I kept saying I feel like it was dyslexia and they gave all the excuses why it was not.well they were wrong and my children paid a very high price in self esteem, a year behind their friends, and still not being serviced. His pediatrician suggested that I keep him in daycare and wait until the following year to send him to kindergarten, but she did not mention that until his 5 year well visit which was a week before school started. Varda Meyers Epstein serves as editor in chief of Kars4Kids Parenting. Here is what a teacher does in most classrooms. Was he uninterested or just bored? He cries often, and doesnt follow directions very well, but loves to look at picture books and make up funny rhymes. Get that out of your head immediately. There is a whole checklist of things your child should be able to do before going to kindergarten. Thread starter katie111; Start date May 30, 2013; K. katie111 DIS Veteran. Moms know their children better than anyone. He has emotional issues, is not matured, does well with younger kids as is, and just has not yet developed emotionally where he should be for his age. Kids who are much younger than grade-level peers and who have a history of struggling academically can benefit from repeating a grade. Things we knew he concretely understood never translated in class. Hes great at math though. 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If your child simply needs more time to mature, why not wait a year? There might be an illness or divorce in the family. (June 5, 2012). This will be much easier if you're honest, telling your parents you love to spend time with them but unfortunately doing so at their house is a not negotiable. Sleep: Many kids consistently sleep less than six hours a night. My frustration is with the teacher and her seeming intent in holding my little guy back for whatever reason by not supplying the tools necessary to help him be successful in kindergarten. Where are the numbers to let us know if screening is working? I believe struggling kids should be promoted, but receive other intervention methods, such as intensified learning, supplementing classroom instruction, and providing one-on-one tutoring with a teacher or cross-age tutoring with an older student . In your parents' day, kindergarten was a pretty laid-back affair. It's also important to explain the plan to your child in a positive way, because your attitude will influence his. Take a closer look at the immature behavior and see if you pick up on patterns. Ive asked multiple times to please send books home so I could help him with reading to give him the confidence he once had back, up Ive been denied every time with the excuse that he first needed to demonstrate his reading at schoolI even know their strategy that was confirmed by the teacher and still only a very few books sent home. Hes very good with numbers, has a very extensive vocabulary, can spell a lot of his 144 sight words that I taught him because the teachers were not able to help him through them for some reason. Free single copies of "The Elementary School Performance and Adjustment of Children Who Enter Kindergarten Late or Repeat Kindergarten," are available from the National Library of Education at . Thirty of these families had chosen to redshirt their sons back in kindergarten, and 25 opted not to. My daughter is behind and her teacher wants to retain her. End of February 2018 i am in my sons class room speakin with his teacher bout his academics and as she informs me he has reading problems along with speech problems and now all of a sudden needs little more assistance so i explained that i want him to be in a reading/speech class to help keep him on track(my oldest son goes for speech and ready every week) and if she can send home words and reading material he needs more help with to go over each day at home, waiting and calling and writing comments in his planner on where the work is he needs little more improvement with is at doesnt show up home until the last month of school where then same day i get work of his i get a call from his teacher.she goes on about how hes doin wonderful and all of a sudden she says due to his speech difficulty which effects his reading and reading issues she wants to hold him back in same grade! I feel bad for her emotional wellbeing. "When is it a good idea to repeat kindergarten?" Holding back in failure of an entire school year that soon cannot be explained well or documented. One child may come to school already able to read, while another can't tell A from Z. Because differences are our greatest strength. Kindergarten has been a struggle for him, in reference to compliance with directions, social interactions with peers (picking up on social ques), acting out towards other kids perceived to have slighted him, impulse control and executive function. Her work has been published in The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, The Learning Site, The eLearning Site, and Internet4Classrooms. Who wants to hear their child is average? The data also suggests that in spite of having all these resources and manpower, kids who repeat kindergarten dont do as well as their first or second grade classmates once they make it into those grades. Then, for a few years, I taught in a school for behaviorally