<p>Middle school is hard. I don’t know of any really good way to motivate kids, though having conversation about closing doors might help. Taking kids to see colleges might help.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, my younger son had trouble with math tests because he had an LD making it hard for him to memorize a lot of material. He had a terrible time remembering formulas and shortcuts and often ended up having to derive formulas from scratch. He was actually quite good at math. He has similar problems learning languages and is now spending a junior year abroad where the immersion experience gives him practice 24 hours a day and allows all that material to make its way to his permanent memory.</p>