Mommy, Am I Stupid?

When my daughter was in the third grade, I really began to take notice of her math struggles. What were mere hints of dyscalculia in kindergarten, then first and second grade, now were becoming obvious discrepancies and serious challenges. Also, it was beginning to impact my daughter’s emotional well-being.

Despite continued help from the math specialist and extra time to complete assignments, the comprehension gap was quickly widening between my daughter and the rest of the class. She would return home daily with unfinished class-time work, and it was evident that she didn’t understand the material being taught.

Friday math class was especially dreaded because the students would have a weekly multiplication drill in which they would complete as many multiplication facts as they could in a set amount of time. As the weeks went by, I noticed that my daughter’s progress on the drill worksheets was not improving. She was only completing the “0” and “1” times tables, and towards the middle of the year she could complete a couple of the “2” times problems. Meanwhile, the peers at her table group were completing most, if not all, of the times tables on the drill.

It was suggested that we try skip-counting songs. Remembering that flashcards were a disaster in the past, songs seemed like a plausible way to learn the times tables. My daughter enjoyed music and was successful in memorizing the skip-counting songs. However, I didn’t realize until later that she did not understand the connection between skip-counting and multiplication. (This is an example of the missing gaps in number sense for the dyscalculic leaner, gaps in understanding that are not explicitly covered in school.)

While my daughter continued to fall behind in math, her teacher remained understanding and patient. At one point he told me that he could tell she was working twice as hard as the other students, while still not grasping what the others were steadily learning. He too was baffled by how such a dedicated and hardworking student could be failing, even with extra help.

The repeated struggle and failure in math began to impact my daughter’s confidence. She began to talk about how much she hated the subject. She also noticed that her friends and classmates were not having the same trouble as she was, and she was confused and upset by this.

I vividly remember her asking me one day, with big tears rolling down her face, “Mommy, am I stupid?” This was the only explanation she could come up with to explain the failure. It was such a heavy moment as I realized that the repeated difficulty was impacting how she felt about who she was.

I also didn’t have any answers. What was wrong? She seemed so bright, but did she have low intelligence? Is there something else I could do? Was there something we were missing?

It was shortly after this that I had a conversation with a friend who brought up the surprising and completely unexpected possibility of a learning disability.

You’ll find that story in my post, A Serendipitous Lunch with a Friend.