So last year I was on here discussing what we were going to do with DD5. While she has not not technically been grade skipped, she effectively has. We originally planned to send her to a public school with a later birthday cutoff for K, and then decided to send her to a private school where she was technically too young to start K, but we decided to send her that year anyway. She struggled with reading and writing all last year, we talked about repeating K, but she has tested into the gifted range, and I thought that she probably just needs a bit of time to catch up, and then she will be in a good place. But the school is quite an academically challenging school, and now she has started year 1, granted it is only early days of year 1, but she is in the remedial reading class, and the lowest math class, and she is also struggling with the organisational skills she needs to succeed in the classroom.

I spoke to another mother who had her for reading groups this week, and she commented how lovely DD is and how hard she was trying. And it was a nice comment, but made me sad because she is trying hard, she is bright, and she is still at the bottom of the class for everything. I guess I was just picturing she was a bit behind in reading and writing, and she would catch up. But if she is behind across the board, then why I am pushing her on? What is she really getting out of it? Holding on to a grade acceleration that may or may not ever actually benefit her. She said at the dinner table last night, 'I am in the red group again'. If she is struggling to keep up, she won't get the opportunity to engage in deeper learning.

I am in the process of setting up a meeting with the school to speak with her teacher and some other staff about how she is going. But I think my gut at this stage is saying, put her back to age level, let her be at the top end of the class and build up her confidence, and really explore the topics. The school is good at catering for students varying needs and academic levels, and I think she would be challenged through the years even if she does drop down a grade.

The best option may be to finish year 1 and then do it again if it looks like she is still struggling, and maybe that is what we should do, but part of me feels like, we are only 5 weeks into the year, maybe it's best just to make the change now.

I would seriously consider holding her back a year too. You can always skip her late when she get ahead. It is not worth to be always behind and trying to catch up at this age

Could she be twice exceptional?

I suspect she might be KJP. She is a bit young to look at dyslexia yet as early reading and symptoms of dyslexia can overlap quite a bit as far as I understand, but I am definitely keeping that on the radar as she gets a bit older.

We visited a behavioural optometrist last year as well who said she has some vision issues, but we did not pursue last year as I am not sure about behavioural optometry . . . and we saw two different optometrists with two different opinions. I am taking her to another optometrist tomorrow actually as she has been talking about having a white spot in her vision, so we will definitely have to look further into visual processing.

We are currently going through an assessment for ADHD with DS7, and I am also keeping my mind open to that possibility for DD as she shows some symptoms, albeit milder than her brother, but again she is a bit young, and what I see in her could still be age related.

She is going to OT for her handwriting, which is getting much better.

She did speech last year because she was not producing the 'sh' sound. That has been remedied, but I do find she mishears things sometimes, we had her hearing tested, and that was fine, but maybe some sort of auditory processing is going on.

The educational psychologist we saw last year did say her scores on the WJ-iii cog did not really have evidence of major visual processing problems though . . .

So yes 2e is definitely a possibility, but not sure at this stage.

Ahhh parenting, so complex!

If I remember correctly, this is not second thoughts but third or fourth thoughts 😉I'd put her back to Prep provided that would not devastate her. Have you had any discussion with her about it?

Also agree, you could also skip later as needed.

What did the school recommend at the end of last year? Hopefully, they are open to retaining students who would benefit from it.

Don't torture yourself! She doesn't need to be in year 1.

Best of luck...

I am not generally in favour of holding kids back. But is it fair to place the child according to where you believe she should be performing rather than where she is currently able to perform?

eta. If you are going to change do it now. I have just changed my younger kids school and it wouldn't have helped to wait and see.

Thanks for your responses. I have a meeting with the school next week, so I will get a chance to hear their opinions. If it sounds like they think she would benefit from moving back down, I think I will support that. I think I had the idea she would make a bit more progress over the summer than she did, and she seems further behind rather than closing the gap. And no, I don't think it's fair for her to be struggling without any real reason.

I was more concerned about the emotional impact of a repeat last year, but I think if she really is struggling, she will be relieved to move down and not be the youngest and at the bottom of the class.

Oh and expat mama, the school was happy to let us decide, but her teacher did recommend she repeat.

Were I in your shoes I would undo the skip/repeat. I would also continue to research the vision stuff and the potential for a 2nd e.

I would repeat, if needed, in the early grades. It is common for kids to do so, often for maturity reasons, so other kids won't give it a second thought.

Our middle kid repeated 2nd grade. She moved from a private school with an end of calendar year birthday cutoff to a public school with a September 30th cutoff. With an early October birthday, a repeat of 2nd grade placed her in the "correct" grade for her birthday. Plus it was a different school, so no one knew she was repeating a grade (including the teacher, whom the school admin failed to tell - she wondered why she "knew everything").

While we didn't think of middle kid as gifted at this point, we also knew that she could have entered 3rd grade at the public school and handled the academics. Our decision was due to her immaturity.

Is her current school a good fit? Or would it be better to change schools and repeat?

For middle kid, she was bored with the academics for a number of years, but the repeat allowed her to be in with kids more at her maturity level. Looking back, I think we made the right decision (she is now a HS senior). Of course, you don't really know what the "right choice" was for years - just do the best you can, probably best to "go with your gut".

Just my experience here -

2012 DS started K early at four
2013 Repeated K
2014 Progressed to first
2015 Progressed to second
2015 Accelerated to third after two months in second

I highly recommend trying Toe by Toe. My son was evaluated by the Eides (2e specialists) in 2013. Doing Toe by Toe at home was one of their recommendations for him and at $40 for the book and 20 minutes a day, it was the least expensive. It is available on Amazon. It certainly won't harm anything to work with her using that book even if she doesn't have dyslexia.

