You need to consider more than just academic performance.
Physical: Yes, it plays a part - both size and coordination.
Social: Does he have friends? If not, why?
Self-esteem: Does he feel a failure now or is he basically unconcerned about his writing? I know a first grader with abysmal handwriting who tested into the gifted program. He could not have cared less about his writing.
Is the actual school day 7:45-4:30 or does he attend a morning or after school program? Here the schools are open before and after the academic day to accommodate working parents. Technically a first grader can be at school from 6:30 to 6:30 and some are. I understand the need but it makes for a long day for a six-year-old. If the 7:45-4:30 time can be tweaked in any way, it may help.
Look at the whole child and not just math and writing. Talk with the teacher and let him/her know your concerns. The teacher can give you more information about how your child’s fit in the classroom both academically and otherwise than we can.
35 years or so ago my brother was to be promoted from 2nd to third grade. My mom thought he was not ready and fought the school to have him repeat the year.
Do what you feel is in your childs best interest. My brother went on to have a successful experience through the rest of his elementary and secondary education.
Not true. No matter what your district’s cut off date is for enrolling in school, it’s just not true that the youngest ones are always a little behind their peers.
How common is red shirting where you live? Will he be self conscious as the oldest kid next year?
I lived in a place where red shirting boys was very very common, so much so that the poor first grade teachers had some barely six kids and some almost eight kids in the same class! Most of the red shirted kids were boys who were a little slower to develop.
It made a big difference in sports fwiw. DK if that is an issue with your family.
^ Despite the title to this thread, the OP is not talking about redshirting. Grade retention for specific learning difficulties is rarely helpful unless the specific learning issues are addressed directly (and this could be done with grade promotion as well). The literature on grade retention suggests that retained students get a slight bump in scores or assessments the next year due to repeating the same material but that is soon after end up back where they started but now near the bottom of the distribution with their new younger peers.
Agree with @Teriwtt. Don’t particularly care for the word “always” in that sentence. Both D1 and I operated under Sept.-August birthdays as the structure for how school classes were formed. D1 was a May birthday and I am an August bd.
Both of us did very well in school. D1 attended much stronger schools than I, with very vigorous curriculums, and finished towards the top of her classes all through school.
The fact that the OP’s son has a spring birthday in a Jan-December structure does not place him as the youngest of the class anyway.
Never heard “redshirting” out of a sports team context before.
Thanks for all the helpful replies. The teacher says he is ‘at risk’ for being held back. She loves him - really adores him and has been a great for him. But he is simply really behind his classmates (it is obvious - they post class work in the hallways).
As for what goes wrong, I think a lot of it boils down to precision and stamina. He’ll get some part of a word problem right, but invert a number and then get the wrong answer. We’re working on getting him to check over his work reflexively.
The writing suffers from illegibility and - again - just sloppy work. Spelling is not graded. So he’ll write “In the wintr snoo. I lik to sled on hill.” So incomplete thought in the first sentence, dropped article in the second sentence."
His + and - facts for # that sum to 10 are excellent. But could be better for numbers that don’t sum to 10.
Go back to the person who did the LD screening with information about the current manifestations of his LD, and ask what that person meant by “LD in reading”. There may have been a miscommunication as to what that diagnosis meant, and what accommodations were appropriate for your son.
Your son’s math and writing look exactly like Happykid’s in about third grade. Her diagnosis was “specific learning disability”. She received services from about 4th grade through middle school, and mastered a number of compensation skills that made a big difference. For starters, she uses a calculator for any arithmetic. Her writing and spelling cleared up greatly with time - mostly because of all the reading she did. So far, she seems to have turned out just fine. She has been working in her chosen field (theater tech/design) since half-way through college, and graduated with honors last spring.
Get him help in the area of weakness. Find out where the breakdown in skills is. Your first grader is amongst the oldest in his class now. Retaining him in first grade will make him a year older, but not a year better unless the proper instruction is provided.
If this is a public school start first with his classroom, teacher. You can also request a meeting with whomever is responsible for RTI, Response to Intervention, in the school. Find out what they are doing as part of regular education to help your child.
Knowing what I know now about how rich parents deliberately red-shirt HS kids at my kids’ boarding schools for competitive academic advantage, I would seriously consider it at an earlier age to give child a leg up over classmates. Some of my kids’ schoolmates have even been red-shirted 2 years. These kids are bigger, stronger, faster. The colleges don’t look askance at it.
So, you may not have a choice if the teacher told you he’s at risk? What is your school’s policy on promotion? You said this was a charter school, do they have different rules than a regular public school? Is it common for kids to be held back at the school? To avoid stigma, I think I’d look into a new school if you really thinks he needs another year in first grade, maybe find one that blends classrooms?
Look/listen carefully at the sentences you posted of his work above. Yes, words are misspelled but the letters missing are silent. We know they are there but he’s sounding out the words so he doesn’t know they are there. Not unusual at all for first and second grade.
When he rereads his sentences above what does he think? My guess is he hears that there are missing words. Chances are his errors are the result of hasty work and not enough time or not enough interest in checking and correcting his work.
I worked with primary students for years. His little story upstream is very typical of first grade writing. You can read what it says and get the meaning.
Yea, I wasn’t too concerned by that little story excerpt, either, especially from a little boy. They take longer to master the fine motor skills and are more…restless…in school. I appreciate the comments upstream about how it all evens out by about third grade.
I am sorry your son’s teacher is making you and maybe him feel like he is behind. There may be some LDs can can be worked on, but wow, to say he is in danger of being held back seems extreme. Do you have other school options? Maybe something not so structured? It is worth investigating why he is having trouble, but I wouldn’t hit the panic button.
Combining thoughts from this thread and your other one: I like the idea of putting some time into the non academic aspects of his life, too. Let him play sports or try an art class. Help him make friends and coach him on how to play with them appropriately, if that is an issue. Kids who can control and who understand their emotions and impulses do better in school and in life.
An anecdote: I remember first grade when the kids started to be broken out into different levels. There was one little boy who was really struggling with his school work and felt bad about it. He found refuge in soccer. Many of the little boys in that grade at that school were on the same, low key team. This little struggling boy was quite a good soccer player, and his mom said that his success in soccer pulled him through that year.
I’d agree—the writing sample you posted is nowhere near out of the ordinary for 1st grade. I could probably find examples for my three kids and one of the three would be better, one worse, and one about the same.
If I’ve learned anything watching my three kids grow and develop, it’s that they all do it at their own rate. Just as kids don’t all walk on their first birthday, they all develop academically at different rates as well. It continues through high school.
Our kids attended a Montessori program in elementary school. One of the things we really liked was the multiage classrooms and the opportunities to develop in different areas at different rates. One of my kids was an atrocious speller and didn’t master math facts until 5th or 6th grade yet was in the gifted program. She didn’t know all the ABCs when she started kindergarten. Graduated high school at the top of her class and is studying engineering now with great success. So much evens out later. Yes, watch for real signs of trouble,and get help where needed, but give it time as well.
And 7:30-4:30? My high schoolers don’t have a school day that long. It could be just too much for this child.
Get this boy outside, pronto! Let him run and play, climb trees and dig holes in the backyard. Let him use his imagination without being “graded” on whatever he’s enjoying. He may just be overwhelmed with his extra long school day and need some time to destress. Getting physical really helps a boy to be able to think more clearly.
So much is developing inside this child right now, and academics are only a small portion of the really important life markers. Does he have some passion that he enjoys? Whether it is legos, or horses, or throwing rocks into the pond, or some sports outlet, let him find something that brings him joy and make sure there is a consistent time for him to pursue this joy.
Homeschooling allows for a child to be studying 7th grade level history, 4th grade math and 2nd grade reading level without being looked down on by other students. An obsession with race cars can be used to integrate math, reading, even geography, and you’re using his passion to drive (oops, no pun intended) his studies. Not everyone can homeschool, but you can find ways to take what the child might consider “boring” math and turn it into more of an adventure.
In the whole scheme of life, this is not the make or break decision that will forever scar your child. Be sure your child feels loved, feels safe, and make time to do things with your child that he thinks are important. He may not have the same need to write complete sentences that you and the rest of the educational system are so distraught about. It might not matter much to your son.
Sending hugs your way. Parents have so many things to worry about with each child, and it is hard to step back and see the bigger picture.
Somehow I missed the part about this being a charter school. In many cases charter and private schools are not required, or cannot afford, to offer the same interventions and support that a public school can. This is not always the case, but is something to consider. In our public school, because of the supports we know are available in 2nd grade and 3rd grade…that often tips the scales to promote rather than retain. If the student can move to the next grade, with supports (smaller class, or class with an ESE teacher in addition to the reg ed teacher) that can be much more helpful than repeating the same grade, with the same level of instruction again. If these types of supports aren’t available at the school he is attending, I’d look into other possible options.
I also agree with the above…get him outside, let him play, make sure he can do things he feels good about.
My question is did the school do the neuropsychological evaluation at school, or did you get an independent neuropsychological evaluation?
If your “gut” is telling you that he is frustrated and struggling, I would look at that more closely. Yes, school in first grade has become more demanding. While I strongly believe that it is not developmentally appropriate to have so much pressure on our young children, I also believe that parents know their children best. And if it is an LD, keeping your child back a year will not help.
Our D was evaluated by the school and found to be making “effective progress” - they said they did a full neuropsych. We finally smartened up and I found someone to evaluate her independent of the school. (She had/has an excellent reputation for being fair as well as writing good reports.) A good one will see where your child is struggling, and use further assessments to get a more specific picture. Our D tested at the 99.9th% at some of the assessments, while scored at the 1st percentile at one of the measurements of memory. She had a global IQ of over 140, with processing speed in the low 90’s. (If I remember correctly, it has been a long while, they had to present an “estimated” IQ, as a specific one could not be determined because of the large spread.) Sort of like running a race with a long and a short leg. She struggled with rote memorization, math and writing. She loved reading. The school finally agreed to provide services. She has had services, has developed various coping strategies, and will be quite successful in her planned career.
Has the person who performed the neuropsych compared your son’s achievement to his abilities? There was a large spread in my daughter’s scores, so we were told in the school’s report they were not able to do this because of the test directives (too large a spread), but “she was making effective progress in school.” There is a General Ability Index http://www.pearsonassessmentsupport.com/support/index.php?View=file&EntryID=353
which can be used to calculate expected achievement. I created a chart in Excel to visually demonstrate my daughter’s ability versus her achievement in the various areas. This along with the independent assessment were game changing for my daughter.
Back to the school. Often what we would agree to in IEP meetings did not find their way into the presented IEP. When they did follow up assessments three years later, I teased apart the assessments they gave her, (not easy) and they had avoided some of the assessments which highlighted her deficits the first time around. The best thing we did was to hire an advocate, to have someone there without emotional investment to advocate for your child. If you had a professional outside of the school complete the neuropsych independent of the school, great. If they recommended a particular evaluator, I would strongly advise you to call schools who specialize in teaching students with learning disabilities, and ask them who writes good and fair reports. It was a large chunk of $ for us, but the best $ we have spent.