Learning together

SPANISH FORK — With world music beating in the background, dozens of Rees Elementary students — ranging in age from 9 to 12 — practiced for an end-of-the-year dance concert.

The students varied in size and development, making it difficult to differentiate the older ones from the younger ones.

But for their teachers, ages do not matter. It's about development, socially and academically.

About 120 students who would normally be in third-, fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms participate in the multi-age program at the school.

Multi-age education allows students to master topics and bond with students on their same developmental level. It questions the traditional, graded education assumption that all students of the same age are ready for the same material.

It has been endorsed by education researcher Lilian Katz. Nationally, multi-age research centers have popped up at schools such as Northern Arizona University.

"I read a lot in the field of education," said multi-age teacher Chris Roberts.

Roberts first arrived at Rees Elementary about a dozen years ago. Roberts and other faculty were sharing research articles with each other and concluded that graded education "was based on research based on expediency," Roberts said, teaching students the basics to be successful in the work force, which is "not what was good for kids."

"It was sort of on our own," Roberts said. "We were talking enough, (we thought) let's do something."

So classrooms were created to combine students in third, fourth and fifth grades.

Not many teachers were initially interested in multi-age education at the time, but that's changed.

"Now there are teachers at this school, at least some who would be interested in looking at multi-age," Roberts said. "I don't know if that would happen with No Child Left Behind and all the pressures teachers feel."

Multi-age education depends on small-group work. For instance, at Rees students break into reading levels.

"You have third-graders with fifth-graders all the time in those," Roberts said.

"In math, we separate into the grade levels only because our administration feels more comfortable with it," teacher Brenda Beyal said.