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You are here: Experts > Education > Elementary Educators: Canada > Behavior & Learning in School > retention
Expert: Lynn McDermott
Date: 5/16/2008
Subject: retention
Question
My Son is in 1st grade. He has been struggling all year academically. He is making improvements, in fact he has been getting 100's on all his spelling test and is improving in reading, although he is not a well a reader as his classmates I've noticed. He was a late talker and has been receiving speech therapy since he was 2years old. In 1st grade he was receiving speech 2 x a week for 20 minutes and reading recovery twice a week. He has not successfully passed reading recovery but is at his "capacity" they explain to me for this year. His birthday is in June he will 7. We have been discussing this all year with his teacher, she feels retention would be benefical due to "immaturity". She feel his is at his limit and another year of 1st grade will do him good. Now on the other hand, our superintendent has advised her he fronds upon retention, and there are many studies that say it doesn't help. He has been tested for any learning disabilities and none were found. They say it may be too early to tell though. We are torn on what to do. We feel that if we retain him now while he is young he may not notice as much but if we wait I don't want to damage his self esteem. On the other hand will retention do anything or will he still be struggling in 2nd grade and every grade after. We plan to have a tutor during the summer. Please let us know your thoughts. thank you torn.
Answer
I'm sure that you are quite torn when having to make such a decision!
If your child is receiving speech therapy, I would certainly ask if his language problems are interfering with his reading difficulty. Please understand that "speech therapy" isn't necessarily just for speaking. Language problems can stem deeper than that. I think you need to discuss this with your son's speech teacher.
However, back to the question! Research does show that retention is NOT the answer. While, yes, there may be "readiness and developmental" issues at hand, another year in first grade is not going to help. Your son has had intervention and is STILL not up to par so more intervention is needed...not another year of cirriculum.
If the speech problems are hindering his progress, retention isn't going to help either.
You mentioned that there are no learning disabilities. However, speech problems are generally considered "language impaired" which IS a learning disability. Please request a meeting before the end of the year with the speech person, the reading recovery person, the classroom teacher, the principal and the school psychologist. You need to find out what is hindering your son's progress. Immaturity is not grounds for retention. Your son will do much growing up during the summer months. Be sure you get an appropriate tutor who will work with your son on his reading needs. Be sure the tutor is a literacy specialist. I don't know your son's needs but I am assuming he has decoding and sight word recognition problems. Does he know his sounds? Does he know the vowel sounds and the magic e rule? Does he know ee, ow, ight? You need someone to directly work on what your son doesn't know. He needs to learn strategies to help him to become a good reader.
I am hoping that you continue to read to him as well. Children love to be read to and there is no better model than mom and/or dad. Ask the teacher for a booklist of good picture books for you to read to your son. Most first graders like Clifford the Big Red Dog series. You will find those in any bookstore or library.
I wish your son much success and I hope you find the answers that you seek.
Lynn McDermott
Reading Specialist
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