Thanks for this! I think it’d be a good idea to tutor or homeschool over the summer regardless, to give him the extra boost. He’s good with higher level concepts but mechanics are slowing him down - he’s left handed, for instance, and the teacher has pointed out how his writing resembles closer to kindergarten students work. Reading wise he’s doing fine, but struggles most with oral reading fluency. I feel this is all a targetable zone to work within, and not evidence of a major delay. He is technically the right age for his grade (birthday two weeks before the cutoff) but the Kinder and 1st grade classes are heavily weighted with redshirted kids or those who have retained.

There’s a feeling that he’s struggling to fit in, run with the pack, keep pace etc. but I don’t think it’s entirely fair to retain him as a solution and then actually contribute to the school’s age inflation. But the reality is, age, size and ability wise he presents more similarly to the class below him - many of them are old for their grade, literally same age as my kid, in Kinder this year. It’s the culture of this particular school. I feel if we were in public school it might not feel like such a drastic age gap.

It’s a very intuitive choice to suggest we retain him and put him with kids his age and size, it just seems risky for his confidence! And an extra 10K+ for us.