Holding back a grade? Really need advice
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Anonymous
No she does not have an IEP. Never has been mentioned to us by her teacher. From a school's perspective, given DL and all the chaos anyway, I don't see why they would turn down our request. As someone mentioned above, this year would be the perfect time to hold her back and put her in the correct grade next year. Regardless of the diagnosis, I am not seeing any benefit in keeping her on the current (advanced 1 year track) track ESP given the speech/word retrieval issue. My thought is that parents will need to substitute/assist at home with DL anyway. We would substitute with 3rd grade level work so that she is not bored. |
Anonymous
| I have a November birthday and was the youngest in the grade. I was very bright and often bored in school (except for math, which was not my thing). It was harder for me socially, and everyone hit puberty before me, and I was always the shortest and so forth. Now, they can advance kids academically much more easily with accelerated coursework, etc, so I would focus on the social aspect. Is she going to feel out of place with sixth grade sleepover conversations? Is she interested in sports, but will be younger than the others? A lot of it is her personality. Should she be a big fish in a smaller pond, or always be trying to keep up with older kids? |
Anonymous
Schools are often reluctant to hold back, but she’s young for her class, and with the interruption of the school year, I think you can make a good case. I agree, you can supplement so she won’t be bored. I’m guessing teachers never flagged her for an iep in terms of speech because she’s intelligent and well behaved. She wasn’t a problem child so her issues with pragmatic speech went under the radar. |
Anonymous
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Why exactly do you want her to repeat? Is it for the social aspect (because she is "not there" with her peers and is being shunned) or is it because she is failing in LA? Does she read proficiently? How is her writing?
If it is the 1st, I would keep her in the second grade and have a neuro eval + therapy this year - intense therapy so she can catch up. That said, I don't see anything wrong of deciding to hold her back - what is there to lose? If she had been in public since the beginning, she would be going to second grade now anyway. If it is the second, I would definitely hold her back now and work on her language skills (eval + therapy) AND on reading/writing. Third grade is much harder as pp mentioned as kids are expected to be able to read well. In a sense, you are lucky that with Covid, you are in the position of holding her back and have not social impact for her due to distance learning. If the school refuses, just take her off school to homeschool and homeschool the 2nd grade curriculum, at least officially. Next year, you enroll her in 3rd grade (or, if by then she has caught up significantly, you can decide to enroll her on 4th grade). It gives you more freedom of choice and to really look into your child's needs. My would be rising 1st grader will be repeating K. |
Anonymous
| School would likely not agree to hold her back. |
Anonymous
| We are holding our September DC back in K. There is no way 1 as DL was going to work |
Anonymous
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It sounds like by cut off date, she should be going into 2nd grade, but you sent her early through private, so she is actually going into third?
Are you switching schools? If you are able to switch schools, I would definitely have her repeat 2nd grade. It sounds like she is not ready socially and it is only going to get worse for girls as she goes into 4th and 5th grades. I was the youngest of my class growing up and I always thought I was fine. But looking back, I see key issues that could have been avoided had I just been a little more mature. |
Anonymous
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OP here again.
Yes, her private school took her into 1st grade as opposed to K. So when we switched from private to public, she went into 2nd. Putting her 1 yr ahead. We are interested in holding back because of speech issues mainly. That is somewhat related to her not being as savy/"not there" with her peers. Academically, I've posted her COGAT and other scores before. I do think she is at grade level or slightly advanced in math. Generally is drawn to math since she will little, not to reading/writing/arts. Always wanted to "get it over with". Her handwriting is what I would have considered bad. Over this past summer, she has made significant improvements. I focus on making neat handwriting a priority as opposed to "just getting it over with". It has taken some work aka tears but I think we are making good progress. Yes, she will be easily influenced by her peers. That is her general personality. I think it would be worse if those kids are now close to 1 yr older as someone earlier posted. Because of all the previous feedback, I am thinking ahead to HS and college... and again don't see a huge benefit in continuing on this path for social reasons. |
Anonymous
OP here. Yes, this is my worry. She will always feel the need to catch up. I already see that she comes home and now suddenly her new favorite movie is the same as her friend she spent an evening with. Not particularly interested in sports. Has shown some interest in track but no interest otherwise. We have tried basketball/martial arts and were planning on tennis before COVID. Generally enjoys playing with her toys/imaginative play. |
Anonymous
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It sounds as though you wouldn’t really be holding her back, but instead placing her in the correct grade for her age according to the school district’s guidelines.
She would likely be happier and have an all over better experience being in the grade with her age peers. |
Anonymous
| You really want to make sure that you are trying to keep her in a consistent environment if she is doing well enough in the standard curriculum. Pulling her out and putting her in another school is probably not necessary and once you do that, very hard to get back into mainstream schooling. Maybe try a tutor or work with her yourself on the areas where she needs extra help? If it's word recall, there are lots of games you can play. If you meet with an outpatient SLP, they can teach you and your standard health insurance will pay for an evaluation. |
Anonymous
That’s great that she wouldn’t be bored this year. What’s your plan for next year when she’s repeating everything you did at home in class??? Your plan is very short sighted. |
Anonymous
I'm not sure how its short sighted. Similar to how we're supplementing at home now, we would continue doing it for 4th, 5th and so on. Someone said before and I think they were spot on, we were incorrectly (due to her natural interest) predominantly supplementing with math work (she enjoyed it, we were math majors etc). Now in hindsight, that has caused her language arts development to suffer. She is by no means failing LA.. just takes a longer time to ask questions.. lots of "um, ah, like" or sometimes gives a long drawn answer to a very straightforward question (which we noticed during DL). Distance learning, honestly has been an eye opening experience for us. Made us think so much harder about this when we noticed her vs her peers in the virtual setting. |
Anonymous
Some teachers hate it when you supplement because it means that the kids are all not factory-produced at-grade-level drones, but this is actually the most effective way to address her learning needs. No one knows her as well as you do. |
Anonymous
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Can you explain the "word retrieval issue" more? Honestly, it sounds like my gifted kid at that age - her brain was just moving faster than her mouth.
Holding her back over such a minor issue, particularly without knowing the root, seems counterproductive and possibly destructive. |