People have varying opinions on this board, so you will get that. I have a daughter that scores at the 99.9th percentile in every IQ area (with the exception of processing speed which was 90th percentile) and I am still not a fan of grade skips in the early years. There are so many other skills, social, emotional, fine motor that go into early school success. I think some of these skills are just age related and it does not matter how high your IQ is. In addition, if your child is gifted and a high achiever (the students that skips are often best for) then not only will you see it but the teachers will to usually (I got a call after the first week of kindergarten). I am also of the mind (and research supports) that early academics are generally not good for children, play and creativity is how they learn. Early academics will almost always limit play time and I don't ever see that as a positive.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...cademic-training-produces-long-term-harm

With the achievement and IQ test scores, my DS7 can easily skip one grade. However, we decided not to do that. I agree with sallymom, besides academics, there are so many other things the kids need to learn and they are equally if not more important than academics. Emotionally we don't think he's mature enough to be in a grade up. We also like him to make more friends in his own age group. He's had trouble making friends last year in K. Now he's made more and more friends in his first grade class. Both the teacher and we are very pleased with the progress. The school has started an individual learning plan and we are going to work on a math program as supplement at home. As long as he's not bored in school and getting challenged academically, we are good with him staying in the current grade level.

Is pulling her out of school for a year an option? If you could homeschool, you would be able to work thru the challenges she is facing while building on her strengths. Then you could put her back in grade 1- so it would undo the skip without lowering her self esteem.

Dubsyd, I went back and looked at your previous posts about your dd, just to try to remember what you were thinking when this came up previously. I may be remembering this wrong, but I think I saw in one post that she has a diagnosis of DCD. You mention she's been in OT etc - I am wondering if it's possible she might also be dyslexic or have some other type of reading challenge. It sounds like she's not making the progress in reading (or math) that you'd expect based on her ability scores - and I think whether or not you retain her in K or keep her in 1st etc isn't really as much the issue as first understanding why she's not making progress.

If she does have a reading challenge, I wouldn't hold her back because of it - I'd advocate for remediation and accommodations and keep her placed where her intellectual ability is appropriately placed. If it's simply a matter of needing another year to catch up, I'd be ok with retaining her - but from reading previous posts this appears to be an issue that you've pondered for quite awhile and she's not showing signs of making those catch-up jumps on her own yet.

Just my take on it - but before thinking through grade placement, I'd want a closer look at evaluating what's really up with her reading and math achievement and challenges.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Totally agree with polarbear. You don't yet know what is the problem you are trying to fix, so it's impossible to judge whether the solution is a good one. You are still stuck with the same fundamental question: is she not progressing simply because she is young and not ready, or because there is a fundamental processing deficit of some kind getting in the way?

If the former, then time is all she needs, and repeating an easy solution. But you really need to know if time is, in fact, what she needs. If she is instead 2E, no amount of time spent doing "more of the same" is going to help, so repeating would only exacerbate the problem. If 2E, she will need *different* - therapy, remediation, different kinds of instruction and accommodations, whatever her situation calls for.

Your daughter is young enough that diagnosis is trickier, but there are nonetheless clear indications for dyslexia at that age, and an experienced psych can assess them. It also sounds like your DD still has question marks around both auditory and visual processing; you need to find specialists you trust, so you can get diagnosis you have confidence in and follow-through on any needed therapy or accommodations. Both auditory and visual processing can cause major problems with learning, and both have symptoms that overlap with dyslexia. I have lived through untreated disabilities, which just keep building up anxiety and fear in the classroom. The longer they're left, the harder it is to get a child back to the point where they feel safe, trusting and confident, and are willing and able to learn.

A huge thank you to everyone who responded to my post. You are right Expat Mama, I have been back and forth on deciding what is best, and I think I need to get used to the idea that I will not be 100% sure on the best option for DD no matter which grade placement she is in, at least in the shorter term.

You have all made some fantastic points, and gave me a lot to think about.

We did see a new optometrist last week, and there are some convergence issues and some visual processing issues that we are going to address. So hopefully that will help.

We had a meeting with the school today, and I got to see some of her work and hear how her teachers think she is going, and they are happy that she is working at a year 1 level, and her writing is looking fantastic! She is still near the bottom of her class for maths and literacy, but they have good supports in place, and they are happy that she is making good progress. Unlike this time last year, she is not sinking under the work. Her academic self-esteem seems to be increasing too, which was a major concern last year.

We also discussed some possible indicators of ADHD, that we will keep that in the back of our minds and revisit as the year goes on if needed. I was glad the school agreed that their are some indicators of ADHD, because as I mentioned above, I have been watching her and seeing what I was thinking where ADHD like traits, and its nice to have someone else to agree that they are seeing similar challenges.

I do like her school, and they are very available for support and discussions.

So I will try my best to relax, and support her with a few suggestions made by the school, and work on her vision and keep an eye on the attention issue.

I'm glad you've seen an optometrist, because vision issues are one of those things that can hold kids back who'd otherwise accel.

However, if nothing changes quickly with attention to the vision issues, I would consider additional evaluation to make sure nothing else is being missed, and even more so when ADHD gets mentioned. There are other problems that can cause ADHD-like behavior -- the vision issue maybe, stealth dyslexia, or other processing difficulties or learning difficulties.