<p>Hi, I’m new to this site but just have so many questions that I need answered so figured this was place to get them answered.</p>
<p>I have a 9th grade S who is really bright— 680 CR 580 M SAT’s in 7th grade but he has always struggled in math. He attends a very rigorous and competitive private school and he is only in algebra 1. He is doing horribly this year and I don’t know quite what to do. He understands the concepts but always does poorly on tests. He goes for help every day with his teacher but he still can’t seem to break a C on his tests. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I could do. The school does offer a step down algebra class but he would have to completely change his schedule and he doesn’t want to do that. Any help on the subject is appreciated.</p>
<p>if he’s getting the concepts and can do homework, but is doing poorly on timed tests, his problems could relate to the stress and pressure of performing under time deadlines. </p>
<p>Can you see if they’d let him take time-and-a-half or double-time for math exams from now until year’s end, to build up confidence and see if that’s the issue? If he had a test for a learning disability, this “extra time for tests” xaccommodation might end up being the conclusion of all that testingm anyway. Depending on your school, I wonder if they’d just allow a trial with extra time on math tests, without going through the rigamarol of LD testing. </p>
<p>It’s the difference is between thinking, and thinking fast. </p>
<p>Also it’s worth knowing if he gets distracted by noise or unnerved watching others around him during tests, in which case an accommodation is that he be able to take a test in a quiet room alone.</p>
<p>Or just ask the school to test him for a learning disability, but be sure the test administered has short time frames. Work with the school psychologist on this and explain what you’re trying to figure out0m as it can influence the selection of testing instruments. Some kids are gifted and learning disabled at the same time, and he might be one. If so, better to know that now and work with it throughout h.s.</p>
<p>I agree it sounds like a gifted kid with LDs. He sounds a bit like my younger son, who has real problems memorizing math facts and formulas although he’s very good at math. He often runs out of time on tests because he’s having to derive formulas from first principles. In middle school he had extra time on tests, but for various reasons he hated the accommodations (it generally meant going to another room that often had more distractions.) Since my kid can generally pull a B+, we let him drop the accommodations, but it sounds like for your son it might be what he needs.</p>
<p>^ This would be one of my children. Easily got the concepts, no problems on homework, but would blow test after test. The pattern was a lot of ‘stupid’ mistakes but we didn’t know why. A psycho-ed assessment revealed that he was a gifted learner 97th-99th percentile across the board, except on processing speed which was the 27th percentile! Retests years later shows same. </p>
<p>Now has accomodations, but only needed for math. It includes extra time for tests in a quiet location (he believes the quiet location is actually more important than the time as he now often finishes just over the regular time allotment).</p>
<p>Went from struggling to the accelerated math sequence and getting As (around 95%).</p>
<p>Curious how he earned a 580 on math SAT I in 7th grade if he always struggled in math…isn’t that still a bit above the national average for 11th graders?..like Erin’s Dad, this LD sounds like a big leap…and this is from a parent of a student who has also always struggled in math; great on homework, bombs tests…</p>
<p>Erin’s dad, you might be right but only an assessment will reveal if it’s a learning disability or not. Might as well see.</p>
<p>One with a learning disability would be struggling with math for a long time. I think the tip off of an LD is a discrepancy. Not a discrepancy over time, but a discrepancy between knowing material easily yet not being able to demonstrate it. That is, if one gets the concepts with ease, has strong abstract reasoning abilities, does the homework without a problem, but the tests show something else. (though rodney raises a good point about how such a child did so well on the sat).</p>
<p>I work quite a bit with students on mathematical kinds of problems. You can readily tell a student who ‘gets it’ can follow along, can jump ahead of you, the ‘light bulb’ is on so to speak. If such a student then isn’t showing it on the exams, something is up. Quite apart from the student for whom you need to help along, re-do a to b to c in lots of different ways until each part clicks. Such a student who also doesn’t do well on the tests just isn’t strong in math.</p>
<p>Rodney, were you able to rule out LD with your child?</p>
