Age Groups

This article describes the types of nongraded elementary schools that were prevalent from the 1950s through the 1970s, reviews research on the academic achievement effects of nongraded schools, and draws inferences from this research for application of nongraded-systems in today's schools. Research in which an objective measure of achievement was used and for which comparability of nongradld and graded samples was established was reviewed. The review established 5 categories of nongraded programs: (1) programs in which students were grouped according to performance in one subject; (2) programs in which students were grouped according to performance in several subjects; (3) programs that used individualized instruction; (4) individually guided education programs; and (5) programs that were not explicitly described in the research. Results indicated consistent positive achievement effect