Should I Hold One Twin Back a Grade

I have the exact situation. Same age, same circumstances. One response questioned the reason to mention sports. When faced with this dilemma, it is extremely difficult to understand when you haven’t lived it. In my case Boy A is good at everything, and B struggles just with the day to day. When it comes to holding B back, I have talked to many teachers about the pros and cons. As one poster commented her twin eventually caught on without being held back. I know my B will never be at the same social level as A, but I trust the opinions of those with many years experience. I feel B will struggle more in school explaining why his twin is a year ahead of him than if I just give him the time to catch up. This is the decision I am making, but you are their mom and you know better than most. We all need help though. I hope it helps to know you are not alone in this.

We had the exact same situation with our twins. One did everything fine and the other was issues with both reading and writing. After much talking we decided to let them both go forward to the next grade and worked with one twin on reading and writing more at home.

Hubby and I figured that holding him back may or may not improve this reading and writing and we didn't want to end the following year in the same boat. Remember school is only one method of teaching where parents are the first teachers in our children's lives.

What I ended up doing was starting over with reading by going back to preschool books and working my way through easy readers until he got confident enough in his reading to move forward into more grade level things. We told him that we had not taken the time to teach him reading well so that's why we were starting over. He was fine with it and picked up the skills to be able to read well..

Regardless of the fact that you have twins, I would be somewhat hesitant to have a child repeat a year for academic reasons. (Social and maturity reasons, absolutely!) It could be the best thing for him, but first I would want to find out if there are things the school can do to supplement his education.

Our school has a resource room and will pull kids out for extra help with reading, writing, math, etc. Is this something the school has done for your son? My son was pulled out for speech, and that made a HUGE difference. My nephew was pulled out for reading and math, and over time he was able to catch up with his classmates and is now doing great!

Has your son ever been tested for learning disabilities? That might be something else to consider. There are many, many things schools can do to help with learning challenges.

It is always a possibility that your son could benefit from repeating a grade, but I would want to have a meeting with the teacher and the principal to make sure that other options are being explored. I'm sure it's impossible not to consider the fact that your son is a twin, but ultimately, you really have to do what's best for the son who is struggling.

Is it just reading he is behind in? Have you had his vision checked? My youngest was behind in reading because we did not discover that he needed reading glasses until the end of 1st grade. The school put him in extra reading support and, while it took a couple of years, by end of 4th he was reading on level.

I'm not sure what A's "love of sports" has to do with anything but apparently you think it is important enough to mention - are you suggesting that a love of sports is a sign of maturity in boys?!

You mention that B had been recommended to repeat his grade every year. What is different about this year that has made you actually consider it? If advancing him has been okay so far except for reading struggles, could you just get him extra help for reading?

In my area, teachers who work as reading resource help during the school year off and provide tutoring services during the summer. A quality tutor over the summer could easily have your child caught up and ready to go by the start of the school year. Try to find someone who is a reading specialist. Ask the schools for guidance and if they can’t help you try the library.

I've read what the other moms have written and think their advice is spot on.

I too would be hesitant to have the twin repeat the year. I think that works if the child has emotional/social reasons to do so and everyone feels it would be in his/her best interests.

We have had experience with mixed aged classrooms - and have found that kids can regress in some areas if not challenged enough (it depends on the teacher and child's experience). So your son might regress if he's only struggling with reading. So I don't know if this would be the right thing for him.

Personally, I would suggest looking at tutoring him in reading and getting him extra resources for that at the school. Do they offer this? Also, as others suggested, has testing been looked into? There could be a very logical explanation for this. You don't want to overlook possibilities. Perhaps you already have and just haven't mentioned it here.

As a mom with kids who have different personalities altogether - I think I get what you mean by one is more outgoing and is the other a bit more introverted? (does he enjoy doing things on his own?)

That can make it seem like one is struggling at a young age, when really they are not. I went through this with one of mine. It's just their personality. I might be reading that wrong. If he appears more shy, or quiet, or imaginative rather than outgoing - he may seem less socially mature. That's not necessarily the case is what I'm trying to say.

