I'm the grandma to twin 6 year olds who live with us. I have a direct role in their education. They have been in our public school system since pre-school (preschool, pre-k, and now kinder). The teachers have recommended retention for both kids. It breaks my heart. But I have lots of concerns. I need some guidance.
Girl twin is doing ok. She knows her letter sounds. She can identify first and middle sounds in CVC words and last sounds with a little help. She can blend. But she only knows 4-5 sight words. Her teacher is adamant that retention is necessary. Boy twin is further behind. We are 100% certain he is ADHD though no official diagnosis and we really don't want to medicate. He does know letter sounds - occasionally has to think about it for a moment. He can identify first sounds. We are working on blending but he does quite a bit of guessing unless I can get him to focus for a minute. They both want to learn. She has more confidence. He is worried that he doesn't understand like the other kids. I requested a meeting. We met with girl teacher, boy teacher was absent, principal couldn't make the meeting and backed out, counselor was there at my request to speak on the psycho-social aspect of retention, and the reading specialist the school assigned to help them in mid January (they see her 15 min a day/4 days a week)was present too. One more bit of info... kids were born at 28 weeks and spent 100 days in NICU. They hit all developmental milestones on target.
I am NOT in agreement with retention at this point. I think that with a little time and continued work outside of school with myself and a tutor, they will catch up. I do not like the idea of them being 7 in kindergarten. My understanding of this....kids learn to read until 3rd grade and then it's on to read to learn. This is logical to me. To not allow time and maturity to have any affect before retention is robbing the kids. From my research, retention is NOT recommended at this age. Statistics do not show any correlation between retention and reading improvement and in fact show that kids who are retained are at much greater likelihood of dropping out of high school. I expressed my concern at the "meeting". The teacher that was present feels that promoting them will only set them up to be further behind. I respect her opinion but disagree. Unfortunately, I don't believe we have any say. The school has the final say. I can only appeal. Typing those words makes my blood boil a bit. The school has the final say. Yuck. What do I do? They have no resources to give other than the extra 15 min a day that's already given.