I found this podcast from this 
post:
I subbed today for a 7th and 8th grade teacher. I’m not exaggerating when I say at least 50% of the students were at a 2nd grade reading level. The students were to spend the class time filling out an “all about me” worksheet, what’s your name, favorite color, favorite food etc. I was asked 20 times today “what is this word?”. Movie. Excited. Trait. “How do I spell race car driver?”
I've only listened to one episode so far, but it's really well produced, seems well-researched and very well put together.
From what I gather so far, the ways that the American public school system "teaches" kids how to read is not only completely wrong, but actually saddles them bad habits which fundamentally hinder their reading comprehension.
A huge swath of American adults are functionally illiterate, and I think I'm starting to understand why.
And schools should always pass kids. The body of literature, theory and experiments in that regard for teaching education in Europe is quite extensive. If your society is structured around passing grades then the way to built up on the ability of students isn't to force them for years in the same rooms, but to change what they experience, keep up the social links and give specific support.
Besides that even if a school isn't able to give specific support it is better for kids to not be put in repeating classes.
What you write is true though, having cultural attitudes at home that do sometimes center books are great. They ought to be somewhat supplemented even for kids that are praised as being smart with other things, that are beneficial for social and physical aspects. If your kid likes a certain series, try to enable the kid to visit a fan conference about it or alike.
Just like in Le Guin's Earth Sea, one of the most important lessons for the young magician's apprentice wasn't to control magic. It was to chill under trees and find calm as well as connection in nature.
A special ed teacher who had been working for decades and who knew many students who had been held back told me the same. Even as adults these students would tell him that things had been going okay until they had been held back. One administration hinted at doing the same to one of our kids because he didn’t speak English at an academic level, but we worked our asses off to bring him up to speed in a matter of months, and the same special ed teacher told us that parents don’t actually need to hold their kids back if they don’t want to (something the principal failed to mention). Soon enough our kid was reading, writing, and speaking at his grade level (which he’d already been doing in his mother tongue) and the principal acted like she had never even suggested that she wanted to hold him back. And shit like this could have ruined his life! School is already difficult enough without every figure of authority telling you you’re too much of a fuckup to advance with your friends to the next grade!
I'm absolutely not familiar with the literature you're talking about here, but I have failed a lot of classes in my time, probably even a majority of them a couple years (7th and 8th grades) and I know that I would have been miserable (or more miserable I guess lol) if I'd been made to repeat things for that.
I did actually once have my French teacher try and make me start over from the beginning with French the next year instead of advancing to the next level, but I ended up unexpectedly moving to Québec the following year instead where my French was good enough within the year to join in the regular French first language classes so lmao