Hi,
I'm not sure where to post this question. I think it's something that kids (parents?) struggle with all over the board. But my husband and I are at our wits end and don't know what to do. Talking with the teacher has not yielded any effective suggestions. I've read a number of books and also haven't found any golden bullets. I'm hoping to find tried-and-true tips from those who have been there and are doing it.
My 4th grade daughter consistently underperforms in math. If it's just not her thing (she's not inherently interested), I'm okay with it to some extent. She has possible 2e issues (huge discrepancy on WISC-IV, with working memory and processing speed lagging greatly behind verbal), and this may also be a factor. Thru 3rd grade, she began struggling with math, esp with timed tests, esp on assignments with multi-step instructions (she'd neglect to read the directions, for example). Okay, there's the possible 2e talking.
But now it's like she's not even trying, and that I DO have a hard time with. She tells me that she's the smartest in her class in math, but she got a D on her last test. On another assessment, she got a 50%, all due to careless errors (forgetting to write answer down, although could see it in her work in the margin, for example). And this is spreading to non-math assignments too: She says homework is done and seems genuinely surprised when I point out that she didn't do an entire section. Yesterday I asked her to do her Sunday School homework. She sat down for 3 minutes and declared she was done. When I questioned her, she admitted that she "couldn't get" one of the questions. I asked her to try harder, and when she opened her book I saw that she had not one but four questions left incomplete. It only took her a few minutes to truly finish, but I am so disheartened. Now she's lying rather than trying.
We've spoken with her many times about this. Last year we introduced the concept of grades to her, and that was briefly motivating. (Before then, she honestly thought she'd done well on a test where she got 5 out of 20 wrong.) I've shown her repeatedly that she would have gotten an A on this or that assignment (which she really cares about, being somewhat competitive) except for her careless errors. I've explained that she is missing opportunities--to be in the "fun" reading group, to be invited to join the enrichment program she wanted to be in--because she's not demonstrating what she can do. Last year she struggled with feeling stupid and humiliated when she was put in a remedial math group. So I know she cares about showing competency, but I am completely out of ideas on how to get her to actually do it.
Tearing my hair out....
