Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Gifted but behind in Kindergarten?

Wow...retention. I was not aware that there were Ks now threatening this over not being able to read. When you sat level D, do you mean level D Fountas and Pinnell, like here? http://www.readinga-z.com/readinga-z-levels/level-correlation-chart/ I'm not intimately familiar with levels (my kids' schools have not concentrated on this, at least for them) but that seems like a high bar to pass K!!

My DS (K) is expected to count to 100, IIRC, and to skip count, and facts to 10, but I don't believe they would retain unless he could not count to 10 or recognize letters or behavior was very immature indeed. I don't KNOW this. Just a feeling. As for writing, they do indeed work on it but there are a lot of kids who can't.

That level D looks maybe similar to a little harder that the accelerated reader books. The one I saw for him had lots of words like looked, chair, and said. I can't figure out these levels at all, TBO, because I'm still of the mind they should be learning how to read with phonics.

I'm not certain if she mentioned retention because it was a likely possibility or a distant one and she didn't want us to be surprised at the end of the year.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll put it on my wish list.

Thank you for this suggestion. Indeed, I feel we will be required to work on reading, writing, and probably even spelling over the majority of the summer. I think if I keep instruction to less than 1 hour total per day it won't be too burdensome but still effective. There is also a ton of redshirting here and DS is almost the youngest in the class. In a way I wonder if all this trouble will be beneficial as he will naturally be already 1-2 years younger than his classmates as he advances, which might help with future boredom. The problem is keeping him from hating school in the meantime.

Thanks in general for the words of encouragement and experiences. I am hopeful he will suddenly make a leap forward and everything will quick. I feel I am pressuring him as I feel pressured d/t the comment about retention if he cannot read at the level required. I am also trying to not work too long in one session, 5-10 min as he tires and gets frustrated. For about a month we were doing Reading Eggs as our supplement. That seemed ok, but I needed to start with consonant teams (th, sh, ch, etc) and have been doing that with all about reading. I may go back and forth between the two as reading eggs is more fun. I'll also look into headsprout as an option.

It's so hard as I always loved school, and when I was in K I was older, and we didn't need to read this young, so I feel out of place.

The NZ standard after one year of school (is when you turn 6) is level 12 of the new Zealand readers which are equivalent to level 12 of the PM readers, so G or H. Some kids don't make it though and they aren't held back as a general rule.

Maybe our teachers assess differently though because it does seem quite a discrepency.

Is it possible there is a behavioral concern? I just ask because retention is quite rare these days in my experience.

No, it's still pretty common.

As my (summer birthday) son told me yesterday...."I'm the oldest one in my class except for the others who got held back."

I have some inside knowledge that the schools in my area will only do this once, though.

Displaced, my children's school taught phonics, but they also emphasized learning (memorizing) sight words so that children would not be tripped up by high-frequency but phonics-rules-breaker words when reading. You might want to see where your ds is at on the Dolch lists of site words as a reference point.


Since it was mentioned, I'd ask her specifically what she *did* mean. If it is a possibility, you need to know the details of why, what are the criteria, etc. I would also, after talking to her about this, seriously request a team meeting to discuss the reading issues. Please note - I don't think that anything you've mentioned about your ds' reading level is cause for concern at this point in kindergarten *at all*, but it sounds like your ds' school is really pushing the students in reading. So even though it's most likely just developmental for your ds, since the *school* is insisting there's an issue, call a team meeting. If they insist, at the meeting, that your ds is underachieving or struggling in reading, formally request an evaluation for an LD in reading. If he's struggling so much that the school feels he needs to repeat K, they need to also evaluate and look at whether or not he needs individualized instruction.

polarbear