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Book Review
Programmes for school children
ONE MILLION CHILDREN — Success For All: Robert E. Slavin, Nancy A. Madden; Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd., M 32 Market, Greater Kailash I, New Delhi-110048. $. 39.95 (paperback).
THE PROGRAMME known as "Success For All" began in 1986 as a response to a challenge made to a group at Johns Hopkins University by Baltimore's superintendent of schools and others who wished to know what it would take to ensure the success of every child in schools serving large numbers of disadvantaged students.
At that time they were engaged in bringing out a book called Effective Programs For Students At Risk and the question could not have been better timed, they thought.
Working together with their elementary division and after researching sufficiently, they prepared a plan and selected a school comprising all African-American students as a site to carry out the pilot programme. Approximately 83 per cent of the students qualified for free lunches.
Why one million children? To go by statistics, "Success For All" programme was used in more than 1,500 schools in 48 states as of fall 1999 plus schools in five foreign countries. The following year the same time it was expected that 1,800 schools, highly diverse in nature, would serve one million children.
The most important assumption of the programme is that every child can learn. Equally important idea is that the school must relentlessly stick with every child until it is succeeding. In case it is not, he or she may need help with behaviour or attendance or eyeglasses.
In the absence of any of these a need for a modified approach to teaching the subjects may arise motivating the teachers to adopt different methods in teaching.
The school does not merely provide services to children but it constantly assesses the results of the services it provides and keeps varying or adding services until every child is successful.
The components for Success For All programme differed at different sites depending upon the resources available to implement it.
To give a brief description of one of the important programmes, reading programme at the elementary level, we find that it involved both teachers and students where teachers read children's literature to students and engaged them in discussion of the story to enhance their understanding of it, listening and speaking vocabulary besides knowledge of story structure.
In kindergarten and first grade, the programme emphasised development of basic language skills with the use of story telling and retelling (STaR), which involved the students in listening to retelling and dramatising children's literature.
Specific oral language experiences were used to further develop receptive and expressive language. After an interval of eight weeks the reading teachers assessed student progress through the reading programme and they used the results to determine the group that needed assistance and provided it accordingly.
Subsequent to "Success For All" programme in 1991 when they received a grant from New American Schools Development Corporation to create a comprehensive elementary school design for the 21st Century, Roots and Wings was created which incorporated revisions of all of the elements of "Success For All" — reading, writing and language art programme, pre-kindergarten and kindergarten programmes, tutoring, family support and added to these a programme in mathematics — Math Wings — and a programme that integrated social studies and science called World Lab. Here students of grade one to five play roles as people in history, in other countries or in various occupations or learn about physics by creating and testing inventions.
The two programmes are not absolutely new in the strictest sense as they are based on principles of learning and rigorous instructional research but the overall results indicate that the majority of schools that have adopted the programmes have met with success. For instance, out of the 1,100 schools that have used the programme for periods of one to nine years, only 36 have dropped out.
Similar is the case with Roots and Wings. A significant growth was noticed among students' performance in various subjects as compared to those who did not take the programme.
The book under review should certainly find a place in all school libraries and the programmes tried out especially by schools meant for the economically backward.
N. MEERA RAGHAVENDRA RAO
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