Start by teaching the child to read. Schools only do Social Justice horse crap anymore.
The answer is private school or a tutor. Public education in the USA is Liberal garbage and has been since the mid 1960’s.
I removed my daughter from the Plano, Texas ISD many years ago and put her in private school. She was throwing books at the wall in frustration when she couldn’t read. She was in the first or second grade at the time. Within three weeks the private school teacher had her reading two grade levels up.
I read in school. But after teaching roddlers to read, i think that if a kid is basically waiting around for school to start then something is fundamentally wrong.
Always have. Back about 1951 I was pestering my mother to teach me to read. Because of my birth date I would be a full year behind all my peers in entering school. Just about convinced when one day the old dragon that was the elementary school principle showed up. She wanted to welcome me as someone who would start school the next year. The dragon had a chummy talk with Mom and spent most of it convincing her not to dare try and teach me reading or simple math as it would make my ‘seamless integration into the school environment’ impossible. The curriculum was developed by highly educated super intelligent edumacationists who knew far more than some peasant like Mom.
With some reluctance Mom bought this steaming pile. I went to school next year and struggled horribly to read using the see and learn method. Then I got very ill and missed a whole year but the county sent a homebound instructor once a week. Great lady,. Mrs. Brown, a USAF colonel's wife. Hated look see and all I had for a solid year was phonics. Being stuck inside in bed I got good a reading a lot of stuff like the newspaper and could sound out almost any word. Sometimes in the science page I would find a word Mom didn't know. Her response was , “See this book. It is called a dictionary. Lets look this word up.” I to this day love to scan a dictionary. If your kid has academic troubles and he or she is not obviously having mental or developmental issues try and teach him or her yourself. Actually I thin almost any kid would do better with home schooling up to high school if you can just excite his or her natural intellectual curiosity. I know that my expedience with phonics and reading to fill the empty days made me a lot different than my peers. From then on I figured much of what we get told in schools and elsewhere is BS.
Reduce the counterproductive stimulus. Turn off TV, etc. not just for the child. When the whole house is reading: Reading happens. Sing simple songs, show the words.