Regarding Monday’s article “FCAT scores may flunk 10,000 area 3rd-graders”: I couldn’t agree with Rolling Hills Elementary Principal Patrick Galatowitsch more when he said some children just need extra time to learn to read.
I was “kept for improvement” in second grade, and it meant success for me. I went on to college and graduated with honors, something that would never have happened if I had been promoted without basic reading skills.
Every child has a right to learn these basic skills, even if it takes two or three times as long as other children. Promoting just to promote produces failure not success. Any parent or educator who endorses promotion without basic reading skills is doing harm not good.
You say your child will feel embarrassed by being kept for improvement, but how embarrassed will he or she be by not being able to read?
The longer the problem exists, the bigger the embarrassment. Fix the problem now at an early age and watch the embarrassment turn into pride and self-confidence.
Linda Chaffee
Enterprise
