DH and I have begun to tutor our niece, 10, who is failing the 4th grade. I'm not sure if she has an LD, if she's ND or GT, so I was wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction to a good resource.

Here is some quick background info on our situation. Any insights would be appreciated.

DN has had a troubled childhood -- broken home, ignorant parents who don't care much, a mean stepmother who has accused DN of molesting her kids (totally unfounded and ridiculous), etc. The poor thing has had a pretty rough time of things in her short 10 years and I'm sure that has had a big impact on her school performance.

She was diagnosed with eye tracking problems last year and went to therapy to have it corrected. I'm not sure if it is completely resolved or if she is supposed to keep up on eye exercises.

According to her school, she is at a 2nd-grade reading level and is failing math. Art, music and gym are good.

We began tutoring her 2 weeks ago, twice a week. Everyone seems to think DN has an LD, but I'm not familiar with LD's to really know. I know she doesn't have ADHD because she can focus on a topic.

DH taught her how to add fractions and do long division, which made her feel really proud (I don't think she gets much encouragement at home). I worked on her spelling, reading and writing. She does read slowly and tries to go too fast, which makes her jumble the worlds up, but overall I didn't feel like she did a bad job. We answered some reading comprehension questions and her recall of the story was great -- she remembered more than me!

Her writing isn't great. She gets confused with B's and D's, and often capitalizes them in her words inappropriately -- I think she does this because then she doesn't have to think if she needs to write a lower case "b" or "d." She knows it's wrong when she looks back at it. I'm trying to think of a way to help her with this.

I don't know if these things sound like an LD or just a lack of confidence. Her eye tracking problems weren't diagnosed until last year, so she has struggled with reading since kindergarten and her parents didn't care enough to help her. (I don't mean to sound so negative about her parents, but if you met these people, you'd understand.) DH and I have finally stepped in to help her. We pick her up from school and have her experience a solid family life here at our home for a few hours... I think it benefits her to sit down to a meal with a family, follow family rules and see how a mom and dad can function together as a team. DH also provides a good male role model for her. DN plays wonderfully with my DD's and is truly a sweet girl.

I pray we can work through this with her. Any advice, insight or resources would be wonderful. Thank you for sticking with me through this long post!