Hi,
I just found this forum.. My 8 yr. old (2nd grade) daughter is ADHD/LD with self-esteem issues. Long story short, reading is a year behind with a lot of progress in the past year, fluency is very very slow and expect that to remain slower than norm for some time, math is currently on grade level, and she is very hard/negative on herself mainly related to the reading disorder - she does have an IEP, gets resource support, and is on grade level in math.
We are looking into a private school that has works with moderate/mild LD kids, mainly because of the self-esteem concerns - thinking the very small class size, more supporting environment would be good for her. They want to start her in 2nd grade.
Anyone have experience with holding back a year to give a child more time to work on a basic skill area that the child has a diagnosed LD in? Does this approach work?
Thanks,
Kim
Re: repeating a grade
You should check out the research on retention. In the long run, it is not an effective intervention. I would caution you strongly against the use of retention, especially thinking the child would “catch up.” There is some good information on the National Association of School Psychologists regarding retention.
Re: repeating a grade
Giving an LD time by itself does not work. But time combined with effective intervention can work. The problem is that if a child gets behind he or she has to keep up and catch up.
We are holding back our fourth grader this year. He is switching to a parochial school from the public school. He ended first grade without reading and we have played catch up ever since. The asst. principal of the school had her own daughter repeat a grade switching from public to parochial school many years ago because she wasn’t reading on grade level. She is now completing a master with honors.
Still, I am a bit surprised that school specializing in LD would want her to repeat a grade. In such an environment, you would think all the children would be behind so that it would not be an issue.
Beth
Re: repeating a grade
I agree with a previous response in this forum “that repeating a grade does not work for ld kids.” Repeating a grade is “retention.” Our experience was repeating a grade made it advantageous for the school to cut or eliminate services to our daughter because her weak areas were no longer “glaring” and testing revealed a slighter gap because of retention. The school would not look at age norms stating that she wasn’t exposed to materials based on her grade level (after retention). Initially we were not aware of a her dyslexia and thought that readiness (before grade one) would allow her to make better choices being older in high school and would allow us an extra year to save for her college. Now that our daughter is an11-year-old grader she has developed sooner than her classmates and children in her grade are immature in comparison to her. I would strongly caution retention with learning disabled students.
There are a lot of factors in this decision. I know in public ed there is a form that has to be filled out by educators who help this child when a parent request this type of action. Some of the questions are: Do they have siblings and what grade are they in? Is your daughter younger or older than her current class? Do they receive special ed services? I would consider talking with your current school’s counselor. She/he would have that information. There are questions that I as a parent would not think about if I hadn’t seen this test. For example, how old will your child then be when she graduates? I personally, don’t want my sons to be eighteen in eleventh grade when I was previously was having a hard time getting them to go to school. But, all in all it comes down to your decision. Talk to the people who currently work with your daughter.
Good luck!