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Help for Struggling Learners
Our programs for kids with learning frustration and anxiety address the causes of delays and help them develop a growth mindset.
Breaking A Cycle of Learning Frustration
Is your child struggling academically and socially? Is learning frustration causing behavioral problems? And perhaps, most importantly, is learning frustration taking an emotional toll, or eroding confidence in a self-fulfilling way?
Most children experience learning or reading difficulties at some point, but they can ride it out and see it as a temporary setback. They keep their head down and eventually prevail, getting back on track, their confidence bolstered by the success.
When The Frustration Becomes The Problem
However, if your child’s difficulties as a learner are leading to frustration and behavioral problems – such as meltdowns, avoidance, or refusal to read.
Those behaviors and an “I can’t do it” attitude can become a spiral. Confidence erodes, and they start to give up on themselves, leading to avoidance behavior, resistance to trying new things, a negative attitude to learning, and defiance—a self-fulfilling negative cycle.
It’s a story we hear from many of our incoming clients. It’s a story that can have a happy ending. A growth mindset is possible for your child, but first we need to remediate the underlying learning delays in a real, fundamental way that your child can feel.
Once reading and the school curriculum start to feel doable, the attitude to learning improves, and a negative spiral can turn positive.
Start by Finding the Source of Difficulty
Help for a struggling learner starts by identifying the source of delay, generally a cognitive skill gap – processing, memory, attention, or sequencing – that is undermining understanding in class, reading, writing, test-taking, and/or homework efficiency.
Efficient learning requires dozens of hidden cognitive skills—from how fast a child processes a teacher’s words to how well they focus and self-regulate. Do any of these signs of difficulty apply to your child?
- Homework stress or school anxiety, including avoidance behavior
- The child studies for hours but fails test – when they know the material
- Losing focus in class and conversations
- Fragile confidence – dislikes challenging tasks, shuts down when corrected
- Acting out at school or withdrawing socially from peers
Children naturally want to please you and their teachers. If school or social life isn’t going well, an underlying cognitive skill gap is almost certainly holding them back.
START HERE: Check out our listing of learning challenges here that will take you to pages about each challenge.
If you are not sure what’s going on with your child, take our free 5-minute learning screening, which covers the risk factors and symptoms of a cognitive skill gap. We will send our findings.
“In just 2 months with Gemm Learning, his reading confidence has soared, so much, that he is no longer resistant to reading and looks forward to his reading time.
A light bulb has been turned on for him.”
IS THIS YOUR CHILD?
Learning Frustration Grows as Complexity Escalates
If your child is struggling academically and socially and seemed to be coping but hasn’t “hit a wall,” here’s what’s probably going on. Your child was holding on and finding workarounds to keep up, but a sharp escalation in school difficulty has tripped them up.
The most common is the step up in reading comprehension in 3rd and 4th grade, but there are others to watch for.
- Reading: Decoding → Comprehension: By 3rd grade, reading needs to be automatic (fluent) so that the brain is free to focus on comprehension. In this scenario, address the reading delay with our reading curriculum for struggling readers.
- Homework: Simple Worksheets → Writing: Homework that involves multi-step writing assignments requires accurate listening in class, and then reading skills, focus, and executive function at home. Check our symptoms of auditory processing delays here, signs of inattentiveness here, or programs for executive dysfunction here.
- Class Schedule: One Teacher → Many Classes: Managing schedules, collaborating in peer groups, and resolving conflicts independently. This challenges executive functioning skills and working memory deficits.
- Tests: Quiz → Longer Exams: Exams with multiple sections require reading and processing speed, focus, executive function, and working memory. Read about our cognitive training for test-taking.
- Social: Chat → Conversation and Negotiation: As friends develop more sophisticated language, fast-paced conversations become more challenging, including recognizing social cues.
If a step-up in complexity exposes a hidden gap your child can no longer work around, take action. The most effective help for struggling kids is an intervention that addresses the root cause.
We provide programs for kids with learning frustration and anxiety. Schedule a 1-on-1 call with a Gemm Learning advisor who can help you map your child’s behavior to likely sources of difficulty and help you plot a path forward, with or without Gemm Learning.
How We Help Struggling Learners Build a Growth Mindset
If you are seeing signs that your child is falling behind, the first reaction almost always is to find a tutor. While tutors can help your child keep up with homework, reinforce classroom material, and provide positive encouragement, it’s a band-aid only.