<p>get the psycho -ed testing done. My nephew was like this, then hit a BRICK wall in freshman calc 3. Worked thru out the semester with prof/TA, they were the ones to suggest he get tested. They both told him he knew the material down cold, yet would bomb the exams. Worth it now while he is still young, and his confidence intact.</p>
<p>I definitely would go have a sit down with the teacher. What is she/he seeing? Can you review some of the tests and see if there are some trends/common errors? The “rigorous and competitive” school sets off alarm bells for me. Sometimes you bump into a teacher who thinks that the kids are supposed to be uniformly smart and fast (and resents those who aren’t compliant). Does your son LIKE this teacher? Many males are emotionally honest. If they despise the educator, it shows. . .</p>
<p>If he really does understand concepts but keeps getting wrong answers on the test, check to see why it is that he is missing the test questions. Sometimes, it is because he is not paying attention to details. In math, that is a killer! </p>
<p>A dropped minus sign, multiplying 2 times 2 and mistakenly putting down 5, not carrying a number–all simple arithmetic mistakes that don’t test your understanding of the concept, but can result in the wrong answer.</p>
<p>Sometimes this inability to pay attention to details is because of attention deficit problems, sometimes from working too quickly and carelessly. Sometimes, there is an underlying hole of knowledge in the arithmetic (you just don’t have those multiplication and division facts solid enough in your memory).</p>
<p>Or it could be that your son has some sort of math learning disability. </p>
<p>Whatever it is, it needs to be looked at. Math only gets more intense from here.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for all of your replies!! You all have been so helpful and are also very knowledgeable. I’m glad I finally decided to post. </p>
<p>As a lot of you advised I am going to have him tested. I had already been thinking along those lines for awhile but just keep thinking he would get better. He does do fine on the homework and always feels pretty confident about the tests and then is always shocked that he bombs them. I know he feels bad and that is what makes me want to figure out the problem. I think that maybe a part of his problem is the teacher. She as an old asian woman who has taught at the school for years… very old school and picky about every little computational mistake… the worst for my son who can sometimes come up with the right answer but not know exactly how. He has never really struggled with math all the way through school but I do think that he got away with murder in elementary school because he is really a charming kid and the teachers have always liked him. He does go to the teacher everyday after school for help but so far it hasn’t worked miracles.</p>
<p>Ellemenope I think you have really hit the nail on the head. He is horrible with details and is a fast test taker. I have half way in the back of mind thought about ADD many times because a few of my boys have it, but he doesn’t fit the diagnosis in many other ways so I always question it. I will look into for sure.</p>
<p>I help a friend by tutoring her boys in high school math. They were B-/C+ students when we started out. Their mother believed that they had potential for better grades.</p>
<p>So one of the boys would bring me his test and tell me how satisfied he was that he got a B-. We would go over every question on the test that he missed and find the mistake. Every mistake that was a little miscue we would mark with an “ATD” (attention to detail). </p>
<p>After getting to the end of the test, we would count up all the ATD notations. I’d get them to see that if they had paid a little more attention to detail, they would have only missed ONE problem and have gotten an A! They knew the material well enough to get an A! They deserved an A! It doesn’t take long for them to see themselves as A students who don’t get an A because they aren’t paying attention to detail.</p>
<p>Another test strategy that I train the kids to use is to write each step neatly and in order. I want them to do it for 2 reasons–if the teacher can easily follow your thinking, you’ll often get points even though you’ve made a little mistake somewhere. The best place to practice this is in the homework. Document every step.</p>
<p>Also, it is easier to find those little attention to detail mistakes as you check your work if your work is neat and orderly.</p>
<p>Another thing that I tell them–you’d be better off spending more time making sure you don’t make mistakes than speeding through the problems to get to the end of the test. You’ll get a better grade by getting problems 1-8 correct and not getting to 9-10 than you would if you hurried through 1-10 and got 8 of them wrong.</p>
