Do not let them hold him back. Instead, ask for an evaluation. Write to your teacher in an email, and verify what she told you at your meeting, and ask her to confirm, in writing, that you have summed every thing up correctly. Then, tell you that you have been thinking and ask for her to implement in class interventions on all the areas he is having academic difficulty with, and to do so for the minimum number of days/weeks that she must and to send you a written progress report on the success of her inclass intervention, and if your son does not progress, you will request that he be refered to the Intervention Assistance Team for further evalaution for the help that he needs, because holding him back will not be an acceptable option.
If she already claims to have done in class intervention, then you can document that in your email, and go on to request that he be refered now. You want the Occupational therapist to look at him, and you should have his processing skills assessesed, and you need to keep an eye on his handwriting, which is very often the first sign that you will have more issues to come.
Addionally, make an appointment with an occupational therapist privately. You need to have his fine motor, visual motor, and visual processing skills assessed, and see if this is the root of his issue. If there is more that he has difficulty with, like speech, language, attention, or behavior, then also seek out a developmental pediatrician. You should have his vision and hearing screened as well.
Intervention is provided on the basis of grade, not age. If your son needs an intervention, he will be wasting a year by being held back. He should get that intervention now. Kids who don't "get" it the first time, don't get it the second time unless they teach it another way, and that is really not effected by maturity, despite the very popular thought that it does. You actulally stunt him for another year if he has a need if you hold him back, that is why children should always go to school on time.
Log on to www.wrightslaw.com and read about evaluations, identification, interventions, and how to advocate. For a good writing program, check out Handwriting without tears, and if you can get a private OT to do this program with him, he will make progress. You will likely always need outside therapy to supplement any you get from school, the school is only required to make him functional, and you will always want more.
M.
T.,
Please go to the wrightslaw web site. Scroll down the left side of the page and click on retention and read why holding a child back is a very, very, very real disadvantage that is statistically evident in all the relevant data for kids with the kinds of issues your son is begining to experience. You will NOT do him any good by holding him back, you will be getting him the appropriate services that he needs and an extra year to make progress before the golden window of opportunity closes around age 9 for the best, quickest, most substantial reading and writing intervention. Don't lose a year, he can't afford it, the cost to him, and to his future is just way too great. Please read the real facts and know the human cost that other children have paid. There are life long concequences. Send children to school on time, and since he is already there, leave him. Early is always better when it comes to intervention. Always. MR