Struggling Student

There are several students in my clinical class that seem to be struggling.  One in particular seems to be working soooooo hard, and really gets upset if she does not get the correct answer.  This little girl is one of the best behaved students in the class.  She always sets there quietly and pays very close attention.  According to the teacher she is involved in different programs to help with her work including after school tutoring.  On Monday 2/27/2012, I was asked to teach a math lesson on fractions.  I watched all the students very closely to see if they were grasping what I was trying to teach.  (This class is really struggling with fractions, so I paid close attention to be sure not to confuse them even more!)  During this lesson I asked several students to give me the answer, and this little girl tried several times to answer some of the questions.  I could tell just by watching her that she really wanted to solve these problems, but no mater how many times she tried, she still just didn’t understand.  Finally, toward the end of the lesson she seemed to be catching on, and I could see her smiling slightly as if she was proud of herself.  The problem is that today 2/29/12 when I attended clinical and the students were moving further into the fraction lesson, she seemed just as confused as she was before.  When I talked to her about what we covered earlier, she didn’t seem to remember what we went over.  Well, she remembered doing the fraction problems; she just could not remember the processes on how to solve the problems.  I discussed this with one of the teachers in the classroom, and she instructed me that this little girl is one of the hardest working students she has ever met, but there are many things and concepts that she really struggles with including math and reading.