We are Not Smarter than the Kids We Work With

Every Saturday, the Whampoa Learning volunteers work with kids that usually don't have the best grades in class - far from it. At age 9, many of them can't spell simple words, don't know how letters sound phonetically, and many of them believe they aren't really smart at all.

And it's easy for us adults, no matter how well meaning, to fall into the trap of our own preconceptions.

Last weekend, we were working with 9-year-old D. He looks like he's 7 and he seems to have a max attention span of 10 minutes - or rather, the longest we've been able to hold his attention is 10 minutes. Mark, a volunteer who is an engineer, had alternated b/t reading to / with him, playing a vowel "hotdog" game in the iPad, chasing him around the room to get back to "work".

Then D saw me playing Memory Matrix with another kid, and wanted to play too. It's one of those games where squares flash on the screen, disappear, then you click on where the square were. We saw him getting up to 8 squares, and then 9, and then 12. When he'd gotten the hang of it - he was using two hands. Fingers bouncing on the screen as if he were playing the piano.  

NONE of the other volunteers - engineers, execs - could get close to his score.

So there - D's got an incredible memory. And btw - he also does mental math faster than any of us. But because he can't read, anything above Primary 2 math is a lost cause for him since most everything requires reading and reasoning.

Now - what do we do w/ that information? Where can we get expert guidance on how we can help D learn? Any ideas anyone?