Has anyone held their child back in kindergarten?

[Juliet25]

If so, could you share your thoughts, experiences, regrets, etc? You can PM me if you prefer.

(To clarify, I mean having a child repeat kindy; not starting him or her a year later due to a bday close to the cut-off date.)

 

[ireland_nicole]

We chose to have DS repeat K, we would have held him back from starting, but our insurance would no longer cover speech therapy once he turned 5, so we needed to get him in the school system. At the end of K last year, he still wasn't recognizing sight words, and had a lot of social difficulty. We repeated K this year. To be fair, it was easier because the new school nearer our house was finally finished, so it was a new campus, even though he did have several friends move to first grade. Having had this opportunity has done wonders for him both academically and socially. He is ending this year reading at mid to end of first grade level, needing very little OT for handwriting, etc. and doing much better socially. Instead of having a kiddo who was going to need a lot of extra help and struggle over the long term, I have a kid who is confident and excited about learning- and that is what it's all about.

 

[eduk8r26]

If a child is going to be held back, I feel it's better to do it in K or 1st. That's where they learn the building blocks for the rest of school. It would be easier to decide if the reasons for holding back were known.

 

[Katy Belle]

Kind of. One of my sons has a June birthday. So he started Kindergarten when he had just turned 5. But we started him at a small private church school. He went 3 half days and 2 long days. Socially and motor skills weren't ready for all day Kinder. We called it "little kindergarten." He knew he would probably do "Big kindergarten" the next year. We had a choice, and we did put him into public kindergarten, rather than Grade 1.

Regrets... not really. BUT he does still talk about having "flunked" which he really didn't and we NEVER used that word. He's finishing up Grade 5 right now. I think it was the best decision for him. He was and is at the top of the pack, rather than dragging along behind.

Good luck with your decision.

 

[allboyzz]

My mom held my brother back in K because he was younger than the other kids and he was having a difficult time. Now he is a 3rd grade teacher!

 

[fireman17]

We are having our son held back at the request of his teacher. He started in August when he was four and turned five in September now it's not because he's learning disabled by any means it's that the teacher just wants him to reach his full capacity by himself.
At first we thought we had done him wrong by starting him so early but were told time and time again by his teacher we are doing the best job with him and we know in the long run he will be fine. I keep reminding my wife I was held back in first grade and turned out fine but, she just looks at me a shakes her head about that one.
You are doing the right thing for your child.

 

[J'aime Paris]

I'm a special education aide in K, and we are recommending that one of our kids repeat K.
K curriculum has changed dramatically in recent years. These kids have to know so much more material. And we move through topics at light speed!

If your child is struggling, or if the teacher recommended retention, I would really give it some serious thought. It is a lot tougher on kids when they are constantly trying to "catch up" with the others.

Good luck!

 

[mousehappy]

Our son had a very rough time in K. We asked the school to evaluate him and they found nothing conclusive. The teacher and PE coach met with us just to tell us that they did not know what to do with him. Surprisingly, he passed K and entered 1st. 2 weeks into 1st he was miserable, hated school and cried every morning. We pulled him from the school and started him over in K at a private Montessori school. It was a very good decision. Later that year we had him privately evaluated and found that he is Dysgraphic, SLD (processing written language),and Adhd. I am still very surprised that the public school psychologist failed to recognize any of this. We did return him to public schools for two years because the reading program at that school was superb. They did an amazing job with reading but the bullying issues were out of control. I visit middle schools and knew things were not going to be pretty there. So, we moved him back to private school in the 6th grade. He is in the 8th grade now and doing great!

 

[dbarker]

DS21 has an August b-day. I did not hold him back. I felt he was ready for 1st grade. He maintained a B-C average all through school. No regrets...it was the best thing for him.

DS10 has a January b-day. I did hold him back in K. He had speech problems and was really struggling w/ reading and the speech issues the first year of K. He is now maintaining an A-B average. No regrets...it was the best thing for him.

Every child is different. Every situation is different. IMO if you and/or his teacher feel it would best serve him to be held back in K, then do so.

No matter what your final decision is, Good Luck.