Learning resilience and a positive attitude comes from deep in your child’s psyche. The change in ability needs to be authentic. Cheerleading only gets you so far.
Our interventions for children with low confidence and learning struggles start by addressing and strengthening the core cognitive skills your child needs to learn independently. Because the brain is plastic, it can change; cognitive exercises can rewire how a child learns, removing frustration and restoring a love of learning.
The key is language processing.
We listen, talk, read, write, and think using language and language processing. If a child’s ability to process language quickly is below par, they struggle to keep up with the teacher in class; they don’t pick up the phonemes for phonics and reading; and they struggle to think while reading.
Their entire day is a challenge – in class, in the playground, and at home. How we help struggling learners:
- Cognitive Training: Strengthens language processing, working memory, attention, and related skills to boost learning efficiency – in class, taking tests, and at homework time.
- Reading Intervention: Sharpen phonemic awareness, reading fluency, and comprehension.
- Adaptive, At-Home Protocol: Powered by Fast ForWord and Cogmed—clinically proven programs, monitored daily by our learning specialists.
“He was on the Honor Roll for every quarter last year in the sixth grade at Middle School (without paid tutors!!). I could never have imagined, during elementary school, that he would have done this well. I probably would still be paying for tutors if it weren’t for Gemm. Thanks again.”
FAQ: Help for Struggling Learners at Home
Why is my child struggling in school when they used to do fine?
Many children run into reading comprehension issues in 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade when an inefficient reading method is exposed. This irs our second largest cohort of students, behind K-2nd graders who struggle from day one. See where your child stands using our Reading Milestones page.
A second transition point is middle school, where a child’s organizational skills are not yet able to handle multiple teachers and assignments. This is due to inefficient learning skills that prevent the development of executive functioning. More on Executive Functioning Skills by Age here.
How can I help a child who is struggling both socially and academically?
This combination of social and academic difficulties is common. Delays in language processing that hinder learning and reading growth also impact your child’s ability to participate comfortably in conversations, which impacts social skills. If this sounds like your child, check out our symptoms of auditory processing delays here.
Second, learning is a child’s day job. If learning is not going well, self-esteem will erode and confidence will be in short supply. And we all know, social interactions require confidence. Check out our article about confidence momentum here.
Why does my kid meltdown during homework battles?
Emotional resistance that is not age-appropriate or is not proportional to the problem can be a call for help. At some level, your child senses the work is beyond them. In fact, the whole school day is probably beyond them, and it’s distressing.
The best approach is to identify the source of your child’s frustration with learning, and then find an intervention that fits. This page lists several issues to explore as a starting point for taking action.
My child has the smarts but gets bad grades and low test scores. Why?
The three main reasons a child underperforms on tests are:
- Slow or inaccurate reading, causing a need to re-read, taking up valuable time
- A working memory deficit that makes it hard to hold a question and multiple-choice answers in mind at one time
- A strategic inability to prioritize and plan – executive functioning
These are all cognitive skill gaps that can be exercised and improved. More on test-taking skills here.
What are the early signs that my child is falling behind or has a focus issue?
Early development curves are so varied, it’s difficult to draw any firm conclusions until your child is 7 years of age. At that age, most processing and related skills should have started to click.
Very early signs of difficulty are in speech and language, but even then, speech is a surface issue that can resolve, while the underlying processing glitch can remain, giving you a false all-clear signal.
Focus issues are a side effect of most learning delays, so it’s best to look for other, non-focus-related signs of difficulty. Here are some articles that might be helpful: reading milestones and warning signs here, dyslexia symptoms here, working memory symptoms here, ADHD symptoms here, and signs of auditory processing delays here.
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Blaise was falling further and further behind, and it was affecting his confidence. His mother could see a downward spiral starting. “I wanted to let you know Blaise made first honors. He had a 95.6 average. I can’t even tell you how thankful I am to you and everyone at GEMM LEARNING. I remember the first day I walked into your office crying my eyes out, hoping and praying for a miracle. THANK YOU!!!!!!”
“He has made a remarkable transformation in just a few months. First, he noticed he was following instructions at a summer sports camp far more easily. He said that he wished he had done the program years ago. Now at school he is much happier and has more confidence. His school day is so much more productive as now he catches everything the teacher says.”