Advice please re: holding back

I’d first ask how old your son is in relation to the other children in his grade. And I’d even ask - how tall?

While I agree that holding any child back is not a cure-all by any means, I could see benefit it for a child, ld or not. Your son’s issues will not be solved or certainly fully addressed by being held back but it can sometimes help to close the gap a bit between the other children’s skills and his.

I’d also say this - if one is ever going to hold a child back to possibly gain the edge it might offer, the better times to do it are when a child is young. The younger the better.

If he would go on to 3rd grade where he cannot do the phonics worksheets, what will he do instead?

These are always hard decisions. Good luck with it.

Ann,

This is always a tough decision. As you may know, there is not a lot of support for retention. But in some cases, I do think it is a good idea. And as Sara said, the earlier the better. Dr. Mel Levine said in his new book that he generally does not support retention, but there is some evidence that retention in K or 1st can be helpful. My personal feeling as a teacher is that a child generally should not go to second grade if not at grade level in reading at the end of first. I think first grade is a valuable grade to repeat if there is a strong phonics program in the regular classroom or if the parents are pursuing remediation privately. My own child is repeating first grade this year. She was the youngest child in her class last year and near the bottom in reading skills. I knew it would benefit her from repeating the Saxon phonics done in the regular class. She fits in size-wise and socially with the new class. She is not the oldest in the new class either.

If a child is moved on up when he is not ready, then it invariably results in the child spending more time in special ed. where they often end up even further behind. I think by the end of second grade if a child is still behind, parents need to get an outside evaluation and find some supplemental help outside of school. I would not wait a minute longer thinking the school will get the child where he needs to be. I am not very familiar with NVLD, so I cannot really give any specific suggestions.

Janis

Another thing to consider is how old will he be when he is a high school student? We have a lot of students who drop out when they are 18 and can make those decisions under the guidelines of the law. Being a 17 year old freshman is a problem. But having academic struggles is also a problem. Sorry, no solution but something else to consider.

Thanks for your input. When you talk about outside remediation, can you explain what you mean. I have my son in tutoring after school, but I also feel that certain extra curricular activities are important for his social development. By the time he gets out of school and finishes homework each night, there it little time left (and understandably little interest on his part) to do anything else. Is it possible to work on remediation during school hours with special programs like Audioblox or Reading Reflex? He just isn’t getting the Saxon phonics. I would like to add something like that to his IEP. I give you credit for making the tough decision to hold your daughter back.

Ann,

This is an interesting coincidence, but my daughter has Saxon phonics, too. The second year of 1st grade Saxon has been good for her as she just was not ready to absorb it all the first time. I think Saxon is very good, but unfortunately the first grade pace is too fast for some kids to absorb it all. I’m willing to bet your son did not master the first grade Saxon, so I do not think that repeating second will be the answer. It would buy you more time for him to “catch up”, that’s all.

Another coincidence, I am now working with a second grade boy who is labelled LD in reading because he has a deficit in decoding. His school also uses a good phonics program, but he just didn’t master it. I am trying PG with him twice a week during the school day. I completely agree that kids should have fun and other activities after school. If you can get someone at the school to do Phono-Graphix, Lindamood-bell, etc. with him, great. They are tired at night and it is hard enough to get the homework done, much less tutoring. But I would suggest a heavy duty plan to remediate over the summer whether you retain or not. This deficit will not just go away. Saxon is good, so this is not a case of poor whole-lanaguge instruction. He will need a fairly intensive remediation plan very soon so he doesn’t fall further behind. By the way, in the above case, that boy’s parents insisted at the IEP meeting that he be taught with a research based program to remediate reading. Here’s a good article for you to take to your meeting:

http://www.schwablearning.org/Articles.asp?r=318&g=2&d=5

Janis

Holding back seems to go in trends. I asked after first grade about holding back my LD son. He could not read. They said no. I think the logic is that LD children will never be like other kids. The problem is that you are fighting two fronts—trying to fill in the missing information/skills and keeping them up. In my state now, they are going to retaining LD children.

My son is now in fourth grade. We have worked really hard with him. He has both language based deficits and right brain deficits, although he has never been diagnosed NVLD. He is in about the 30% in class which is a long ways from his first grade teacher’s comment that “he has a hard time learning and what he does learn, he can’t generalize”. Despite these tremendous progress, I still wish he had been held back. In fact, we are considering switching schools, and having him repeat 4th grade. I am mostly concerned about middle school at this point (starts at 6th here). I was told by a friend who is a special ed teacher to not send him to middle school if he isn’t ready. She said it would be the beginning of a long slide down.

My son is also immature developmentally. He is tall and looks his age but emotionally he is more like a third grader than a fourth grader. I don’t think this is unusual for LD children either.

Your child, like mine, has a double whammy. Most NVLD kids are great at decoding. My own opinion is the schools can not do enough for a kid like this and we have done a lot of private therapy as well as some tutoring. I also work with him myself. He has given up some of his free time and some of his childhood because of it but I feel like it is the only choice. The statistics for LD children are frightening.

Bottom line, I would consider holding him back but only if you use that time to address his underlying deficits. Time alone will do nothing for a child like ours.

Beth

Thanks for everyone’s comments. It is not an easy decision. I just found out today that his SpEd teacher is not returning to the school next year. So much for relying on continuity. I ordered Audiblox today and may try another reading program over the summer. We will see how it goes. I agree with Beth that it can’t be left up to the school district to do the job alone. Best wishes to those of you that are in the same situtation.

Ann,

You are making the right decision. I have been able to catch my son up in all things except writing which we will conquer (hopefully) this summer.

I love audiblox. We still do aspects of it but I can’t do the whole program because of vision therapy. We will do it this summer intensively. It really helped my son gain the math facts which he had trouble with in the past.

What about having a scond opinion eval.(cognitive and achievement) before making the decision; if his FS IQ is in the 80’s(low-average), he’ll never look like he’s totally up with the class and it will take him longer to master things at each grade level, and you can’t retain again. Kids with a language-based LD generally have a lower V than P score and have pronounced areas of strength and weakness on testing…insist on formal achievement testing before retaining.

Have you thought about getting an Occupational Therapy evaluation either within the school or private. I am an Early Childhood Special Education Teacher and have seen some benefits from this type of therapy. It is worth a shot.

Most research says don’t hold him back. You should have the school re-examine his IEP and get him in remedial reading with a specialist (Orton Gillingham is one of the best programs). If he is really struggling with sounds, the Lindamood Bell program gets results, but it is very involved ($$) and takes many intensive sessions. Personally, I found it very helpful to get kids off to a start, but not as useful later on. They can “graduate” to Orton. Just don’t let anyone tell you to wait and see. Get him specific help.
Good luck.