 

[MSSANDRA]

Talk to his teacher.
I am a big fan of giving the gift of an extra year before kindergarten but sometimes that is just not going to happer for a lot of different reasons. In that case, often an extra year of kindergarten can be just as effective or sometimes more effective. This thinking assumes that you have a very young or imature child. The reseach has shown that if the reason for retention is academic alone, children do better to repeat first grade rather than kindergarten. I have two friends that are sending thier young 5's to school this year, knowing they will repeat kindergarten. One is money, the other needs special services and laws are not set up for 5 year olds in preschool.
Now the schools know they can not retain all children that need it every year so they will choose which children they wish to retain which year knowing that certain children will need a year at some point. It is your job as a parent to figure out what is the best time for you child and fight for that.

 

[DawnM]

And yet they are still the same academically if not worse off by the time they get to high school. I just don't get it. It isn't helping to push them academically.

Sigh.

Dawn

I'm a special education aide in K, and we are recommending that one of our kids repeat K.
K curriculum has changed dramatically in recent years. These kids have to know so much more material. And we move through topics at light speed!

If your child is struggling, or if the teacher recommended retention, I would really give it some serious thought. It is a lot tougher on kids when they are constantly trying to "catch up" with the others.

Good luck!

 

[AshtonsMom99]

My son wasn't really held back, but he wasn't promoted to 1st either, he was sent to a Pre 1st program within his school. Which basically mixed K and 1st curriculums together..then he was promoted to 1st after that year...It has done wonders for his education and self esteem...He is going into 4th next year reading and doing Math at a grade level much higher than his grade level. Not bad for a kid who could barely identify letters and put them in the right order let alone numbers in K.....

If your teacher thinks you should retain him, then by all means do so. It is not going to hurt him, and there are a LOT more kids than you think were retained.

 

[Aristomommy]

A friend of mine has her DS repeat Kindergarten, but they did enroll him into a full day program at a private school. This way he was able to get more instruction, but at the right level. The private school was more rigorous than public so it really was between K and 1 of public school. The following year he went to 1st in public and did very well.

 

[Juliet25]

Thanks for the fb. We met with DD's teacher last friday and she recommended retaining my DD for another year. She's worked a lot with DD, and the school does a good job of helping kids out (it's small, only like 123 kids from K-5), so I think it's the best option.

A little background. DD was a very late talker. She got early intervention for speech and worked with a special school district teacher to get ready for K. In K, she just lagged behind the others. The teacher feels she's about 6 months behind the other kids, and I agree. In several areas she really seems to "get" things. In others, she just shuts down and has so many problems retaining knowledge. For instance, she can only recognize 3 of about 20 words on a sheet of paper. However, if she sees that word in a book, she is better able to process it. I guess her learning style is a bit different. She was tested for LD and nothing really came up.

So, it looks like she'll be repeating K. I appreciate hearing others' experiences. My DH also repeated K. He graduated at the top of his law school class, so I guess he turned out OK.

 

[poegirl30]

I'm sure that your DD will do fine. Sometimes kids just need that extra time.

 

[dogodisney]

I have an IEP meeting this afternoon for my DGD(5). She is consided severely developmentally delayed. I begged for them to retest her because although she has improved in many things, there is still somethings that are not right with her. She was in a special ed pre-k program at her school for two years before going into kindergarten.
I am wanting them to retain her. I don't feel that she is ready to move on to 1st grade but in a quick conversaton with her teacher two weeks ago, she said that she thought my DGD would be able to move up. I'm going to fight it. I don't think my DGD would even realize that she was being retained and that her classmates will be in a different grade than her. She'll just get new classmates.

 

[EthansMom]

Not one of my kids, but my nephew was recently retained in Kindergarten. He struggled with some basic concepts (couldn't recognize all of his letters over half way through the school year, for instance). Then, he severely broke his leg and missed 3 or 4 weeks of school. SIL and BIL aren't very academic and being stuck at home, not working on much schoolwork, put Nephew even further behind.

The teacher and administration told SIL and BIL that they thought they could catch Nephew up in First Grade. But, in a wise move, SIL and BIL opted to keep Nephew in Kindergarten another year. Now finishing up First Grade, Nephew is doing well in school and is overall a MUCH more confident person.