Small rural schools utilize multi-graded classes to maintain their viability. When the majority of classes are combined, the result is a multi-graded school. In Alberta alone, there are approximately 90 schools that would be defined as a multi-graded school, and every rural school board has at least one on its roster. In Alberta, students and…

Through a single-case study design, the research study described in this article examined one rural Canadian school division's use of teacher-directed collaborative action research as a mediating tool for teacher learning within a professional development (PD) initiative known as the Numeracy Cohort. The PD initiative brought together a dozen K-12…

Argument writing is challenging for elementary students. Previous experimental research has focused on scaffolding rhetorical goals, leaving content goals relatively unexplored. In a randomized experiment, 73 students in grades 5, 6, and 7 wrote persuasive texts about difficult-to-classify vertebrates. Each student received one of three sets of…

This longitudinal quantitative study compared literacy achievement of students from second through sixth grade based on two organizational systems: graded (traditional) and nongraded (multiage) classrooms. The California Standards Test (CST) scaled and proficiency scores for English-Language Arts (ELA) were used as the study's independent variable…

The Small Schools Curriculum Project in Newfoundland aims to develop curricular and pedagogical solutions to the problems identified with multigrade classrooms. Concludes that multigrade classrooms are (1) a prevalent and permanent feature of education in Newfoundland; (2) a unique form of educational organization; and (3) potentially feasible…

A task force composed of educators and members of the business community studied the effects of declining enrollment on the mathematics program in Ontario. The group suggests that the main impact of decline on the mathematics program will be an intensification of the existing problems, which include insufficient student practice in mathematical…

Family grouping (a classroom organization plan in which elementary school children of differing chronological and developmental stages are grouped in a single class) is a means for providing continuity between home and school with a minimum of psychological and emotional shock. (MJB)

Finds that, among 418 students in 8 New Brunswick (Canada) elementary schools, students in multigrade classes and matched peers in single grades 1-5 did not differ significantly in grade points or total achievement test scores. Reports that 27 of 34 teachers surveyed preferred teaching single grade classes. (SV)

This handbook presents materials designed to assist teachers in meeting the needs of primary school children in multi-graded classrooms. The handbook is divided into two parts. The first part consists of the following sections: (1) the multi-graded school; (2) strategies for multi-graded classrooms; (3) oracy--listening and speaking; (4) language…

Small, sometimes multi-cultural, rural schools need specialized preservice teacher education programs to prepare teachers. After outlining the classroom, school, and sociocultural characteristics affecting a teacher's success and survival in a rural community, this paper discusses the apparent lack of rural content in teacher preparation programs…

A 15-year study of Amish schools in the United States and Canada found that the number of Amish schools has grown dramatically from 1940 through the present. The Amish provide formal schooling only up to the eighth grade, after which adolescents are engaged in mastering a trade before entering into adulthood. The Amish once supported public…

Although the single-grade classroom has emerged as the most prevalent administrative arrangement, the existence of the split grade phenomenon continues to be a part of educational tradition in both rural and urban schools, predominantly at the elementary levels. Teachers are then forced to compromise curriculum to teach all levels simultaneously.…

A training and teaching tools development project aims to help multigrade classroom teachers in remote areas of Ontario. The project presents multiple instructional strategies, such as collaborative learning, differentiated teaching, and subject integration. Sixty teaching activities, created and tested by teachers, are contained on a CD that will…

Background on the current status of English and French as a second language (ESL, FSL) and English as a second dialect (ESD) programs in Ontario is provided by questionnaire responses, interviews and a review of pertinent literature. The author concludes that declining enrollment will jeopardize ESL/D and French immersion programs. Reduction in…

A survey of 92 elementary school teachers in northern British Columbia revealed that rural teachers were more positive than urban teachers toward the use of multiage classrooms and that teachers disagreed about their needs for effectively managing such classrooms. Suggests providing teachers of multiage classrooms with inservice opportunities,…