Remediation is not instruction. We begin by thinking about remediation and how it differs from instruction. Instruction is what happens in the school in a classroom. The teachers instruct or formally teach children. Although there are many ways to teach children, the essence of teaching is transferring knowledge. The teacher has the knowledge and the problem in instruction is how to transfer this knowledge to the child. This is not a very simple affair.
Instruction has at least four different components. The teacher instructs a learner so the characteristics of the learner determine to some extent both the manner of instruction as well as the successful outcome. Then there is the teacher. He or she also has certain modes and manners that affect the outcome of instruction. The learner and the teacher are in a particular setting—this is the school. The school may be of good or poor quality. It may be in a slum area or in a wealthy suburb.
Accordingly, the school may or may not have adequate resources (tape recorders, slide projectors, computers, and so on) to engage the children in various activities. Finally, there is the curriculum and its content. So effective instruction depends on all these four components. Many teachers know that if the object of instruction is merely to put some kind of information into the heads of the pupils, like pouring water into an empty jug, teaching will not be very successful.
The characteristics of the learner must be considered. For example, a 7-year-old child is asked by a friendly teacher, “Why is it so hard for you to pay attention to the lessons after recess?” He replies, “You see, I try to choose a friend to play with during recess. I try hard and look for the right boy but by the time I make up my mind, the recess is over. That leaves me tired and thinking.”
Sometimes children do not understand the purpose of instruc¬tion. A teacher is trying to teach the basic concepts of addition and subtraction to a 7-year-old: “You see, John, suppose you have five pieces of candy. Your best friend gives you two more pieces. You now have seven. But then you give away six pieces of candy to your little sister. Then you have one.” The child says, “But … but … Miss Kelly, that is called sharing!”
Remediation is not instruction. Only when instruction has failed does remediation take over. Instruction is typically given to a large number of children in a classroom. The instructor in the classroom cannot take into account only an individual child’s learning style, maturation, and case history. Instruction does not aim at removing the deficit or difficulty the child may be experiencing for some very specific reasons. It treats children as a community of learners in a classroom.
The purpose of remediation is, of course, to help the child compensate for difficulties that he/she has. As the word suggests, it is aimed at correcting the problem. For best results, remediation has to be individualized. Of course, we know that in some schools where special and regular children share the same classroom, in¬dividualized programming of special children is adopted. In those circumstances, instruction and remediation are merged, but, gen¬erally speaking, remediation is aimed at ameliorating the difficulties, reducing the deficits, and correcting maladaptive strategies that a learner may have.
Remediation, therefore, goes beyond the surface difficulties. If a child does not know how to swim, the remedy is not to throw him into the water and let him sink or swim. Similarly, if a child is poor in spelling, remediation would not recommend more and more spelling exercises.