disordered children. From old progress reports, it appears the emotional immaturity stemmed from not consistently staying on task and randomly talking out of turn. There can be an age difference of a year (or more) in class. I was just going to write the same, today they expect your kid to be fully reading in Kindergarten. They do testing of 4 parts. Some kids act younger than their peers because they are younger than most kids in the grade. The most productive way to approach the topic . Sensory issues: Some kids react strongly to sensory information and may get overwhelmed by things like bright lights. Grade retention has a negative impact on all areas of a child's achievement (reading, math, and language) and socio-emotional adjustment (peer relationships, self-esteem, problem behaviors and attendance). Find out what they notice, and work on ways to help kids develop skills like self-control. We would re-run tests he had failed and realized there was a social issue to the testing he must of struggled with. He is very smart in my opinion, when he was 3 he could recite the pledge of allegiance and pledge to the Bible and much more. As far as seeing friends go on, he had very few and I know my son has forgotten about school. Another factor to consider is whether your child is as emotionally developed as his or her peers. And while its bad, no point crying over spilled milk. Should I trust the professionals or my instincts. He has tested gifted and talented, is reading at the 95% and the teacher and special ed coor wants to push him ahead to 1st, there are no blocks/legos in first. If the problems are ignored and a repeat becomes necessary 3 or 4 years later, that becomes a difficult experience for a child. "In addition to evaluating a child's social and emotional readiness for first grade, teachers now must consider specific grade-level standards instituted by the state or the school district," says Marilou Hyson, Ph.D., associate executive director for professional development at the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), in Washington, D.C. As a result, more children are in danger of not passing muster. As a result, babies tend to get a high number of infections, usually 4 to 8 per year. Parents can ask to see examples of their child's work compared to the work of other children of the same age. Pros. Hyperactivity, trouble with focus, and not getting enough sleep can be factors. We were told today that we should leave her back because she isnt progressing at the pace of other Kindergartners. - My son will be the last to learn how to drive. Now school is over and although his teacher told me throughout the semester that he will most likely be repeating kindergarten, the school promoted him to fist grade. I just received a letter about a possible retention for my son, i do have a meeting scheduled with the school. He is constantly talking about being in the first grade next. Data showed that the September-born children were 2.1 percent more likely to attend college compared to their August-born classmates. So now what should you do? He is very smart he just had separation anxiety at first. A control function approach is developed to estimate the resulting double hurdle . You're right that normally repeating the grade is not helpful. Your gut reaction may be to defend your child. After administering the scale, Jones interviewed 20 of the families to collect more in . Ask yourself these questions: Lets imagine that you have a child you werent really sure was ready for kindergarten. I am not sending him to first grade. Think about it this way: if the teacher was asking out of malice for your child, she certainly wouldnt want to have him as her student again. Perhaps students with learning disabilities who repeat kindergarten do better in school than they would have had they not repeated kindergarten. As the kindergarten year draws to a close, many parents are left worried their child isn't fully prepared to take on 1st grade. School will respect our decision at the end of the day, but I honestly did not realize we would feel this much lack of support. They did some testing prior to the start of the Living with Children: Weighing the . At this stage, children have passed through toddlerhood and are more mature, socially aware, and willing to interact with peers. Does he like to look at books? Published August 17, 2017. The study of 784 Texas school children followed from first grade until graduating or dropping out of school led by Dr. Jan N. Hughes, Professor Emeritus in educational psychology, found that even though grade retention in the elementary grades does not harm students in terms of their academic achievement or educational motivation at the transition to high school, it increases the odds that they will drop out of school before obtaining a high school diploma by 2.67 times. Children with personal problems can't focus on school. Not sure what to do, you speak to a few experts, do your research, and decide to chance it and send your child on to kindergarten. He puts together over 50 pieces puzzles by himself. Same boat here. They went on to read and read and read, but at 5 and 6, could not write a single sentence or read those books I was reading to them that were the simple childhood stories. It's no big deal. What