Darren's parent-teacher conference

As promised (but a little late) I am going to start talking about the parent teacher conferences I had nine days ago.

I have been having some serious second thoughts about sending Darren and after speaking with the teacher, I really wish I did not send him.  She said that he is acting like a normal 5 1/2 year old, but with kids six months to over a year older than him, he does not have the maturity level as most of his classmates. 

He still flips his numbers and some letters and I am being told not to worry about it as that is common.  I am not taking that statement at face value because I let them tell me that with Nathan and we are having all kinds of problems with Nathan and reading.  Nathan will still flip his numbers sometimes.

I asked if she had noticed that he had a speech problem.  She said that she did not want to say anything in case it did not result in anything, but she was having him tested that very next day.  In Darren's school paperwork last night, there was an envelope addressed the parents of Darren.  The note inside basically said that he did not test well and would like to have speech intervention performed at school and we had to sign a permission slip.

She also asked if I minded that she had sent him down to Mrs. W.  Darren's teacher said that she had a few open spots and stuck him in it because he is having trouble with the phonics of letters.  When doing his popcorn flash cards and came across a word he did not know, I would tell him to sound it out.  Suddenly the word 'have' became 'like'.  I told him that was incorrect and what sound does 'H' make?  He couldn't answer me.

With everything that he is struggling with already, I am seriously thinking about holding him back next year.  There is so much pressure to achieve at that young age already.  It was explained to me at Nathan's conference that if he (or any kid) is tested for a learning disability that chances are it would not show up when compared to the national average.  But because the standards are so much higher at our school, he struggles compared to his classmates, when he is right on target with the national average.