LiveOnAPlane, I must be your evil twin (or vice versa) as I was about to type almost verbatim what you did based on my past life as a computer programming instructor.
Part of the problem is the word “fail” carries such a stigma when uttered at a school - esp. elementary school. I was an instructor in an adult education setting, so failure also meant coughing up the dough to repeat the course.
But it’s a shame early grades do not institutionally recognize that the people learn at different rates. Repeating a grade could be such a wonderful experience:
[ul]
[li]The repeat exposure to the material that this time has a ring of familiarity to it, [/li][li]The act of helping his new cohorts reinforces things as no instruction ever can (I learned way more myself as an instructor than as a student)[/li][li] The confidence gained by being regarded as experienced and ahead of the game.[/li][/ul]
…all of this can ground the fundamentals way better than forcing him to struggle through the next grade, always behind, always striving to catch up.
So why is this not done more often? Why are kids not held back? Well, because then we’d be labelling them as a ba ba bummmm “FAILURE” Shame on us for allowing that perfectly good word to be tainted with stigma.
At work I fail ten times a day - fix what didn’t work, then proceed on to ten successes a day. (ten = conservative estimate).