<p>Also, what with the adrenaline flowing at the beginning of the test–I often find that dumb errors occur within the first couple of problems. Take a deep breath and relax, especially during those first couple of questions, because those are often easy ones from which you should be able to garner all the points.</p>
<p>I tell the kids–don’t leave any points on the table!</p>
<p>One last test strategy–by going over tests, I can see what mistakes a kid might make under pressure. One of them, when he would graph on a test, would get the x and y coordinates mixed up. Now that he knows he has a problem with that, he always takes extra time to make sure he does it right and then rechecks it. </p>
<p>If you can make them aware of certain propensities, they can either make changes or make sure they check their work carefully when they come upon a problem like that.</p>
<p>After all, you don’t want to leave any points on the table.</p>
<p>It can be vision (keeping the numbers in order/proper place on the paper), it can be developmental, it can be a learning disability/weakness, it can be that he hates the class because of the teacher (which I doubt), or it can be that he needs tutoring. I suspect since the OP wonders if her child has ADD, that she has an intuition that something might be wrong with his processing speed. One of my kids went from 99th percentile in his areas of strength to the 4th percentile in his weakest area. The only way to find out is to do an evaluation and see how to help the child with this subject. It is not uncommon for very bright children to be diagnosed late (into college and beyond) with LD’s as they have compensated for their LD with their brilliance in the past, but cannot continue to do so anymore. Anytime a mother thinks her child’s performance is not in line with his natural born abilities, then it should be investigated. Try to use a private educational psychologist that is not affiliated with the school so you get a diagnosis that is free from the influences school district employees are subject to- mainly not wanting to pay for another LD student, but also because many cannot believe a really smart kid is actually learning disabled. Good luck.</p>
<p>Agree with Bessie on the vision. My D began complaining of not being able to see in 4th grade, took her to the eye doctor, no problem. She continued to complain, but her grades were high and standardized test scores were 99%+. In 6th grade, her test scores dropped and she did not score as well on the 7th grade SAT as we expected based on her history. Back to the eye doctor, still no problem. She was on the accelerated math track. In 9th grade she had a really great Math teacher that I had many conversations with about her and he said repeatedly that he knew she “got” the concepts, we just couldn’t figure out why her test scores were not as good as they should be. She was very frustrated and stressed over this.</p>
<p>I kept researching and in reading a web site about dyslexia found a discussion on vision therapy and read the story of someone who was not diagnosed until 15 due to poor performance on the SAT. All it takes to diagnose the problem is an exam by an optometrist, it is quick and easy. </p>
<p>I followed the information on the web site and took her to a developmental optometrist two hours away where they diagnosed a convergence and tracking problem. After all the testing they looked at me and said “Math is her worst subject.” “Well, yes but how did you know?” “She can’t line the numbers up for the calculations.” It took about 9 months of vision therapy to correct the problem. When she took her first AP exam after the therapy she came home and said “I can see the bubbles, I forgot they were there!”.</p>
<p>Sorry this is long, but I really looked for an answer for several years with no help so I hope this helps someone else.</p>
<p>“very old school and picky about every little computational mistake… the worst for my son who can sometimes come up with the right answer but not know exactly how.”</p>
<p>I would re-read ellemenope’s suggestions. Attention to detail can be learned, with practice. This teacher is doing him a BIG BIG favor by being so picky. In college, math grading is a lot less forgiving.</p>
<p>I’d recommend hiring a tutor and have the tutor drill him on basic math facts and then move on to repetitive drills in basic algebra operations. I don’t know of Kumon goes through algebra but if so check them out–their approach focuses on speed and accuracy. </p>
<p>Sloppiness and lack of attention to detail does not always mean learning disabilities—the modern curriculum shies away from “Drill and Kill” to a lot of kids’ detriment. Intuitive, non-sequential thinkers find algebra a challenge–details matter; order in which you do things matters, not missing a step matters. These skills have to be learned.</p>