Second question they have him doing second grade math which he did last year at school. He is still not completing his math work at school and it gets sent home. It takes him forever to do math. He does not memorize any math facts ever. I'm really at a loss because the work should be super easy. I would say he is just bored but we
faced this problem last year as well. Can a child have a attention problem but just in one subject area?
He isn't 'just bored' - although he may well be quite bored - but the WISC clearly shows that his 'intellectual power' is very high and his ability to handle school is going to be low. WM and PS are the foundation of what elementary schools want from kids - because they (usually) firmly believe that kids aren't developmentally ready for abstract thinking.
see
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/analogies.htm Spread His Wings and Fly!
My son was "invisible" to the School Folks at his old school. I made up a story in my mind that his giftedness was like a pair of huge, heavy, invisible wings, that most teachers couldn't see. These wings were filled with light, and sparkled so brightly that looking directly at them could be painful.
Most people only saw the way those invisible wings knocked things over and made my son wobble when he walked. Everyone could tell he was different, and most thought he was just clumsy and awkward, and he was clumsy at walking, flying and sitting at a desk. His flying was clumsy because he was young and inexperienced, but I did sometimes observe tremendous grace. But didn't every mother find her own child to be miraculous at times?
There was almost no place to practice flying during the school day. We were concerned that he hold his wings politely in and not knock over the other children. It was sad that he came home so tired and worn out from holding those wings tightly against his body, but we didn't know what else to do. The wings would take care of themselves until the wonderful day when he could use them, wouldn't they?
It doesn't work quite that way, and we got quite an education. I'm grateful to my son for opening my eyes. It is sad as it is when a teacher doesn't see a child's wings. But there isn't anything sadder than a winged person who can't see his own wings, but only feels a vague heavy weight, and sees people around him get mysteriously knocked down.
The number one reason for educating ourselves about gifted issues, and unraveling our own pasts, is to be able to hold a mirror up to our children so they can see and understand themselves better, strengths and challenges both. -- Grinity
My son's Working Memory scores were more 'high average' but his highs were higher and his speed scores were lower. It got in his way - once he got to Middle School level the teachers start to anticipate the development of deeper thinking and things got better. We called it a 'bottleneck' as his lows weren't quite low enough to qualify as a 'learning disability' but they were hard on him.
DS15 also has '2E' issues - and getting those unraveled has helped so much.
The good news is that kids are flexible, and lots of WM and PS skills can be trained. The bad news is that this isn't fun at all. We avoided things like Kumon - but looking back, I think he would have benifited from the 'drill and kill' approach - if we could have gotten him to do it.
I don't like the idea of holding a child back to their biggest challenge - but sooner or later, it is important to circle around and catch all the challenge areas.
I was always on the edge of ordering Times Tables the Fun Way: Book for Kids: A Picture Method of Learning the Multiplication Facts [Spiral-bound]
Judy Liautaud
but DH was in charge of drive to school and spent those 10 minutes every day of 3rd grade doing 'drill' so that got the job done. If it had been left in my hands, I'm quite sure DS would be counting on his fingers to this day.
I think this school might be workable if you 'afterschool' the places that are holding your son back so he can 'shoot ahead.' I don't think that there is a 'ready made' answer for this particular set of issues. Teach him to touch type as soon as he get near his 9th birthday. Try and keep his spirits up. I would be very explisit with him about his strengths and current challenges, and get him motivated to grow in those challenge areas.
It is worth it to become an 'expert' at your son's particular challenges and at explaining them to folks - and set up a meeting with his teacher so that the teacher knows that this isn't just a run of the mill situation of 'not read to get inferences.' See if the teacher is willing to accept an alternative method to show that DS is actually getting those inferences.
Working on strength-appropriate work will hopefully dissolve the perfectionism a bit. Bring the perfectionism to the teacher's attention and see what can be done to help your DS overcome his.
Keep asking questions!
Grinity
