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How to help a student I am tutoring?

• I provide reading and math tutoring to a second grade class and many of the students are below grade level but not by much. One student however is far behind. This student cannot count past 5 and only takes wild guesses at everything (5+0=16). Even when shown the answer the student arrives at wild answers. The student also complains about stomachaches every time the student is asked to focus. The student is generally quiet and plays well with others but is far behind academically. I have known this student since kindergarten but never in a tutoring position. How can I help this student? Here is an example from today's session: I put two red counters and two white counters on the table and asked how many we had in total and the very happy reply was 8. Then I said good try but let's count them again and pointed to each one as we counted. When the student got to four, I stopped and asked how many we had. With a large smile the reply was 6. And it when on like this for all the problems. 5+0=6, 10-3=18, etc. What are some methods I can use to teach this student how to count so we can move on and bring them up to grade level?

• Answer:

  That's an interesting and unfortunate situation-and probably highly frustrating. Well, I'm not a teacher, so I can't help you there, but you might want to look into learning disabilities...this student could have some sort of learning disability, and from what I've heard, everybody I know, including myself, who has some sort of learning disability, be it major or minor, discovered they had it in second grade. Otherwise, I can't help you. Good luck