It's not the student who is careless

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DEAR DR. FOURNIER: Every year since fifth grade my son's straight-A report cards have declined. Last year he was a B to C and even D (in math) student. He has no behavior problems, pays attention, completes his work and does his homework before any TV or play. He always hands in his work. He just makes poor grades on tests. Last year, his teacher had his class bring home all graded work every Friday to correct mistakes and hand in the corrected papers on Tuesday. Most of his errors were careless errors that he could correct right away once he saw what he did. The teacher was more than willing to re-explain if he arrived early on Tuesday mornings. I would take him in early and he never complained. His grades do not reflect what he knows, yet I can't scream, yell or punish enough to get him to stop losing points for what he already knows.ASSESSMENT: As a parent it's easy when desperation sets in to misperceive your son as "careless."Regarding losing points for what he already knows: What does your son know? Is he losing points for missed math facts, simple math processes, phrases instead of sentences, missing periods or other punctuation, spelling and other pre-basic-skill errors that you expected him to have already mastered?If so, your assumption that these pre-basic skills have been mastered may be wrong.Your son seems not to fit this definition. He may sometimes be able to access a basic skill correctly, and at other times cannot. For example, at times 9 x 0 = 0, and at other times, 9 x 0 = 9, or at times 19 + 27 = 46, and at others, it equals 36 because he failed to carry. Or at times "there" is spelled "their" or "weather" is spelled "whether" or he wrote "The boy hid the bat ran home" (leaving out "and then"), thus making an incomplete sentence.WHAT TO DO: Today, children are told to learn their math facts at home and then given practice exercises at school. Then, if they can pass a timed test once, teachers assume they know them. DUH! Not true. All that has been shown is that the child has mastered short-term recall and only for one test!In our broken school system, many teachers do not teach pre-basic skills. They expect parents to teach them at home through repetition."Careless" does not apply to your son. It applies to the haphazard way that our children are being taught so sometimes the child recalls pre-basic skills correctly and sometimes the child doesn't.Ask your child's teachers to continue sending graded papers home for correction. If he knows the correction right away, have him write this on a sheet of paper. On a separate sheet, have him write ones he does not immediately know. Keep these corrections in a binder separated into areas of concern: math facts, math processes, spelling, grammar, punctuation, answering questions with complete thoughts, etc. Tabulate the errors he can and cannot correct immediately, and you will see what you assumed he had mastered yet has not.Focus on these pre-basic-skill deficiencies so that he can learn and master them through daily practice. Do not worry about how long it takes for these skills to be recalled always automatically and correct. You can now banish the term "careless" as you will see this is not your son's problem.I have never met a careless child. I have only met children who are suffering from a broken school system too quick to assume that because the teaching is complete that the learning is as well.(Write to Dr. Yvonne Fournier, Fournier Learning Strategies Inc., 5900 Poplar, Memphis, Tenn. 38119. E-mail her at drfournier(at)hfhw.net.)