I read an article from a recent Time magazine about holding kids back in the 3rd grade because of substandard reading skills. The article made the point that it's difficult to discern the risk:reward ratio of holding kids back (the reward of building/reinforcing the necessary skills vs. the emotional/psychological risk to the kid), but it did make the case rather strongly, based on a Brooking's Institution study of public schools in Florida, that extra reading instruction every day helped those kids who lagged behind their peers.
Reminds me of a quote from one of my students over the last few weeks who discovered that she understood friction problems a lot better after going through several examples: "So... if you do more problems, this stuff seems to get a lot easier..."
There just might be something to that idea.
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