I went to an Open House at a school this morning and the principal told the attendees that the school only does ability groupings at the middle-school level. From what I heard, she said they used to do them for the primary school years, but that "all the research" says that young kids do fine when ability grouped for a while but that those children who were ability grouped early on have issues once they get to 5th/6th grade. I didn't hear her provide any specifics on what type of issues.
So, I plan to set up an appointment to talk with her to see how/whether they might be able to accommodate DS. I'm also going to ask her if she can point me to this research against ability grouping at a young age. Is anyone here familiar with any research against ability grouping?
Thanks!
