ABSTRACT
The problem of the child who lags behind in his school work is one of the most difficult that teachers have to face. It is a problem which can arise in almost any school. Selective secondary schools may have pupils who have difficulty in reaching the academic standards set, but the non-selective secondary schools and the junior schools have problems of a different order. In these schools are children who are retarded in their educational capabilities to such an extent that they may be seriously handicapped in their relationships with society. At the secondary level it is particularly obvious and acute when a child who is about to leave and find a job is still unable to read or to cope with anything more than the simplest computations. These deficiencies are built on a foundation of persistent failure to achieve what other children are achieving, and, while we may be able to assess with some measure of accuracy how far behind a child might be in reading, we can only guess the extent of the negative feeling caused by this history of failure.
