photospin
In a few weeks, my son will start kindergarten. My husband and I made the decision last spring to have him repeat the class. It’s not a total repeat - he was in an integrated kindergarten class last year and he’ll be in a mainstream classroom this year. His IEP (that’s an education plan for children with special needs) allowed him to be in last year’s class. Long ago, though, I had decided that because of his summer birthday, he was either going to start kindergarten when he was 6 or repeat the class.
I have a number of reasons for doing this - some if directly related to my son, some of it related to words of wisdom gathered from educators. When my son was born, I was an education reporter at this paper and a number of school officials suggested that boys with summer birthdays would benefit from being held back a year or repeating their first year of school. Most of it was related to maturity.
My son was in a special needs preschool in our local district for two years because of a language delay. While I feel he’s made impression progress in that area, the past year he really struggled with reading and his confidence in the classroom dropped the last few months of school. And, he still struggles with receptive communication. Though it was my husband and I who suggested the retention, his teacher was not only welcoming to the idea, but very enthusiastic. During our annual IEP meeting, he confessed, “I wish I had thought if it myself.” He feels our son will see a real boost in confidence with the fact that next year, he’ll be able to catch up on the reading AND perhaps know a bit more than some of the other students.
While I wondered a bit if we’d made the right choice - I don’t want him to be bored - I’m fairly confident in it now. When I’ve talked to him about school next year, he doesn’t seem phased at all about repeating kindergarten. And he’s getting a great teacher and her assistant was his summer camp counselor the past few weeks.
Only time will tell, but I think we did one 100% right.
