I'd probably start a search in the phonebook (or on line) for psychological testing and for educational testing. Also, check with any LD resources your school offers.
You can ask school if they would consider testing, but unless she is in danger of not passing the state tests, they probably will decline.
AND, I'd be telling the teacher just what you told us. The teacher needs to know that your child understands the math and is having this problem. Share your daughter's frustration and see what teacher suggests. What do you think would help? Would increased time on the test where she can go back and check her work be good? Would it do better if she tried to go faster (helps my dd concentrate and make fewer silly mistakes). Does it work better if she is in a quiet room? Test anxiety? Visual problem causing confusing between what her brain is thinking and her eyes are seeing herself write? Does she do better with abstracts like Algebra than she does with calculations? Lots of possibilities. Investigate some more and just start asking questions to anyone who might be a resource, especially your daughter.
And get testing.
I took mine JHU since they claim to be experts in GT and LD. If there is such a center near you, that would be an option too.
THen, you take your results to school and ask for the recommendations to be implemented.
And suggest to her that if it's a multiple choice test, she should make an intuitive guess and test it out. My DS increased his speed and accuracy amazingly when he started doing that. He knew he was likely to get the wrong answer if he actually worked the problem, and then he'd be left to guess which answer was correct, so he skipped right to the guessing.
Who do I talk to at the (middle) school? Principal or maybe the special education coordinator? I have a real mental block about getting her IQ/achievements done. I think it is a bit of my own baggage...
From what I can tell, my daughter doesn't check her work. I don't know if it's just too hard the first time around, or if she is "lazy" or maybe she just doesn't realize what an impact those errors are having. Or maybe she does do a superficial look over, without asking herself to double check/get the answer a different way, etc. I do know that she is just miserable when she gets the tests back.
She does seem to understand the concepts much much more than she can carry out the calculations.
She wears glasses & has been seen by a pediatric ophthalmologist.
Thank you for the suggestion about the multiple choice test. I bet she works through tons of problems without ever getting to a possible choice of a,b,c,or d. That's a great suggestion!!!
