Remedial Classes of the New Education for Children

Remedial education is the technical term for what a parent would call extra coaching to bring a pupil who has fallen behind back up to the level of the class again. The whole concept of remedial education has been given a tremendous boost by the modern educational philosophy that each child is an individual with his own individual needs and that the most backward child is therefore just as important as the most advanced child.

The most backward child now receives at least as much attention as the bright pupil. Special teachers are employed to cater for his special needs. They form very small classes of backward pupil drawn from various other classes, give them almost individual attention and then, when they have brought them back up to scratch, return them to their ordinary classes.

These remedial teachers are amongst the most highly qualified in the school. They take extra qualifications in remedial education and receive extra payment for their qualifications.

Extra care is now also taken with remedial textbooks. In the old days a ten-and-a-half year old boy with a reading age of six-and-a-half might have been put right back on to the infant reader. This ignored one important point. Although the child had a reading age of six-and-a-half he still has the interests of a ten-and-a-half year old. The subject matter of the infant reader is far too babyish for him. Nowadays educational publishers go to immense pains to keep the interest level suitable for ten-years-olds although the words themselves are easy enough to be read by a six-year-old.