Nongraded schools teach children in multiage classrooms, instead of separating them into the traditional grade levels.

Nongraded schools have become increasingly popular in the 1990s, particularly among elementary school educators, though some school districts have applied multiage teaching to junior high and high school students as well. The typical multiage classroom in a nongraded school includes students who are one or two years apart in age, for example, combining first, second, and third graders, or fifth and sixth graders. Because children are at widely varying skill levels in the multiage group, the curriculum is usually altered. One common approach is to teach thematic units—on dinosaurs or measuring, for example—and students read, write, and work on math projects relating to the unit at a level appropriate to their ability. Schools using this kind of curriculum usually replace traditional letter grade evaluations with narrative assessments that...