Effective
Grouping Practices
An important organizational issue in early childhood education is the grouping of children. Traditionally, children have been grouped by grade-level designations according to age and ability. Many effective early childhood programs do not follow this graded grouping pattern, however, and instead are using a nongraded approach. According to Gaustad (1992), "Nongraded education is the practice of teaching children of different ages and ability levels together, without dividing them (or the curriculum) into steps labeled by grade designations." She adds that "nongrading can be used with all ages but is particularly appropriate during the primary years" because it is consistent with developmentally appropriate practices.
Besides nongraded grouping, other terms used for this type of grouping include the following: ungraded, continuous progress, mixed age, multiage, family, and vertical grouping. Katz (1992) cautions that in order to realize the benefits of nongraded grouping, the curriculum must be modified to provide a variety of activities in which children work together on projects--preferably in small, multiage groups in which each individual can contribute in different ways to the total effort.
To be effective, early childhood programs also must attend to grouping patterns within the classroom. Such grouping patterns can range from whole class, to small group, to pairs, to individual work. Grouping for learning allows the teacher to choose a grouping strategy that facilitates learning for each individual child. Although standard long-term ability grouping is not beneficial to young children, short-term grouping focusing on the needs of the individual learner may be practical.
Practices such as grade retention (student repetition of a grade level because of insufficient achievement), tracking (the process of assigning students to different classes or programs based on measures of intelligence, achievement, or aptitude), and extra-year programs are not considered acceptable for early childhood programs because they may have negative consequences for the children they are intended to help (Bredekamp & Shepard, 1989).
For more information on nongraded grouping, refer to the following sources:
