Repeating Kindergarten When Already Oldest

mommyhood

Thu, Nov 16 2017, 6:27 am

Classroom assistance 1x a week is not nearly for a child that's struggling. Like another poster said, don't let a huge school scare you off. I don't know Baltimore, but many times the bigger schools are able to offer more services like smaller classes for children struggling in subjects, resource room for areas they struggle with. I know my kids all have kids who are pulled out for various subjects throughout the day. So while the class is learning chumash, the student who's struggling is learning chumash on their own level but the child is still part of the class for most of the day. Same thing happens for reading etc.
Chances are you're not switching schools mid year so for now you need to get him evaluated to rule out any learning disabilities or behavior issues. You should be entitled to one through the board of ed but private testing might be more thorough depending on how qualified the team is.

seeker

Thu, Nov 16 2017, 7:29 am

If he was not taught letters last year then it's not so alarming that he doesn't know them now. Try to play a lot of letter and letter-sound games at home to 1- reinforce the learning and 2- get a personal view on how much difficulty he's having with that.

With regard to sight words I wouldn't worry terribly about the sight words themselves at this point but you do want to make sure nothing is stopping him from learning them eventually. If it's a memory problem, you'll see that with the letters already. But you want to make sure that he gets how written words stand for sounds and ideas. Read books together like "Mr. Brown can Moo," see if that helps him relate the words to the sounds (if you're not familiar, this book has specific sound words written in big colorful letters) and other books with a lot of repetition, where you can start pointing out that certain words always say the same thing. Does he recognize his name? What about names of others in the family? Environmental print, like the name of the cereal on the cereal box (if you're cereal eaters, that is...)?

You also want to see whether he has awareness of sounds themselves - not just in relation to letters and words. Can he play rhyming games?

These pre-reading skills are things that may just take some extra work to get him up to speed. I'm more concerned with your comment that he can't work independently without someone sitting with him (in which case that's not independent anymore, is it?) That's a functional difficulty that I'd want to know where it's coming from. There are so many things that could factor in here. Is his one session a week of help in the classroom with someone capable of assessing what's going on there, rather than just sitting near him and prompting him to do it at the time?

amother

Plum

Thu, Nov 16 2017, 8:20 am

Sorry to say things in a harsh way, but holding back or skipping ahead are usually bandaid solutions to problems that some schools and educators are unwilling/unable to address.

Holding back, for a child that is doing poorly socially, who is immature and who has learning disabilities that are eluding diagnosis or that have been recently diagnosed, can be a reasonable suggestion. The child stays in the more laid back kindy environment, with a teacher who already knows them, while the nuts and bolts of their situation are sorted out.

Holding back simply because a child isn't meeting educational goals is not appropriate. A young child is not succeeding for two reasons: the adults are not willing to do the work necessary to help them succeed, or the adults don't know how/aren't able to help them succeed.

If your school wants to hold back, it's because they don't have the tools to help him succeed. If your child needs an extra year to learn the kindy material, they're going to need extra time next year and the year after and after. He'll end up being behind regardless. If he's not successful for another reason ( the school has unreasonable expectations, doesn't have special education support, etc) than holding back is equally useless.

I would meet with the other school and get a feel for things. Do they have a competent spec ed department? Are they willing to see that same age peers might not have the same skills developing at the same time? Are they willing to differentiate?

And at your current school, you need to push them for a real plan that doesn't include just repeating the same mistakes twice. If you refuse to hold back, what will they do for your child?

SixOfWands

Thu, Nov 16 2017, 8:22 am

Lots of random thoughts.

First things first. Reading is a developmental skill. Your son may not be there yet, but it may kick in. If the cutoff is September 15 or October 1, he's probably not even close to the oldest. There are all the kids born after the cut off but before him, and also all the kids whose parents decided to hold them back.

Next most important. When I was a kid, anyone who repeated a grade was considered stupid, and really looked down on. Among my kids' friends, no one cares one little bit. Especially in the day and age of red shirting. So if it comes to that, don't assume it will be problematic. It may be fine. It will probably be fine.

But I do think that you should try to get a better idea what is going on, to see if there's a developmental element, or if there's something else that can probably be addressed very easily with the right intervention. Ask the teachers what they're seeing, then schedule a complete psych-ed evaluation.

BTW, sometimes if a child has learning differences, he's better off in a bigger school. More students, more times a similar issue was encountered, more resources, more help. So don't write that idea off.

ETA -- if holding back is suggested, you need to ask "how will that help." If there is a developmental element -- your child is not ready -- then it does help. But if its not developmental, sitting through the same information taught in the same way a second time will not address the issues.

suzyq

Thu, Nov 16 2017, 8:44 am

I think kindergarten is very young to know whether he truly is behind or not - the expectations for kids these days are pushed ahead a lot more than they used to be - it used to be that letters were taught in kindergarten and reading was 1st grade. I wouldn't hold him back to repeat kindergarten - he may very well catch up in 1st grade. Give it time before making any major decisions and maybe just some extra encouragement in the way of fun activities at home - educational videos, spelling games, etc.

amother

Pink

Thu, Nov 16 2017, 9:25 am

I was advised by a morah who works for a community education organization to hold my child back and repeat kdgn. I thought I was getting an evaluation and couldn't understand why there were no reports...but followed advice to listen. Worse mistake. She is the oldest in the class by several months and still struggles. Another year of kdgn did nothing but delay our attention to her areas of weakness.

