I am trying to figure out how to help my child (who I will call C, not their real initial) who is in 7th grade. C is in gifted classes and generally doing well, except in math. C struggles with math a lot, particularly on tests, for reasons I don't quite understand. We have worked a lot with C and gotten C extra help, but C continues to dislike math, do poorly on math tests, and feel a lot of anxiety around math.

C was given the WISC as well as some other tests in early 2020, and C's results showed some odd discrepancies. (I want to note here that I saw there was a recent moderator post about test results and privacy. I am also concerned about my child's privacy and am doing everything possible to obscure any identifying information; I have also removed anything identifying from past posts. I will remove specific scores later.) Here are C's subscores and percentiles:

[edited out for privacy]

C's main manifestation of giftedness has been in early reading/verbal skills. C has never shown much interest in math despite many attempts to engage C in math. C also has difficulty paying attention in math class. However, C is solid on math facts (learned them early) and has had excellent math teachers. C's mistakes on math tests are quite quirky, a mix of misreading instructions, failure to recall formulas, a general lack of number sense (cannot pick out an obviously wrong answer), and similar issues. C's self-perception is that C is bad at math and does not enjoy it.

We are not trying to get C into MIT or anything, but we would like C to be less miserable in math and are not sure how to help. As shown by C's scores, C has clear visual-spatial weaknesses. In particular, the discrepancy between digit and picture span seems astonishingly high. We would appreciate any suggestions for what to do next, whether it is consulting someone else (the specialist who administered the WISC didn't turn to be particularly helpful), considering a specific issue/diagnosis, or helping C learn particular techniques that might suit C's strengths and weaknesses.

Last edited by finca; 06/03/21 05:22 PM.