Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments 9 year old failing 4th grade not sure what to do.

Ds is in a gifted 4th grade class. He is currently failing in math and language arts while excelling in social studies and science. He hates math because they are doing common core multiplication and division. If he doesn't show his work its marked wrong even if he got the answer right but if he shows his work he takes too long and either doesn't finish or he becomes late on other homework. The teacher doesn't have time to watch him or help as its a large class so she sends him into the hallway where he refuses to do anything. At home he is having anxiety attacks over this and although I got him signed up with khan academy he is now determined never to do math again so its become a full out battle. If he thinks he did well on a test we find out later he failed and he gets discouraged. How can a child be at 100% for science and history yet 49% at math? Math has always been his strong suit until this year. We have tried to set up appointments and meetings with the physciatrist and occupational therapist but they are "too busy". I'm about to lose my shit and go crazy on these people. I really don't want to pull my kids from this school as both are adapting socially very well...and that's a first for my dd. What would you do?

I've been there. 6th grade my DS totally melted down. His problem wasn't math but anything involving writing, or group projects and he had a lot in his gifted class. He was also very slow to get him homework done. He had full on anxiety attacks in class, and at home when it was homework time.

What did I do? I found him a psychologist outside of school, he saw the school social worker. We decided that as he was already well above grade level, we would work on his anxiety rather than information content for most of the rest of the school year. Part of the problem was a bad teacher fit. As this only started in Feb. of his 6th grade year (last in that school) we talked about how junior high would be different.

Things improved in junior high and then took a turn for the worse again last year as a H.S. freshman. Last summer I finally got him a full neropscyc evaluation, and I'm glad I did. I understand a bit better what is going on. Wish I'd done it earlier. One issue is that although my son is gifted he has low processing & working speed. Therefore although he understands how to do a high level of material he has never been fast about it.

Is this a public school? If so I would demand a student study team (SST) meeting to discuss these issues and see how you are going to proceed. It seems as if your DS's teacher is really not trying to figure out what is going on.

Yes its public education at its finest. My husband and I have been trying to work with the school but they don't return calks or pass it off to someone else. His teacher says he doesn't know it so he will keep doing it over and over until she believes he has mastered it.I'm about ready to give up like him but won't. I refuse to make him do hours of homework every night as I believe he still needs to be a kid and outside playing and being active.

The school is currently "evaluating him" but I was told it would be weeks. I'm trying to find a psychologist or therapist for him but the soonest is late December and the school counselor told us she doesn't work with gifted kids so they have a specialist who rotates schools every three months. In the meantime I feel like I'm failing him.

Yikes what state are you in? Despite all my complaints about my local district, when we had both problems and I complained I had a SST within weeks. Both in 6th grade and high school.

If your son is failing in both math & LA then something needs to be done sooner than later. Can you get the phone number of the gifted specialist and give them a call?? Perhaps they will see him sooner if they knew. Is there someone at the district you can CALL?

I also wanted to ask what the curriculum/books are being used for math. Some of the new "common core" text books are simply awful.

The procedure we had to do was first have a SST (Student Study Team) a meeting with the teacher, principal, school psychologist, social worker, or whoever else seems appropriate. At that meeting suggestions were made and a second meeting was set 8 weeks later. Only after this happened would the school consider testing and a 504.

Good Luck.

Well he was able to get his grades up in language arts so he's at a 78% now after the big test they had on Friday but math is still an issue. IRS double digitmultiplication and division. II'm still trying to get him used to graph paper to show his work. He is now officially excelling at science and wrote some big report about utilizing magnets as a means for free electricity that would also help with the greenhouse effect. So I have a child who can excel when challenged and able to go at his pace but then fails something similar when he has to show his work or is timed. I don't get it. But I also received an email from the teacher about ten minutes ago that they are in the very beginning of the rti process. I didn't fill out any work but I did let all of them know he needs to be evaluated for dysgraphia.