Get an eval from someone who knows what they're doing. Not a morah whose been working for suuuch a long time and administers tests with no understanding of how they work and is employed by some dumb "helping" agency that has no clue.

amother

Floralwhite

Thu, Nov 16 2017, 9:56 am

I live in Baltimore and my boys go to TA. My two oldest struggled with reading in Pre1A/beginning of first grade. They are now in mesivta and neither has any academic issues. The school was great at figuring out that they needed help (for my oldest it was even before I was aware there was an issue!) and arranged for the in-school reading specialist to take them out of class multiple times a week. By the end of first grade both of them were at grade level and have been there, or above, ever since. I think they were just not ready to learn how to read at such a young age and needed more time. If I were in your position, I would not keep him back and try to get him extra reading help in a smaller setting, either through the school or privately. I don't know what school you are sending to now, but if you are scared of TA because it is so big, I can assure you that they are excellent at giving struggling students the help they need, in both English and Hebrew, and will do so in school so that you don't have to spend any more time or $$.
Hatzlacha!

amother

Ivory

Thu, Nov 16 2017, 10:37 am

amother wrote:

She wouldn't be without all the work we do. My dh spent his whole life almost failing and hardly hanging on. I won't let that happen to her. I work with her all the time. But we make it fun. She had a miserable time learning and remembering abc/alef bais. When we first started, she would have literal melt down. But it's fun for her now. Yes, its really hard time wise. We have really full time jobs with a commute and she isn't the only 1. It's hard. But we reap the rewards because she is now up to grade level. But every new topic they do, is more work for us.

What tools do you use? Worksheets? I'd love to see it if possible.

mommyhood

Thu, Nov 16 2017, 10:44 am

SixOfWands wrote:

It sounds like OPs school has a December 31st cut-off. Our school has that policy and I know it's very unusual to hold a child back whose birthday is earlier than July. That means her son would be 6+ months older than the next oldest child.

SixOfWands

Thu, Nov 16 2017, 10:47 am

mommyhood wrote:

She said he's turning 6 in December, and one of the oldest. With a 12/31 cutoff, unless he was already held back once, he'd be one of the youngest.

amother

Ivory

Thu, Nov 16 2017, 10:51 am

SixOfWands wrote:

She said he's turning 6 in December, and one of the oldest. With a 12/31 cutoff, unless he was already held back once, he'd be one of the youngest.

It's a September cutoff so since he is turning 6 this Dec he has kids in his class already 8 months younger than him. Maybe a few kids are older than him but not many.

amother

Silver

Thu, Nov 16 2017, 11:09 am

amother wrote:

What tools do you use? Worksheets? I'd love to see it if possible.

We actually don't use worksheets. For alef bais, the bnos yisroel program is amazing. You can speak to them and replicate it for English. That's what we did. It's straight forward and easy. We always stay less than 10 minutes each time. We review constantly. A label, I ask the 1st letter and then praise. Treat at the store, if she can tell me 1-2 letters and sounds, she could more likely get it. It was constant. Our dry erase board is the best. But we went from being told early last year that there were issues to she is the top. Then, they start a new thing, is behind again and we work with her. She thinks very abstract.

The constant projects just don't work for some kids. My kid just thinks she is making a project so she doesn't learn. Some kids need black and white, broken down and a whole lot of patience. You can tell that I have a cute, smart and sweet little girl who learns differently but she is so smart, sweet and understanding. Who knows, maybe we have a future shidduch 😋

cbg

Thu, Nov 16 2017, 12:21 pm

I’m surprised they are talking repetition in December.
For me, that’s a big red flag that they gave up on him and are not putting in any effort.
1. Get him evaluated
2. Get him services.
3. I would visit the other school, perhaps they have special ed services, a reading specialist, or something similar.
4. A lot of tefillot.

amother

Saddlebrown

Thu, Nov 16 2017, 1:08 pm

Please get your son evaluated ASAP. It can only help to do it earlier. This way, if you decide later that you do want to put him in first grade next year, you'll have had this year to start working on any underlying issues.

Secondly, to help my daughter with reading in kindergarten, even though I was working with her constantly, what helped at the end of the day was an educational computer game specifically for learning to read. We let her use it 3 times a week, and she learned all the lower case letters in about 6 weeks, and then learned all their sounds and was sounding out simple word on her own about 6 weeks after that. I know a lot of people are against using technology or screens or internet-connected devices for children, but with proper supervision and programs, they can teach your child much better than you can.

amother

Lavender

Thu, Nov 16 2017, 10:07 pm

I would look into getting him extra help in the classroom before even thinking about leaving him back.
Speaking from experience, my son has a November birthday and just turned 5 in p1A, so he is one of the youngest and we were going to put him back bec. He was emotionally immature but in the summer he matured so much. Academics is not everything.

RebekahsMom

Thu, Nov 16 2017, 10:33 pm

He definitely needs an evaluation, and if he’s had one, ask the school exactly what tests they’ve done, and what they’re working on in therapy.

You are sad to consider public school, but a public school is legally obligated to evaluate and treat any disability he has (private doesn’t have to). By the time my daughter was in 2nd grade she had 2 teachers (not aides) in every class.

My nephew did a T-1 bridge program after kindergarten, and ended up doing well.

There are too many issues with what you’ve said to make me think that kindergarten again would be a good option. Testing would be best, and treat from there.