How do you help a Kindergarten student learn the basics, when this is their second year of Kindergarten?

There is also the possibility that he just wasn’t developmentally ready for kindergarten yet. Even though standards say that kids go to kindergarten at a certain age, and state standards decide what they’re supposed to learn at that age, it doesn’t mean that every child IS going to learn those things.

Young children develop at different rates – sometimes extremely different. This boy sounds like he’s extremely visual and needs the visual stimulation to learn. He also sounds like he needs to move in order to learn, which is very common with boys that age. It most likely isn’t that he isn’t capable of learning the information…it’s that he just plain doesn’t care. He’d probably rather be out exploring in a field or sandbox somewhere.

If possible, I would suggest doing some one-on-one activities where he gets to move and manipulate brightly-colored objects, things like a beach ball with sight words written on various sections or different sized blocks with numbers on them.

My son fit this description when he was that age. When he was 6, I had him do spelling while bouncing a ball back and forth. He did his math drills by filling in answers on laminated flashcards that were stuck up around the room with poster tacky. He practiced writing words on the sidewalk with chalk. While things like this may not be directly transferable to the classroom, they can be modified. Let him work with foamie letters to identify letters and words, let him walk on a number line to identify numbers, and give him brightly colored things to work with.

Not all children learn in the same way, and not all of them should be taught in the same way. I understand that classrooms need a modicum of standardization – my parents are elementary teachers – but they also have a responsibility to teach the children, not just the curriculum. This is easier said than done, but it IS doable.

He was just not developmentally ready for Kindergarten. I am sure this year he will be able to pay attention a bit longer. Don’t make him count to fifty. Let him master 1-10 first, then 1-20\, etc.

We put so much pressure on these kids. He knows he is struggling. Find things he can master, praise him and gradually add more.

This child needs to get into a program like child-find. You need to talk to his parents and see if they have the same problem at home. Its probably not that he is not willing to learn, its probably that his mind is racing to much to focus on what your saying. Professional help is the only way to go here. Just make sure when you talk with the mother, your really gentle about it; most parents are really defensive. ( I know I am)

This child needs to be assessed and tested for learning disabilities and possible ADD. The teacher will have to put him on an EPP and he will probably work with the resource teacher. There is lots you can do but it is the teachers responsibility to plan the activities. Be careful..TA’s are supposed to follow the teacher’s direction only.