DC doing horribly in high school

[Anonymous]

Have you had your kid evaluated? We kept being surprised by our ds' getting straight As on homework and getting Bs and Cs on tests. It turns out there is a significant disparity between his ability and his processing speed. As the psychologist explained it, a slow computer and a fast computer will get to the same answer, but the slow computer needs a lot more time.

He has a 504 now and is entitled to take extra time on tests. We have gone through executive functioning/study skills tutoring with him at various points, and we have talked to his counselor about what an appropriate courseload is.

I wouldn't worry about college for right now -- I'd work on getting your dc help via testing, tutors, discussions with the counselor, whatever it takes to help your dc live up to his/her abilities. What you don't want is a cycle of discouragement to set in where perceived failure leads to actual failure.

Schools really don't teach study skills, or note-taking skills, at all. It's really sink or swim for a lot of kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you had your kid evaluated? We kept being surprised by our ds' getting straight As on homework and getting Bs and Cs on tests. It turns out there is a significant disparity between his ability and his processing speed. As the psychologist explained it, a slow computer and a fast computer will get to the same answer, but the slow computer needs a lot more time.

He has a 504 now and is entitled to take extra time on tests. We have gone through executive functioning/study skills tutoring with him at various points, and we have talked to his counselor about what an appropriate courseload is.

I wouldn't worry about college for right now -- I'd work on getting your dc help via testing, tutors, discussions with the counselor, whatever it takes to help your dc live up to his/her abilities. What you don't want is a cycle of discouragement to set in where perceived failure leads to actual failure.

Schools really don't teach study skills, or note-taking skills, at all. It's really sink or swim for a lot of kids.

That is not bad advice but I would also say B's and C's when your kid starts really hitting the advanced classes is not usually a disability. Pre Calc is hard. AP History is hard. Honors Physics is hard. And Sophmore year is the first time all these classes hit at once. DC needs to adjust the amount and type of studying. And probably ensure that Junior year is not quite as hard. Maximum two AP. I agree with PP that you need to keep in mind that even if the highest class is doable by itself, when added to the rest of schedule may not be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is your child in public or private school? Is the school full of high achieving students? It is now hard to get C's in some public high schools because of grade inflation.

This is a lie private school families tell themselves (and I guess others) to justify the ridiculous amount they spend on tuition.

[Anonymous]

"It turns out there is a significant disparity between his ability and his processing speed. As the psychologist explained it, a slow computer and a fast computer will get to the same answer, but the slow computer needs a lot more time."

I'm sure this exists and I'm happy your DC has a 504 and is managing.

But I would like to bring up the idea that this diagnosis does not mean that processing speed can't be improved to some extent and in some ways.

To follow your example of the slow and fast computers, for a fast computer, sophisticated studying methods or the optimization of the program the computer is running may not matter, at least in HS.

But for a slow computer, the optimization of the computer code, and by analogy, the study methods employed can make all the difference, in HS, college, grad school and on the job.

As a slow computer, it is vital that your DC learns the material better than a fast computer. Eventually, because the fast computer doesn't bother to learn the material as well, they will reach a limit even with their higher processing speed because the way they are "programming" (studying) their brain is inefficient. To reach the top in any field, you have to be "running" the most efficient code. This is true because in every field, you stand on the shoulders of everyone who came before you and no one has great enough processing speed to go through all the work and dead ends that have come before rather than learn efficiently.

[Anonymous]

Typically, crashing in high school means not studying enough, or not studying efficiently, or suffering from a weak foundation (not having understood the material in previous years, which is especially true in math).

So you need to spend a lot of time with your kid to diagnose what's going on. Schedule meetings with his teachers and ask their opinion. Hire tutors who will be able to pinpoint academic holes and teach him how to study.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is your child in public or private school? Is the school full of high achieving students? It is now hard to get C's in some public high schools because of grade inflation.

This is a lie private school families tell themselves (and I guess others) to justify the ridiculous amount they spend on tuition.

+100. I think it’s hilarious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is your child in public or private school? Is the school full of high achieving students? It is now hard to get C's in some public high schools because of grade inflation.

This is a lie private school families tell themselves (and I guess others) to justify the ridiculous amount they spend on tuition.

+100. I think it’s hilarious.

So true. I have one at an FCPS HS and one in a “top” dc private. I just don’t see it.