if I want my child to repeat kindergarten but the school wont allow it because of the mo child left behind? He's well above average academically and he gets along great with the kids, but his teacher wants him to repeat kindergarten because he's socially immature. They are pushing kids too hard these days and are expecting way more than when I was in kindergarten 22 years ago. After multiple evaluations and what not the school has basically been recommending to promote. We asked our children several of the same questions, because my friend thinks my son is smarter than her daughter. Im so conflicted. However, I believe talking with a school councilor, which we are going to do with ours, and also, having him tested by a very knowledgable but retired elementary teacher friend, is what we are going to do next and then keep researching for stat on this and what the experts say. Our son repeated pre-k due to his maturity level. I found out that a bunch of kids in my grade were like 21 months younger than me. However, research is questioning whether repeating truly helps children. Me and his dad are leaning towards repeating. For a child who is behind his or her peers, these potential positives are real and significant. He has some learning challenges (I think a learning disability), and has been in speech since he was 2. . First graders typically start the year knowing how to count at least to 10 (and usually beyond), reciting the entire alphabet and knowing the sounds of most of the letters, reading and writing simple words, and using "creative spelling" to put their own thoughts on paper. Circumstances sometimes dictate that a student should repeat a grade: frequent relocation, excessive absences or long-term illness, for example, may have kept your kindergartener out of the instructional loop for a year. The Australian Curriculum is fairly static, which means that by repeating a year, a child will have an opportunity to revise past learnings, fill in the gaps and retain the information. I think she meant years old not month old., my son is 6 year old the teacher told me he has to repeat kindergarten because he dont want to do his classwork and he does not follow directions what should i do plz help me. There is something schools could do, though you are more likely to find a willingness to do it in a private or parochial school. immature or have difficulty acquiring basic academic skills (Mantzicopoulos and Morrison 1992), while upper grade retention is based solely or largely on academic . The truth is you knew that it might come to this. Our class has also been given 80 sight words and take spelling tests. Should you hold your child back from first grade and let her repeat kindergarten? I served in the Army from 2006 to 2011 and deployed to Iraq twice, and then I graduated from Texas A&M University in May 2017. I will do what I need to do. It was mostly a year for "play-based learning," and the idea of a child being "held back" to repeat the grade might have seemed a little silly. I know I am extremely late to this article, but both my twin brother and I repeated Kindergarten during the 1993-1994 school year. May 30, 2013 #1 . Babies' immune systems begin to mature soon after birth. Hes on the low end of the spectrum. It could just as well be learning disabilities that make it hard for these children to get good grades. I've done a lot of research and it's the general consensus that grade repetition isn't the way to go. This used to be Kinder requirements, now they are prek requirements. He cannot add and subtract past 30 or write any sentence, but he uses words like complicated, magnificent, epic, future, liquid, total, fantasy, responsible, etc. Your child only turned 5 in August. Hi Jeanie, Do you often have to repeat the instructions for even a simple one-step task? You've asked a tough question. It was almost like getting held back twice. No wonder you feel insecure about doing what is obviously the right thing for your son. Using a tool called the Multidimensional Students' Life Satisfaction Scale, Jones measured each child's general satisfaction with life as adolescents. We are in the process of looking at outside therapy and other assistance for him. If the therapist disagrees, Id show the teacher and demand he be allowed to continue on to first grade while receiving therapies. Lets follow Finlands example. Some children might suffer from the social stigma of repeating a grade and end up feeling embarrassed and ashamed, leading to a negative self-concept. Although this article is well written and touches on plenty of other skills students need to go into first grade, it fails to mention they need to be reading, fluently adding and subtracting, and do more than just hold their pencil correctly. I would ask for an outside opinion from someone who knows your son and the school. - The youngest kids may be slower to develop physically, shorter, and less advanced with sports and other interests. Your child may not mind this as much as you think. Instead, I found myself teetering on a tiny chair while the teacher warned me that Sammy might have to repeat the year. Ive seen the damage done to countless students by the change, and much joy and celebration robbed from early education. My daughter is able to read, not fluently, C