Part 8: Smart Kids and Learning Disabilities

As mentioned in prior articles, when a child struggle in school, many resources are devoted to that student:  independent time with the teacher, when possible, small group instruction, instruction with a math or reading instructor; help from the experts in an area education agency, peer helpers, volunteers, parental support.  Many parents tutn to tutoring only to fined it doesn't work.  Why is that?

Tutoring only teaches temporary academic material; it's reteaching information that the child didn't learn the first time (or the 2nd, or 3rd, or 4th, etc.)  Tutoring can be effective for a child who missed a lot of school due to an illness, injury, or family move.  But because tutoring reteaches WHAT you should learn and not HOW you learn, it doesn't address underlying learning struggles.

Kids who are struggling are doing so for a reason.  It's not because the instructor told the rest of the class that 7 x 2 = 14, but kept that fact from "Sylvia."  Sylvia wasn't sent out to the hall and allowed to miss math class day after day; she was present for every single lesson. So the fact that she is struggling in an academic area is because of a weak cognitive skill.

What can be done?  That's the next article in this series.