[Anonymous]

If your child's grades continue to go downhill, as the material gets harder...I agree with the recommendation to get neuropsych testing. This happened to my child, who was working as hard as he possibly could. We eventually found out that he has several mild learning disabilities which really interfere with his ability to "decode" higher level material. I so wish we had known this before starting our college search, taking the SAT, etc.

Mild disabilities show up late, because children can compensate for them at lower grades. Just make sure this is on your radar screen as a possibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your child's grades continue to go downhill, as the material gets harder...I agree with the recommendation to get neuropsych testing. This happened to my child, who was working as hard as he possibly could. We eventually found out that he has several mild learning disabilities which really interfere with his ability to "decode" higher level material. I so wish we had known this before starting our college search, taking the SAT, etc.

Mild disabilities show up late, because children can compensate for them at lower grades. Just make sure this is on your radar screen as a possibility.

I agree.

I crashed in high school because of inattentive ADHD and slow processing speed, which were only diagnosed when my son was diagnosed with severe ADHD, years later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is your definition of “doing horribly?” Wow.

To each it's own right?

If you do not have anything to share or advise, dont comment. It's quite simple.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Same here. DC is sophomore with a weighted 3.3. He has rallied recently and should have 3.6w this quarter and I hope he can end year with a 3.4w.

He studies, but I'm sure he could do better. Really bad with tests and ends up retaking at least half of them. Tutors have been helpful at times, depends on the subject.

Only one EC (band) which doesn't take up too much time, except during marching band season.

He takes some honors and IB courses (he's in an IB school in FCPS). Right now, we're hoping for a mid-level in-state school, but we'll see.

OP here, same exact situation- DC is a bad test taker. GPA is approx the same as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The classes are too hard. Scale back significantly.

Even if, perhaps, each individual class is an appropriate level, their schedule in it's entirety is too difficult for them to manage successfully.

Yes, DC's public school in particular is a very hard school. DC is taking 2 AP's and I think that was a mistake as a sophomore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does she know how to study? I never did. Help her learn to take good notes and how to use outlines and notecards to study.

good point. DC didn't know freshman year but is getting better at it. DC has a tutor who seems to give good advice on study skills. DC is learning slowly. I have heard that sophomore year is a learning curve, but when you fall too behind it is very hard to come out of it junior year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:" Is your child in public or private school? Is the school full of high achieving students? It is now hard to get C's in some public high schools because of grade inflation."

This is also NOT true in mid-level MCPS schools. Our DC signs up for the honors version of classes and seems to end up with a 79% grade and the highest C in the class all the time.

Back to the OP's thread. My guess is that OP's DC is not actually trying but rather is putting in more time doing things that don't work for longer and longer periods of time.

This shows they care and want to do better but that they need HELP. OP, during the fourth quarter you need to encourage DC to go see their teachers and ask questions.

They need to spend some of their time not just doing their HW but thinking about the material enough so that they can make sense of the material and formulate questions they can ask.

OP, you need to look around the web for blogs or articles that talk about methods and better ways to study. You might want to find a class this summer that teaches studying skills.

There is no magic way to study but lots of people get stuck on the idea that if they pay attention in class, do all their homework and go over everything the night before the test that there is nothing else.

This method only allows a student to see any part of the material 3 times. Very few people can learn, say foreign language vocab or Calculus procedures only seeing them 3 times.

One possible way to increase the number of times DC sees the material is to spend 2 hours over every weekend, say 30 minutes for each of DC's 4 hardest classes building review sheets (and formulating questions for the teacher) for all the material they learned in the 4 classes since the last test. When the test comes around, not only will they have a solid review sheet and answers to questions they had as they learned the material, but they will have spent reasonably spaced out time learning the material in small chunks that are more reasonable to learn than a whole tests worth of cramming.

OP, please get on this. As others have said, your DC really is NOT really having problems in HS but they show signs of being on a track where they will have problems if they aim for a major that is harder than average in college.

Good luck

Thank you so much for this. DC and I have been working towards improving study skill along with a tutor and former HS teacher who has been helping. DC doesn't seem to be struggling in all classes but just having a hard time with 2 in particular which is going to really bring her GPA down by the end of the year.

[Anonymous]

I have read some really good advice. Thank you so much for taking the time. I honest do think the way DC is studying may have worked for elementary and middle school and just is not cutting it now. DC needs to come up with a new method.

I just hope it's not too late to turn things around and DC get it by junior year.