Can we lose the word 'ability' in the primary classroom?

[Cortina]

It's a seemingly very small thing but if we spoke about current attainment rather than 'ability' in the primary classroom I think it would be a great leap forward. Actually not just in the primary classroom but most importantly here.

I've been reading about CLAPS - how about CLAP tables? (current level of achievement and performance).

Let's do away with the term 'ability tables' - they make some children think that ability has a ceiling and we are making fatalistic predictions about what can be expected of them.

There is no scientific justification any more - if it ever existed - for labelling children as having different amounts of 'intelligence', 'ability' or interestingly even 'potential'.

It's also dangerous and counter productive to do so, so let's banish the word!

Intelligence is learnable.

I've been on a similar journey to you Cortina. I always thought nurture over nature but have recently done lots of reading: Oliver Jamnes 'They F you up'... also the work of Siegfried Engelmann. Educationally the left wing 'developmentalism' of current education (that says you facilitate and children learn when they are ready) is actually much closer to the nurture end of the debate.

In practical terms, I am tutoring a little Reception aged boy in reading. He had been making no progress at all at school and the head of school said he would begin to read when he was 'developmentally ready'. It turned out that he didn't know his apphabet- something most 3 year olds can learn if taught, and he's 5. In 3 weeks I taught him his alphabet pretty much and then some blending and now he's going great guns (the school are amazed...)

The point is that if you view intelligence as something inate you risk short changing a whole load of kids that just need a teacher that believes they can do it! i'm actually a secondary school teacher but I know what low expectations leads to.

beezmum Fri 14-May-10 17:53:01

In practical terms, I am tutoring a little Reception aged boy in reading. He had been making no progress at all at school and the head of school said he would begin to read when he was 'developmentally ready'. It turned out that he didn't know his apphabet- something most 3 year olds can learn if taught, and he's 5. In 3 weeks I taught him his alphabet pretty much and then some blending and now he's going great guns (the school are amazed...)

I'm amazed too!
Firstly that a reception child is being tutored and secondly that you think teaching a child the alphabet will actually help a child to read

Excuse my lazy terminology...
Is letter sound correspondences more acceptable to you???
The fact was that the little chap was entirely switching off school because of the demoralising experience of being continually asked to read things he had no access to. His mum felt this was cruel and wanted to help him have some access to what was going on in his class. I have given him help to get him going and the good news is that he has started to enjoy school and also made real progress with his reading.
Surely the shocking part of the story is not the fact he got outside help but the fact that the teacher never noticed he hadn't grasped the key phonic knowledge he needed to learn to read?
Back to the point of the thread. It was assumed that this boy did not have the ability yet to learn - dangerous as it meant no one felt the need to enquire further- he was left 'waiting' till he showed readiness.

beezmum I'm afraid nothing you have written changes my opinion that tutoring 4-5 year old children is fundamentally wrong.