Oh...and we are in Arizona.

In the OP you asked WWYD so here's my 2 cents. I also have a kid that can also be 100% in one thing and fail another. In our case he is 2e and it often boils down to teachers and their skill/experience/personality fit and if they accommodate or evaluate using alternative methods. In our case teachers that expect him to produce everything on paper and refuse to bend generally don't get great results.

1. take a deep, deep breath

2. repeat #1 You are running a marathon and not a sprint so don't beat yourself up for not having an instant fix. Many kids go through years of school without being diagnosed so pat yourself on the back for going through all of this in elementary.

3. you know there is *something* up. Testing will hopefully help sort that out so getting testing is a great start. It sounds like the school is doing that but as mentioned there might be ways to go up the ladder and get things moving a little quicker. It also sounds like you've looked into private so hopefully something can be figured out sooner than later.

4. anxiety - In our case DS was VERY frustrated and angry with school. He was 6.5 and viewed himself as a smart kid. When all of the other kids in the class were easily writing up a storm and he wasn't the only logical solution was that he was stupid (his words). After we went through testing we talked about how everyone is good at some things and that other things can be a challenge. Just because something is hard doesn't mean you are stupid. We reassured him that he was indeed very smart but that writing was harder for him than for most kids and that was ok. We were able to scribe his homework to ease the frustration. At school they occasionally scribe as well.

If I had a kid that was suffering from anxiety I might consider a version of the above discussion that fits his strengths and challenges. Knowing that he does indeed belong in the gifted class might ease some of his fears. Knowing that you (and the school/teachers) want to help make writing (or whatever his challenge is) easier might help.

5. If the school is willing to put some accommodations in place while waiting for testing that might also be something to ask for. They might not know exactly why he is having a particular challenge but if they can work around it and allow him to have a scribe or to answer verbally instead of written it might make a big difference. Kids don't perform their best when they are frustrated and anxious. Maybe they can help narrow the issue down by figuring out the worst scenarios for him or where the bottle neck lies.

6. ignore the grades for now - I mean you know they are telling you there is a problem so don't ignore that part but try not to focus on the specifics. If he comes home with a 40% on a test try to see if it is because he couldn't get it out on paper, because he didn't understand the question, the space was too small to write, there was a kid next to him chewing gum loudly, etc.... but the actual grade doesn't matter right now. Make sure he knows that you know he is doing his best and you are there to help him reach his goals. He doesn't WANT to have a 40%.

I don't mean to sound preachy or that I have the answers because honestly we're still fumbling along as well. I know your frustration however and wanted to try to help if I could. Hopefully something in that will help or spark an idea. I know how hard it is to see your very smart kid struggle and not be able to fix it immediately. Hang in there!

I know teachers have a boatload of extra work to do, but I don't understand this. If a teacher has a student in her class who is failing math, shouldn't she be doing something about this?

I agree with previous posters who recommend trying to find out the root of your son's difficulties. And in the meantime, I wouldn't push extra math (like Khan Academy). If it's a writing problem, for example, extra practice without scaffolding isn't going to help.

If I were in your situation, I would request a full evaluation, to determine if there are any non-math difficulties that may be contributing (e.g. working memory, reading/writing issues, etc). I would also gently "test" my son to see if he understands the concepts. Does he just not understand the math, or the approach used in class, or something else.

You might try getting some recreational math resources, unrelated to what is being taught in class, to help your son realize that not all math is bad. Martin Gardner or Theoni Pappas books, Vi Hart videos, manipulatives like Zometool, these can all be fun ways of exploring math. (I just made a post about this here.)

Thank you so much. just last night he did his entire worksheet of math which consisted of 15 double digit multiplication problems in 20 minutes. He showed his work and also got the answer right. We told him he only has 30 minutes to complete it and that seemed to help. I'm starting to think that if he is not given directions as far as how long he has to complete something he will just sit there and not do anything. That seems to be the biggest issue