31 for 21... We held Micah back from Kindergarten

Yes, it's true. We "redshirted" Micah from Kindergarten this year.

First day of school 2013

There were a number of reasons for our decision, some reasons being more important than others. Here's our list:
1. Fine motor skills - Micah's sensory aversions affect him in lots of areas, but none more prevalent than his lack of fine motor skills. We did focus on this area this summer. I hired a PhD student in occupational therapy to work with Micah part-time this summer. He made some great strides. His OT at school sends home some of his work and the staff at school is very impressed with the strides he made. He can now independently write his name. We'll work on other letters during this school year.
2. Feeding skills - I'll do a full post on this in the future. I would like Micah to be able to make it through a full day of school without needing additional water pushed through his feeding tube. He does take all of his nutrition orally now (Pediasure or smoothie at each meal, along with some sort of pureed food).
3. Independent toileting (potty trained this summer, but going back to #1, he still can't pull up his pants, and he's still too small to pee standing up)
4. Size - Still in size 2T pants. You can see in yesterday's photo of all three boys that Micah is now almost a head shorter than Matthew, who is a year younger. I do worry that he will function more like a "class pet" than as a peer.
5. Naps - Micah still sleeps 90 minutes every afternoon. Tennessee does not offer 1/2-day Kindergarten.

Academically, Micah is prepared for Kindergarten. He has known all the shapes, colors, counting beyond 20, uppercase and lowercase letters, phonetics of all letters, etc., for over a year. But his working memory stinks (that's another post for another day).

The biggest downside of holding him back is that now he and Matthew will be in the same grade.

I'll post about his preschool on a future date as well.