Zachary and School

We had the meeting today with the people from Zacharys school. Mike and I have really had a hard time deciding if Zachary should be held back or not. Most of the papers he brings home are S (satisfactory) or S- (below satisfactory). Rarely does he bring home a N (needs improvement). We know he is behind on his reading, but we have him in tutoring 2 hours a week and that has really helped him. Do you hold a child back because he is slightly behind? Or do you work extra with him and bring him up to speed? We walked into the office and not only was his teacher there, but so was his speech therapist, his guidance counselor, the school psychologist, and a resource specialist(?). We immediately felt like we were being ganged up on. However we got a pleasant surprise. We got a bunch of paperwork handed to us. Listed was every type of speech, language, comprehension, hearing, vision, vocabulary and etc testing that they had done on him. We definitely know where and why he is having such difficulty. It all relates to his speech and language. His Non Verbal IQ is 139. (90-109 avg 110-119 high avg 120-129 Superior 130+ Very superior.) His Verbal was 120. Obviously we are talking about a very bright child. So whats the problem?? Its his comprehension of Language. He says things like "that ball is more big than the other ball." Rather than say BIGGER. He doesn't say past tense words he uses present tense. "I sleep all night last night." Rather than SLEPT. He has difficulty retelling storys that he just read. In his writing he writes short simple sentences with spelling matching his speech difficulties. He has trouble articulating which is impeding his reading and writing success. All of these are fixable! Starting tomorrow he is attending a Language class for 2 days a week for an hour each day. There will only be one other girl in there. He will need to be in there next year as well. So that means they are not yet willing to assume he will need to repeat! Nothing of course is certain yet, but his teacher said several times that Zachary has really improved these last 4 weeks that he has been in tutoring. It seems now that he is reading a little better, he is more interested in reading. So I have some ideas to help him here at home. All is not lost! We are not giving in yet!