Does
looping increase student achievement?
Summary
Looping
is a classroom setting in which a teacher moves
with his or her students to the next grade level
rather than sending them to another teacher at the
end of the school year. I learned about the concept
of looping and believed that the long-term relationships
provided by looping—not only with my students, but
also with their families—might lead to increased
parental involvement and improved student achievement.
My
study examines the last two of my four years of
looping classes. My data, drawn from surveying and
interviewing parents and students, and the Delaware
Student Testing Program (DSTP) tests in reading,
writing, and math, demonstrate how looping positively
affects a student’s social, emotional, and academic
development. I also discovered that looping did
indeed lead to increased family involvement, which
therefore led to students who performed better on
state tests than their counterparts at the local,
district, and state levels.
It
has taken several years to fine-tune the way that
I loop with my students and their families. I have
successfully engaged the families of my students.
To illustrate, at the end of my last loop of 2002
through 2004, I had 100% participation at spring
conferences.
For
students, looping provides long-term relationships
with their teachers, a stable environment, increased
confidence, and improved student behavior. There
is a smooth transition from one year to another,
with no fright factor in year two. Looping allows
more time for special needs students to learn skills
and for all students to develop the confidence to
become independent thinkers and problem solvers.
Teachers
benefit from looping. It improves job satisfaction
and provides extra teaching time (learning can begin
on day one of the second year), and its continuity
allows for a more coherent instructional plan appropriate
to a child’s development. In a two-year period,
a teacher is able to know the strengths and weaknesses
of her students.
Looping
benefits families by providing a sustained joint
commitment between teacher, student, and family,
creating a familiarity that comes from working together
for an extended period of time.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Transition to looping because it is easy to implement
and does not cost extra.
- Looping
teachers’ success stories like mine need to be
shared with others.
- Looping
should move into the mainstream of American educational
practice.
- Studies
showing the benefits of looping need to be shared
with key policy makers at all levels.
- Professional
development opportunities should be created for
teachers at the local and the district levels
to explore looping benefits.
- A
pilot looping program should be implemented so
that looping classrooms can serve as laboratories
for teachers, parents, and policy makers.
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