The Education of Backward Children
- Author:
Hill, 13.A., with an introduction
by H. Boyes Watson, M.A. Harrap. pp. 174. 6s.
To read such a book while on A.R.P. duty io an area where special schools have been seriously disorganized, is a reinvigorating experience. The book contains an account of almost three years’ experimentation in Southend- ?n-Sea with dull and backward children. The C.A.M.W. was asked to lend two educational Psychologists for three months to make a survey and suggest remedial measures, and one ?f them, Miss Hill, was then appointed to lead a co-operative effort to evolve new methods to deal with the 10-15 per cent, of the pupils for whom ordinary class methods were considered inadequate.
Since the number of teachers with sufficient knowledge of mental testing and special methods was not great enough to set up a complete system of special classes, there had to be devised a system of testing and teaching, simple and clear enough to be used by teachers without ^tensive special training and also reliable enough in diagnosis, and appropriate in remedial application for most of the children.
Working within these limitations Miss Hill has evolved an excellent compromise between what would be theoretically ideal and what is Practically possible. Thus, while she uses Burt’s standardized test to obtain reading ages as a measure of English ability, she provides a parallel list of reading primers for each reading age so that the teachers may use more familiar measures in applying appropriate remedial teaching. She also provides specific lists of questions for use with each primer to help the teacher to adopt individual methods for the development of silent reading for comprehension, which in the reviewer’s opinion would have been a better measure of English ability. The Southend Attainment Tests in Arithmetic and the syllabus of number work are outlined in detail as an aid to similar remedial work in arithmetic. Hints are also given as to pre- formal training by suitable play activities, and also later dramatization, puppetry, projects and simple handwork.
This book should be of great help to any teacher, e.g. in a rural school, faced with the problem of helping pupils, whether bright or backward at widely differing stages by individual methods. The experiment is also noteworthy as an illustration of the way in which innovations can be introduced gradually by such voluntary organizations as the C.A.M.W. and then adopted on a wider scale by a public body, and finally, if need be, by the State. It at least suggests a valuable alternative to totalitarianism in the solution of educational and social problems. D.K.F.
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