Lit. Review Article 6

Literature Review

Article 6

APA Citation: Frey, Nancy (2005). Retention, Social Promotion, and Academic Redshirting: What Do We Know and Need to Know? Remedial and Special Education, Vol. 26, No. 6, 332-46. Retrieved from JSTOR database 31 July 2007.

I. Title: Retention, Social Promotion, and Academic Redshirting: What Do We Know and Need to Know?

II. Author: Nancy Frey

III. Author’s Purpose for Writing: To examine the research on the effectiveness of retention and other responses, including social promotion, and the growing parental practice of “academic redshirting” of children by delaying their entry into kindergarten.

IV. What are the points made in the review of the literature? Do they support the need for the study? Social promotion has grown less acceptable to policymakers, even as the few studies conducted have shown little harm resulting from the practice. What is clear is that students that have been retained…are more likely to drop out of school…Despite these dire outcomes, the rates of retention have continued to rise the past decade.

V. Author’s Inquiry Question: What do we know and need to know about retention, social promotion, and academic redshirting?

VI.
A. Author’s methodology: None this is a literature review of current research on retention, social promotion, and academic redshirting.

B. Who is being studied? Students across the nation from Kindergarten through High School.

C. Over what length of time? Not specified.


VII. How the author collected information: By compiling the data provided by all the different studies that are being researched.

VIII. What the author discovered: That retention, social promotion, and academic redshirting have, at one time or another, been called “the gift of time.” Perhaps it is time to redefine this cliché. Perhaps the true “gift of time” is in the work of the educational researches who can answer the questions of teachers, administrators, and parents.