Reply to Disastrous Freshman Year

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There were 4 grading periods. Did your DS start out strong and gradually grades got worse? Was he handing in ALL homework on time? Did you look at his grades online each week?  Some kids don't magically have good study/organizational skills.  And, obviously "I got this" isn't working.[/quote]

Magnet parent here.  I look at my daughter's grades at least twice a week.  Sometimes I've found poor grades are lack of focus interest, other times the class is just too hard and my DD did the best she could.  I do think monitoring the grades frequently does help a lot though.  [/quote]

My dd also had a challenging Freshman year though she just squeaked out a B in her toughest class with way too much involvement from me making sure work was completed to be sustainable.  For us, we suspect that organizational skills is the culprit.  We are looking at signing her up for a class over the summer.  One of my friends mentioned that Montgomery community college has a high school study skills class if you don’t see an option through your high school or a summer camp (like Landon).

I also asked the high school counselor for advice.  The counselor recommended reviewing notes for each class  for 10-15 minutes each day.  It’s time consuming but it saves you cram studying time. Also you can identify where you have gaps in understanding the material early on and  make an appt to see that teacher.  Of course I tell this to my dd that half tunes me out. Then she comes home and mention that they were talking about straight A students in her outside activity and her friend admits that she has straight A’s and the secret is studying each subject a little time each day even when there is no test.  Yeah, mind blown.  So we have the counselor, an article I read, and a real life friend saying the same thing!

With course selection, the only advice I can give is checking in with the teacher.  The almost a C Honors class that at points had a D or F, I emailed the teacher to get feedback.  The teacher didn’t believe it was the material because in class my dd was following along and would turn in assignments that demonstrated understanding of the material.  Given that the grades were B, B+ then F for missing assignment and D on a homework, yet she wasn’t going to the teacher or asking for help seemed consistent with my idea that it was organizational skills plus tough teacher and not motivated in the subject/lecture style class.

[/quote]

That's wonderful that it was a maturity issue rather than an understanding issue.  Maturity seems like it would be easier to fix.  In my DD's case- it seemed like an understanding issue and 15 to 20 minutes a night wouldn't solve it as she spent much more time on those classes than that.  GPA is still pretty good- just not the 4.0 GPA that I wanted.[/quote]

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