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REDSHIRTING is common (in some areas). RETENTION is not common.

I think this is excellent advice.

Actually, I must take my statement back. Although I doubt the figures are very reliable, it looks like redshirting K and repeating a grade happens at about the same frequency or that retention is more common. I made the error of basing my statement on my own sample. (I know many redshirted kids and only one who was retained--my sample is not all UMC, either. Perhaps it is unpopular in my district or state.)

My own sample is the same as yours. I've known many redshirted kids. But i know my district has a policy against retention as only a last resort for K-8. The district policy to to keep the kids with their peers and test them for LD's, give them extra help. I know because I brought up the issue for my daughter in 2nd grade. She was young for her grade, and has LD's. The only way I could have held her back was move her to a private school. I have never heard of any student who was retained by the school, a few who's parents pulled them out after a month of K and waited till the next year. But I think this depends on the state and the school.

I suspect the teacher is squawking about his reading partially because she has benchmarks she is supposed to make. They look bad if the students don't enter 1st grade reading. We are scrutinizing our teachers more than ever, and teachers are being graded on the success rate of their students.

I know of a school with 2-grade rooms that often retains kids (like, 2% of kids?) for an extra year in K-1, either at the end of K or the end of 1. If retained at the end of K they have the chance to catch up again and move on to 2nd with their original cohort.

This is usually done at the request of parents and teachers together after a truly useless year, when some other issue kept the kid from fully participating and learning. That is, there is reason to expect that this is not an ongoing issue that would affect every year. It's also not done for isolated academic reasons like the OP describes. Sometimes it also comes with a teacher change (the kids normally stay in the same room both years). Sad that useless years happen often enough that I would know about it, but good that they have a matter-of-fact way to deal when it does happen.

I had concerns with behavior and thought he might have had ADD, but it is unlikely per psychologist, who attributes the behaviors we see to age. Also, we expressed this to the teacher, who felt he was normal for his age.

Thank you for the advice. Any thoughts on who would likely be on his "team"? I've only had conferences with the teacher. The educational psychologist was private.

The ed. psych. said his testing did not qualify him for a LD per current criteria, but she also stated testing may need to be repeated if he is still struggling in a year. He is receiving individual attention in class since he started. He has small group with teacher, a "special" computer program a few times per week, and the person helping another child with writing also helps DS with his writing.

The conference where she mentioned retention basically was her saying there was a *chance* he would pass K, then there was discussion of his possibly needing retention, her stating she brings that up in a conference no matter the risk so that parents "are not surprised" if it occurs. She also mentioned that if he catches up by the end of the year, she might still recommend voluntary retention because 1st grade is so writing intensive.

Well, the most recent conference with teacher has revealed that DS is "at level" but his grade is still not satisfactory. His reading has improved but he is not "confident" as a reader yet. She says he will pass K but only because she knows how involved we are in his education. She did not know the results of gifted testing during that conference, and no longer recommends retention.

So, Yeah? Or Boo? I don't know how to feel about this, especially since all DS says about school he usually dislikes (except lunch and recess) because of all the work.

I think the thing that makes this so hard is that it's SO unique to the child and also very changeable. A year ago I would have told you I had one who'd been skipped and desperately needed it, and one who was MG/2E and I'd always regret not holding back (she's so young for grade she could easily have gone either way in our system). Last week at her parent teacher interview I was astounded to hear that her teacher's only problem was how to extend her enough, especially in literacy. This is my child who was nearly held back in yr2 for literacy, who was finally diagnosed as dyslexic in yr 5... During yr 6 we were talking about repeatig yr7 through a school change... Start of yr7 and her teacher's only concern is that he's not extending her enough. In literacy. To say I nearly fell of my chair is an understatement.

PG kids are singularities. But so are the 2e kids, especially the ones where it's so hard to tell for sure if there IS an LD at all... I'm not saying your child has an LD I'm saying some kids are late bloomers and its really hard to tell whiteout the kid right in front of you, and sometimes even then.

My MG child hasn't started looking actually gifted until yr7, yr4-6 we could argue that her catching up instead of falling further behind was a sign of how bright she was. But she was absolutely behind in kindy and yes it seems she really is MG and is finding her feet and showing it at last....

Honestly, it doesn't sound like much fun to me, either. He's five, right? If you and the school keep working with him, and looking for opportunities to make learning fun, I would expect a lot of growth within the next few years (which will like occur in short spurts of big leaps forward).

I would not hold back a gifted child because first grade is writing intensive. This is one issue with schools... I have had several teachers tell me that many young boys just aren't physically comfortable writing in K, 1 or 2. It doesn't mean they should stop learning while their writing catches up. This is one of the things that's great about our son's 2nd grade teacher... she gets that he's not going to love it yet, but works through it.

BTW, our PG son consistently says lunch and recess are his favorite subjects... although recently he's been telling us good things about his accelerated grade math class.

Honestly, is that's really how the teacher is expressing this, I'd be wondering if maybe there's a teacher fit problem. He might be retained because he's at level but not "confident" yet?? That's not a reason to retain a kid. If he needs to be more confident, or if he's not quite at level, he should be getting extra help from reading specialists, aides, or special ed teacher. Retention shouldn't even be part of the discussion until the school has provided extra help in this scenario.

For heaven's sake, I wish I had one of my daughter's second grade spelling bee lists for you. I'm pretty sure "cake" was on there last week. Also "den." The very hardest word on the entire list so far has been "tasteless." And our district is high COL and high achieving; our school's test scores are among the highest in the area.