Could you work on his reading over the summer and see how he does? I also would wonder how it would affect him, psychologically, to repeat a year while his brother moves on. It might be worth talking to a school psychologist to get their perspective. Tough decision.

the reasons to redshirt a kid are so various and handwringing it's a very tough question to answer.

it's telling on the one hand that B has ALWAYS had the recommendation to repeat. i'm curious as to why you haven't thus far, but are considering it this time.

it sounds as if B has both academic and emotional difficulties. so perhaps a repeat would help him. on the other hand, it traumatizes some kids for the perceived stigma. only you really know whether it would be a relief for him to have less pressure to perform, or up his anxiety level.

ultimately you have to make the decision based on your individual sons' needs. i'm glad you don't seem to be one of the 'one twin has to do what the other twin does' mothers, but it bears emphasizing.
khairete
S.

This is so so tough! I just happened to be on here and read this question. Maybe my experience will help you. I have boy girl twins now 14 years old. My son struggled a lot in elementary. With class work, and socially. He was always just slower to learn and understand plus make friends. We got him help in speech and math. I was never told to hold him back so not exact situation but he did struggle. Once he hit 7th grade things just started picking up for him academically. He just started getting things more like he should. And that has continued til now. It was like he was just not ready all during his earlier years. Now he is still much less mature socially. Still is awkward and hard time making friends. But academically is doing fine. I’m glad I got him that help in the early years but I wish I hadn’t stressed so much about him. He is who he is. He just took longer to start catching on to stuff.

I know holding a twin back would be so hard and I would only do it if it’s the only option. Definitely get him lots of extra help this summer and see if that helps. By the beginning of the school year decide. Good luck. I hope he catches up enough to continue with his brother. And that the same thing happens to him— he just starts to get it.

There have been several points mentioned by others I would agree on; extra help, vision test etc.

I have an older stepson who was a poor reader when he was younger; he came to live with me when he was in the 4th grade. We went to a class for children who were poor readers. The instructor met with each family to see what the child liked. Our son loved comic books, so her suggestion was get the Sunday comics every week and read that with him. We did that for several months and he became a much better reader, finished his grade and moved on to the next grade every year finishing high school on time.

Take him into a book store, follow him around in the childrens department to see what might interest him. Could be kid magazines, comics, hard back short story books he may enjoy reading and read with him. If he is slow to pick up words, make your own flash cards.

One thing I did with one of our daughters was, riding around town, we would find a store, a cleaners, etc and each time we would pass there or a similar place, we spell the name of the establishment. Example: We would drive by a dry cleaner and we would say 'cleaner' then spell it out, 'c-l-e-a-n-e-r' and repeat the word 'cleaner'. 'Sears'; pronounce Sears, spell it out and pronounce. She was 4-years old when we did this. Sometimes she would see a place before I would and yell out the word, spell it and repeat. It was fun. :)

I am the mother of triplets. I can relate to your concern but I feel very strongly that each child is an individual and must be treated accordingly. As the mother it is your responsibility to make decisions beaded on what is best for each individual child. The fact that they are twins isn’t a reason not to make decisions for each child according to their individual needs, taking their strengths and weaknesses into consideration. If your twin was very good in math and it was recommended that he take advanced math would you hold him back because his twin was just an average math student??

summer school and a tutor before you separate the twins based on grades. ya never know, the extra tutoring and schooling over the summer might bring him up to where he needs to be without holding him back

I have triplets, just finished first year college. They have different personalities. One of them was my social butterfly. But she had trouble with reading until 4th grade. She was about 1/2 to a full year behind. Unfortunately, the first school she went to pretty much decided she was a trouble maker. Yes, vision testing and testing for any kind of learning issues helps a lot. One thing I saw before anyone else is that she is a visual learner. I started to connect the dots with misbehavior or not doing what she was told. One thing that helped her was breaking things down. She needs to be able to see what she is learning, not just read about it. She still does. When we would read, we would take small parts and talk about each piece. In school, you read a book and take a test on the whole thing.

As she grew up, she would chart things out. She is now a list maker so she can see what she needs to do and she takes notes. She made the dean's list this year.

Baby B has had help since Kindergarten with reading, writing and speech. He tested out of the speech so now he just gets extra help with reading and writing. He will be staring on a 504 plan next school year which will help some but will not close a whole years worth of learning. 2nd grade is different from the other years for the fact that 3rd grade is supposedly so much harder and the teachers are scared he is going to get even further behind. His reading, writing and spelling is the problem. I know deep down that I should hold him back due to him being so far behind. I’m just worried kids are going to pick on him and make fun of him if I do hold him back. He ask doesn’t make friends as easy as Baby A.