Effects of reading group assignment on reading development in first and second grade

Placement in a reading group determines: (a) the materials a child sees during reading instruction, (b) the pace at which a child proceeds through reading materi-als, and (c) the peers a child interacts with during reading instruction. The current study examined these effects of reading group placement upon the individual's growth in reading during first and second grade. The study also examined how children were initially placed in reading groups. A secondary analysis of data collected by Juel, Griffith, and Gough (1986) and Juel (1988) was performed. Initial first-grade placements were found to be primarily based on standardized reading readiness tests. Children rarely changed groups. The correlations between place in basal series at the end of first grade and place in series at both the beginning and end of second grade were.77. Children with low incoming readiness test scores developed better decoding skills when placed in a basal series with fewer unique words. Initial aptitude, growth during first grade in decoding skills, and a high success rate in learning basal words influenced first grade reading achievement considerably more than sheer basal coverage or certain peer group characteristics. Only after basic reading skill was acquired did group placement begin to adversely affect reading development—if it constrained exposure to text in second grade. Grouping children for instruction in elementary schools continues to be a con-troversial topic (Gamoran, 1987; Hiebert, 1987; Slavin, 1987a, 1987b). In part this is due to philosophical, psychological, and political concerns over assigning chil-dren to instructional groups on the basis of so-called ability tests. In part, however, this is also due to: (a) contrary findings on the effects of ability grouping, and (b) the criticism that many studies on effects of grouping have failed to sufficiently account for instructional processes and classroom factors that accompany the grouping procedures. Two basic questions have been raised about the latter which migh