How do I teach kids with big learning gaps?

You can teach the fundamentals well now, so the kids who stump you are not a sign you are failing. They are the edge of what you have learned so far. A child with a real gap or a difference does not respond to the methods that work on the rest of the room, and that is disorienting precisely because you know your usual approach is good. It just is not for them.\nThe move here is to stop trying to bring the child up to your lesson and instead go down to where the child actually is. A big gap almost always means a missing earlier step, something the class covered years ago that never landed for this one. Your job becomes detective work: find the exact rung that is missing, and start there, not where the curriculum says they should be. It feels slow, but it is the only ground that holds.\nPick one child who is stumping you and, this week, sit with them one on one for a few minutes, just to find where their understanding actually breaks. Do not teach yet. Just locate the gap. Once you know the real starting point, the path forward almost draws itself, and you are teaching a person instead of fighting a mystery.