My 5th grade son is struggling. He is intelligent, actively reading 3 grade levels ahead and is very social and masters subjects that appeal to him, like comic book worlds, etc. However, he speeds through his school work with no attention to detail and misses questions in all subjects. He just got his first quarter report card. One B, two Cs, and an F.

This past summer I spent a great deal of money in tutoring for math, and he had some improvement. But he lives over an hour away with his mother during the school weeks and I can’t keep a constant influence. His life is very stable, both households being healthy and lacking for no needs. His younger sister is flourishing academically.

This is not new. Last year I volunteered every week at his school to have a presence and to have a good rapport with his teacher, with marginal gains. This year I’ll do the same once my schedule settles.

The school system where he is has no real options. Rural county, limited educational programs. He will be starting tutoring this week with a teacher there though.

If he were in my house he’d get an ass whipping and no privileges until he came home with at least Bs, at this point. No internet, no iPad. But that’s not how it is, and I can’t make my house a purgatory for him the limited time he’s here.

We’ve spoken to his teacher, she affirmed that he is rushing through work and missing too many questions because he doesn’t take the time to focus. We’ve got a meeting set up, but we did all this last year, with no real change.

Not really sure what to do. When I was his age I had straight As without trying. I was devastated if I brought home anything less than an A on my daily work. He has lots of ambition, movie director, lawyer, etc., but won’t understand that he can’t get anywhere if he flunks school.

It's possible that he's just not trying hard enough or he needs tutoring. But it's also possible that there's some other explanation.

Does he need to be tested for glasses or hearing aids?

Does he have ADD? (Overused, I'll admit, but there are some kids who legitimately need help to control it.)

Is he up all night, either due to a medical issue or because he's simply playing video games/reading/etc., and barely functioning at school during the day as a result?

Is he being bullied, or worried about his Mom and Dad's divorce, and struggling to focus from the stress?

Is he so far ahead of the rest of the class that's he's simply given up because he's bored and not being challenged?

Something may be bugging him.
Weird age too. Puberty trying to kick in.
How's his diet? Sugar, caffeine? Is he physically active to burn off some energy everyday?

He is bored. I had the exact same problem in elementary school as well. He needs to be able to learn at his level, not the level of the class. Have you thought about moving him up a grade?

Sounds like boredom and/or lack of commitment, rather than a problem with the material itself.

Perhaps implement a system of rewards. not only for good grades, but marks on homework, even completion of homework. Perhaps work with the teacher where she can report, and you can see he is not rushing through the assignments, he is paying attention to detail etc.

When he proves this, he can earn his video game time, or whatever else seems more important than his school work.

I had a period in my schooling where I didn't do well. It was on the surface fairly simple when they figured it out.

Boredom. (Not bragging, just the truth)

I was waaaay ahead on reading and language arts (I blame my librarian mother), so I was bored with the homework and didn't give it much attention. The math was "bleah" to me, again because I was bored with it. I'm not ADD, but I do need things to engage me with a subject.

Once the teachers and my folks figured out how to engage me with actual extra work, but stuff that was kind of outside the box, I rolled through school like a tornado.

Good luck.

I learned to teach 3's.
Do everything in threes. First three questions/problems ect....
Then review those three answers. Then move to the next 3.

Getting to the end/finish caused anxieties big time.
I taught time management/understanding also. Taking a breath exercises, calm calm in through the nose out through the mouth.
Seems when the first student got up and took their paper up front or however completion was shown the anxiety really kicked in, fear of not finishing in a timely manner/pack following mentality ....what ever it is, make the feeling recognizable thus manageable.

I suppose it helped. He made it !

I’d guess bored too. My two youngest children had the same problems. We moved them to a school that had a “gifted” program and the issues went away. They just weren’t being challenged and that gave theirs minds a lot of time to get them in trouble.

I would have to agree with the others that he is bored.

I went through the exact same thing from about 2nd through 6th grade. Then it hit me again in high school (freshman and sophomore year)

I only did half my work, or did just a little bit of each of the subjects.

Heck, I had the same problems in high school Incomplete answers, or answers not explained fully etc..

I eventually worked my way out of it. The problem that I ran into was by the time I realized I was jacking it all up, I let my grade point average drop and it was dang near impossible to bring it back up to a good level. So, for a long time when I was applying to college it looked like I was not very bright.

Math to me equals mandarin chinese. I have struggled all my life with it even with tutors.
I developed such testing anxiety when it came to math tests, that I would get sick and freeze up. That carried onto college.

Even to this day at 46 years old, I still get the rumble stomach when I have to take the entry level testing for Police Depts.

There’s no divorce issue. All that is well past and both of us have remarried or are about to. All that is healthy.

I wonder about ADHD. And about boredom. He’s got glasses, and his hearing is good. He just doesn’t care.

He tested three grade levels behind on math. There is a significant deficiency there. But it’s his lack of attention to detail that leads to all of this.

quote:

Originally posted by Haveme1or2:
I learned to teach 3's.
Do everything in threes. First three questions/problems ect....
Then review those three answers. Then move to the next

When I had the same problem of rushing not paying attention etc amd crowding all my work. My dad had me only do 3 problems per notebook page. Slowed me down gave me plenty of room. The grades improved dramatically.

