I am tutoring a 16 year old with a reading/writing level of a 5th grader. Advice? He doesn't want to learn.

I think that you should tell him why education is important and why he needs it and if you give him a really good answer (an answer that is really inspiring) then he might want to finnaly learn, and you might want to tell him that if he wants to read a really good book when he grows up and he doesnt understand it or if he is writing a artical and other people dont understand what he is trying to say the it is his fault because he doesnt want to learn. - I am a 5th grader myself and our principle says that we write better than the 9th graders!! and our class is doing a project to help children in need and we wrote letters to companies to donate supllies so we can make a fun day for the children because the have less opportunities to have fun so we are creating this day to have fun, and we got lots of donations. - Sorry if this doesn't really have anything to do with your question but i just like talking about it. Anyway if a 5th grader can write letters to companies and get lots of donation then he can to you might want to tell him that to. If you dont belive me about my class helping children in need It came out of the newspaper a couple of times well in bangkok thailand it did!

It sounds like this pupil has a specific learning difficulty. Therefore unless you know what difficulty he has and have in-depth knowledge or specialized training in how to teach someone with this problem it is not surprising you are not getting very far. Each learning difficulty from dyslexia to autism requires help from trained teachers and the methods you are using to try to help this boy could be actually detrimental. For example trying to get a dyslexic person to use a dictionary is just one example of how you can further undermine their self confidence. The first thing this boy needs is to be professionally tested and diagnosed. Following this a specific program of his needs should be drawn up to help with his specific difficulty. In answer to your question why are these kids passing through the system this is easy to answer. It is easier and cheaper to just label these kids as stupid or dysfunctional than to give them the support and help they need. If they do not have parents who are willing to draw attention to their problems and demand the help they need many will continue to fall through the net. Do not be surprised that he is very negative, that he has reached the age of 16 without the help he is entitled to and deserves would be enough to make any child feel very negative about the whole education system.

tell him its up to him if he wants to achieve anything!

Try to relate to him and get him to open up. The school system doesn't care, that's why he's such a low-reading level.

Because they do not want to deal with him and because his parents allowed him to. As of now I am faced with the same dilemma with my child who is 8 and in the second grade. He hates math and he is in second grade. HIs first grade teacher gladly passed him on to the second grade but the buck stops there. I am having him repeat the second grade because I feel that the second time round he will have a better grasp of it and will be able to be a smoother transition into 3rd grade. He does good in other subjects like science, writing, reading and he excels in history but his math is terrible.