Will Your Child Drop Out Of School? The Problem According to U.S. Dept of Education statistics, a high school student drops out of school every 26 seconds. In most cases, they see themselves as having little or no hope of graduating. Seventy percent of those who return to school for a second chance drop out again. Less than 20% of those who return to school after dropping out manage to graduate. In a world where a high school diploma is the minimal requirement for almost any job interview, these youth are seriously handicapped in attempting to find employment. Their options are severely limited. Statistics like this might also help to explain why 85% of the individuals we incarcerate are illiterate. Will your child be among these statistics? There are two clear predictors of the students who will eventually drop out of school. The first one is attendance. Students who ultimately leave school without graduating have significantly greater number of school days missed. Students who leave school early also tend to have poorer reading skills than their peers. The problem can be seen as a vicious cycle. The student who does not learn to read has a much more difficult time at school than the student who reads fluently. The stress and deficiency caused by not being taught to read affects the studentâs motivation for wanting to even go to school. Being absent means that the student misses opportunities to learn and consequently falls further behind. The cumulative effect of poor reading skills, missed school days and lost opportunities to learn eventually overwhelms the student and they drop out â one every 26 seconds. The Solution The only way to break the cycle is to teach these students to read well. Increasing their attendance without teaching them to read will not resolve the problem. The solution needs to begin with the 35% of first graders who are now entering second grade unable to read. The longer no effective solution is implemented, the more difficult the remediation becomes. The Maloney Method provides a quick, easy, consistently successful solution for poor readers in any grade from Kindergarten to college.