JD

Sounds like young Winston Churchill, maybe.

Our entire school system is stuck in the 1800's... There are so many much better ways to teach kids now and it could be done for a fraction of the cost.

Some kids aren't wired for school. You've described me at his age. Started school in Arizona. The system there had a self paced English & reading program. By the end of the 3rd grade I was doing high school level work and crushing it. Liked math, never did that great at it.

When we moved back to Tn, the system I attended had the standard type reading and English program. My grades tanked, I started getting in trouble for attention issues etc.

I was bored out of my skull. Liked school, just didn't fit in with the system too well. Through high school I followed the same path. Bored, bored, bored...

I grew up enough to manage the behavior issues (or at least not get caught) but I breezed through with A's. Typically I was finished with my homework for the day before I left each class.

Didn't really feel like going to college but that was what we were supposed to do so I went. 2 things happened: They made me take a remedial math class (I went all the way through trig in high school), and I got crushed by the work load.

I never learned how to study. That changed a lot in college. Also, the remedial math class (while very humiliating) worked out well. I wish I could remember what it was but about 3 weeks in to the class I had an ah-ha moment. In talking to the professor about it (I wish I could remember what it was) he was stunned I'd never learned this very basic thing. After that I aced the class and the rest of the math I had to take before I decided college wasn't for me.

Find something your son enjoys and work math in to it. I've seen that work wonders. Showing kids that math can be fun instead of stressful usually leads to much better grades.

Finally, see if he has a particular issue with how the work is presented to him. My wife is a special ed teacher (I tell her she went to school to prepare being married to me) She specializes in kids with learning disabilities. A kid that we would have called stupid 40 years ago often needs to have to info presented in a different way. A lot of my wife's kids need their math read to them. Visually the numbers just don't work for them. But, when they remove staring at a paper and concentrate on the work they do well. Many of my wife's kids have to go to a different room where she can read the test questions to them. Hearing them verbally allows them to get the input they need to work the problem.

Most of them learn to cope and many go on to college. Once they figure out HOW to learn they do just as well as anyone else in the class.

Good on you for caring and good luck...

Possibly look into a different education system that your son may warm up to. No harm calling and asking the school how they approach education versus the traditional system.

http://www.peacemontessorischool.com/

quote:

Originally posted by JD2177:

quote:

Originally posted by Haveme1or2:
I learned to teach 3's.
Do everything in threes. First three questions/problems ect....
Then review those three answers. Then move to the next

When I had the same problem of rushing not paying attention etc amd crowding all my work. My dad had me only do 3 problems per notebook page. Slowed me down gave me plenty of room. The grades improved dramatically.

JD

Never heard of this before, but I like it.

Imho, boredom may be a factor here.

I would look to 2 underlying causes: 1) doesn’t have friends (primary peer group, close friends) who are excelling at school; 2) doesn’t understand the long term implications of not doing well at school.

Once I had both of these, I started to do well.

He has an addiction to technology and wants nothing more than to get back on his tablet/computer/gaming system, and doesn't care about anything else but getting back on his technology. This is a very common phenomenon currently.

Mom needs to make HUGE strides in limiting technology time. One hour of TV per day, one hour of tablet time, max, no exceptions. Until this is done, I'm afraid his grades will continue to suffer.

Mom might find it easier to "deal" with him and his behavior by just giving in and letting him do whatever he wants with his time("he's quite and not argumentative when on his tablet") , but she is failing him big time with that parenting strategy.

quote:

Originally posted by chongosuerte:
There’s no divorce issue. All that is well past and both of us have remarried or are about to. All that is healthy.

I wonder about ADHD. And about boredom. He’s got glasses, and his hearing is good. He just doesn’t care.

He tested three grade levels behind on math. There is a significant deficiency there. But it’s his lack of attention to detail that leads to all of this.

Have him checked for dyslexia. I have a mild form of it that made math extremely difficult. Spelling is also an issue sometimes (hence the CUT) but I learned to compensate early on, without knowing it, and became a voracious reader very young (mom was an elementary school teacher and dad loved to read so I got it from both parents) so nobody knew to look for anything.

Throw boredom into the mix and I was a disaster as a student. My “lack of attention to detail” was actually my brain mis-processing certain information. I was “just being lazy”.

All that combined, plus the fact that this was in the 70’s and 80’s meant the dyslexia was never identified until my late 30’s by a math teacher of all things.

I used to tutor kids in math. I worked with a dyslexic kid, and we figured out that if he did his math homework on 1/4" square graph paper and wrote one number in each square, he was able to conquer the dyslexia for math.

Surely bored and understimulated, maybe Attention Deficit - they often go hand in hand.

The public school system which I was a prisoner in for years was grotesquely inadequate in terms of sufficient challenges, proper stimulation, talented staff and educators, and anything else beyond boring crap watered down to the lowest common denominator.

And ADD aside, some people are just wired differently and need to be taught in ways that differ from the sausage factory that is typical public schools. His learning environment is probably the biggest problem, in the end.

But don't discount ADD just because it's both trendy to shit on it and because some are indeed misdiagnosed. For those who actually have some form of it, living without treatment is a special kind of torture, especially when people doubt it's even real.

Best of luck.