Hi, My son struggled with Prep in Qld and Now is falling massively behind in Grade 1, He has only gone up one reading level this year. I have brought up the subject of having him repeat grade 1 as he is so far behind the other students both academically and socially, he has no close friendships with any of the other students but the school wont consider it. Is it wrong of me to want him to try and catchup in the earlier years then have him struggle throughout his schooling, I watched my brother struggle with schooling as he has dyslexia and he ended up hating school by grade 7, dropped out grade 9. We are in the process of seeing a Pediatrician to get him assessed to find out if there is any underlying issues, If we do decide to keep him down we have decided a new school and fresh start all around for him. Is there any mums out there who have been through this and can tell me there experiences from it all.
3 Replies
Definitely repeat sooner rather than later, it is so much easier for the child and in my daughters case she repeated prep there was just something that wasn't clicking with her reading and sight words another year to go over everything again and it is unbelievable the boost it has given her even with her confidence and self esteem because she CAN do it, if you have a gut feeling do it for your child's sake! All our children learn at different rates some just need that little bit extra which is ok but it isn't fair on them to always feel like they are struggling and can't do the work that will lead to a lot of emotional self esteem issues later in life good luck
My son now grade 6 has struggled both socially and with some subjects at school. My biggest regret is not keeping him back earlier than now. He has every test under the sun, discovering they couldn't iq test him as he is very good in some areas and below in others.they just want to label your child with some condition as an excuse. My concern now is the social and maturity for him to cope with high school.i am currently trying to persuade the school to have him repeat grade six, even though he will be in the same year as his younger sister. I have tried different schools, public to private etc in the past and this made no difference. Although the school he is in now has much more helpful teachers but you pay for what you get sometimes.
Therefore yes definitely keep him back now while you can whether in another school or not. Get outside help a tutor or even a friend to help with school work and my mistake was possibly not having my son involved in more group sport to help him socially.
Best wishes, chin up, at least we care and want to give our kids the best opportunity.
Cheers K
Thank you, We have spoken to the new school as we definitely feel moving him will be the best option for now. They are going to assess him in grade 2 and if he still struggles he will be kept back then. But the new school has only 2 classes in his grade with no more then 20 students in each class, and a total of 280 students throughout the school. they have loads more programs to help him one on one to. he does sports atm, football and oztag in the off season, which has kinda helped but because he is so flitty the kids got cranky at him very quickly, looking into a karate class to get him some self discipline