books and am meeting with her teacher to discuss the gift of another year of kindergarten. My mom refused to have me held back, as there was nothing wrong with my intellect; in fact, I surpassed my peers in reading skills, as I began reading simple words at age 2 1/2- 3 years old and read story books aloud to my Kindergarten class. Was my bright little boy going to flunk kindergarten, I wondered, because he didn't care about arts and crafts? I was continuously told what an eager happy angel we had, however he never progressed to the standard. Weve read to him every day for long periods of time since he was 2 months old. Why is it still being suggested then? Talk to your child's teacher about whether repeating a grade would be helpful or hurtful at your child's age. She is the one who pointed me to the research that says retention is not a good choice. That is not a requirement in Colorado we are told to have them at least know 30 of the 100 most frequently used words, and they should be able to read, but not fluently. https://today.tamu.edu/2018/03/27/14-year-study-holding-students-back-in-grade-school-hurts-their-chances-of-graduating/. So I can see this both ways. In what state do you teach, Emily? ended up repeating first grade. I'm glad he isn't going to high school next year. I know it would hurt, but could it also help? His teacher has to repeat everything to him. I have almost a 10 year age difference in my kids. I suggest you have him evaluated by a speech therapist and see what the speech therapist thinks. I fear this will really hurt him! An estimated 5 percent of kindergarteners spend a second year in the class [source: Mlyniec]. Old born in November. I am a retired teacher, having taught 43 years, at the primary level and the middle school level. We feel like there is no support whatsoever from them in trying to retain. Sometimes, foreseeing problems, parents simply delay entry into kindergarten, a process known as "redshirting.". Hes also on an IEP since the beginning of the year. As a teacher, I have seen many students struggle as they are younger and immature compared to their cohort. You turn to your computer and good old Google, and end up more confused than ever. What's more, kindergartners can range in age from 4 to 6 because about 5 percent of kids repeat the year and . He gets out of school in 3 weeks and we are just hearing about this issue. He isn't ready for that. So I told her teacher today that we will work hard with her and that if she isnt eligible to pass that I will be pulling her out of the school system because something isnt right when 3/5 of my children are at risk of failing right now. I had 2 children held back and come to find out BOTH have dyslexia. Parents. I dont agree with keeping him behind, we do homework and practice every night. I would like to know what specific research you have found that states that retaining is not beneficial. There are no easy answers when it comes to grade retention, and experts are divided on whether repeating kindergarten is more likely to lead to long-term benefit or deficit. Like many parents, I hadn't realized that success in kindergarten depends on many factors, not just intellectual ability. There are lots of reasons kids might seem immature for their grade. We both went on to finish college. These questions concerned me, but I knew that repeating kindergarten was the right thing for my son. Just like I would rather her be a young 6 than a young 5 when starting kindergarten, I would rather her be a young 19 than barely-older-than-17 when she begins college (especially if she attends away from home). Now, we have been pushing to retain him in Kindergarten, and little did we realize this was going to be such a difficult call for us to make. Will your child benefit from being held back? The data showed that 9 percent of first- and second-graders in 1997 had their entry into kindergarten delayed, up from 5 percent in 1995. We did not have the money to send him to daycare and it was just to short of a notice. Your partner in parenting from baby name inspiration to college planning. "Should Your Child Repeat Kindergarten?" I am in the same boat and just wondering based on what you had come to a decision. Have . We missed the registration for pre-k by a week. Going back to the blending.. he know all the alphabet and every sound. Insecurity concerning her classroom authority will certainly compound any immaturity problems, especially with highly active boys.I would lean toward accepting the school's recommendation. The lead author of this study, Dr. Mu-Hong Chen said, "Our findings . All in all we just think its not right move for him to move up, but we are struggling mostly with how he will react when he sees that all his buddies are in a different class and hes not able to interact with them the same way he used to. Well email you our most helpful stories and resources. It should be criminal to do that to these kids. Julie Rawe is the special projects editor at Understood. Question: Even though he had an early August birthday, we started our son in kindergarten at a private Christian school. Reassure him that you think he'll have a happy and successful year, and work with the teacher to help make that happen. 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