If Below-Grade-Level Kids Always Get Taught Below Grade Level, When Will They Catch Up?
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses the paradox of always meeting students where they are without ever bringing them up to where they need to be.
Key Takeaways
- Meeting students where they are can become a trap - If instruction always stays below grade level, students fall further behind each year
- Exposure to grade-level content matters - Students need access to grade-level material alongside intervention support
- The gap compounds over time - Without an aggressive plan to close gaps, below-grade-level students never catch up
Transcript
How do we get kids to learn grade-level content if they are below grade level in some way?
I think this idea that we have to meet students where they are has gone too far.
This idea that we need to differentiate everything has gone too far.
Now there are places where students truly have to have prerequisite knowledge.
They have to have prerequisite skills in order to do the next thing, right?
And I think math often works that way, that it is very difficult to to learn the current thing if you didn't learn the previous thing.
But I've had some great conversations with math educators who say that's actually even not strictly true in math.
We can always teach grade level content and do some things to scaffold and to support and to catch up to students who are not at grade level.
But I think what we have to never do is fail to teach grade level content.
That's, I think, the biggest trap for kids who are below grade level is because they're below grade level, they get taught below grade level and they never get taught on grade level, so they never have any chance of getting caught up.
But I think this is a really difficult issue.
because we want to meet students where they are.
And I don't think we should let go of that completely.
I think there is a noble intention there to meet students' actual needs.
But I think we have to remember that we also have an obligation as educators to teach grade level standards.
Let me know what you think of this challenge.