We need good screening programs to find kids who might need intervention. The study stressed the importance of keeping children with their age group instead of retention or redshirting. Methods such as targeted intervention to carefully look at children's needs or supplementary programs provide fewer traumas in the child's life, compared to being held from progressing with his peers, Graue said. It's less likely to have negative effects on them later. Redshirting and retention may have adverse effects on children as they see their friends going forward while they have to stay back.
Many children are in preschool, and they see their friends go to kindergarten while they stay.
Kids internalize these things. Redshirting is done by parental request. However, the same does not necessarily apply with retention. In the Deerfield School District, where less than one child is retained each year in the elementary school, Hibner said parents get concerned if their child does not perform at the level of their peers. But the child can only be retained with parental consent.