple with the retardation problem and have been of material assistance in re ducing its effects. These special features in the organization of the school and of the whole local system do not apply to pupils who are making normal or rapid progress but to retarded pupils and those in danger of non promotion, and for this reason they may be called preventive and remedial measures with more propriety than those which ought to be a feature of the effective and successful teach ing of all pupils. A list of some of these measures is given by way of illustration.
1. Primarily Concerning the Teaching.— A. Those which allow the pupil repeating the grade to remain with the class which is regu larly taking the grade for the first time. The remedial work is performed by the teacher in the course of her regular instruction and the retarded pupil is supposed to have the chance of finishing the grade with the rest of the class.
B. Those which involve the services of an assistant working in the classroom with the regular teacher.
C. Those which involve a temporary trans fer to a special class and a prospective return to the regular grade in time to complete it with the class at the close of the term.
and educational measurement. Co-operation with all city departments having to do with children. Study of the methods used in other cities of comparable size.
Retardation Survey.— In order to make a study of this problem in a school system, it is necessary to obtain for each pupil enrolled the following information: 1. The date of birth.
2. The date of entrance into the first grade (not kindergarten).