The official levels in my son's first grade class certainly looked more even at the end of the year. When the group reached the desired level they were given no further instruction or testing. The extra time was used to give extra instruction to the lower groups and push them faster. Hey Presto! Evening out.
This was also our experience. They try to get all the kids to the same level. Children who are ahead of the "desired level" are not given instruction in order to keep learning, but stay at the "desired" level. Eventually the other kids will "catch up" as they are still learning, and the children who are (or were) ahead, are not.
agreed. I got the distinct impression from some of the teachers that they were actually trying to get the kids to "even out"...or at the very least, completely neglecting instruction for those who are advanced, after all those kids don't "need" anything. I do think when people claim kids "even out" they are implying that their ability levels are all about the same by third grade. From the data I saw on fluency, that's really not the case. Some kids could read 60 words per minute and others could read 160 words per minute. Since they are resistant to doing above-level testing, they probably don't even know how advanced the advanced kids are in terms of comprehension ability. All they know are the results of grade-level tests. I think that most advanced readers will continue to grow, even if they are not given any instruction, since most kids will read at home. They won't do as well as they could, though, if they were actually given instruction. I'm not sure how anyone who actually takes a close look at data could ever claim that kids "even out" or that their ability levels are all about the same. I think it's just a case of gifted kids being completely ignored with reading like everything else, and given material that is way too easy so they look much less advanced than they really are. Kind of like giving a kid who can do long division 30+10 and then saying "see, she's not really advanced, she's doing the same math as everyone else."
