I have been homeschooling my granddaughter for 5 years. Last year I had her repeat 3rd grade. For the simple fact it did not seem that she could not comprehend or retain the information. It seems that we are having the same thing going on this year. She does good the first day with the new information she learned . It is like when she went to sleep she forgot to.
It could be that the method/curriculum you have chosen is just not engaging or interesting to her. I had the same problem. I would teach everything one day and the next day it was almost as though I hadn’t taught anything. I was using traditional style curriculum at the time, Abeka, CLE etc…
So after a few years of this I made a huge jump by trying Sonlight and Heart of Dakota, with this change in approach I found information was more easily retained because my children were engaged in what they were learning and they were working with the material.
I am no longer using the above curriculum because I made another huge jump as I loved how this worked. I am now using a method where History/Social studies and Science are family subjects and even though I have picked the era we are learning about and the Science topic, they are able to go deeper into it according to interests. I.e this years History is Ancient Civilizations, so when we learn about Egypt one child might research/do a project on Pyramids and the other may choose to learn more about jewelry. Doing it this way I find the information is more easily retained because it is according to interests and learning styles.
Hope this helps 
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I agree some w/ previous poster that it may not stimulate her enough. Also I’ve noticed with some of the curriculum they seem to present things one day then something else the next and so on and then a few lessons down #1 is presented again. I have found that if I present #1 I also find a way to make a game with it example - fractions (we are in second grade) so I go over fractions on day 1 - the actual teaching, then she does an activity with fractions like matching pizza fraction pictures with the written number form of a fraction, and then I have her do a workbook page re: fractions. The next day during math review I might add a blurb about fractions in there and if she’s having difficulties I do a quick review and have her do another game to apply the concepts again and it may continue for a few days but eventually she gets it but then I don’t abandon the concept - I keep it in the daily math review like draw me a picture to represent 2/3 and she does or vice versa, and then every once in awhile during the next few weeks I have her do the fraction activity games during free time so that it’s like a review for her. Maybe something like this would be beneficial for her.
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My daughter has this problem. (She has aspergers though) When she was given the IQ test at our local childrens hospital it showed she had problems with her working memory. The advice we have been given for this is to teach her the information in short 10-15 min spurts to help with retaining it. We also just do year round schooling (which we did because of her not retaining the information before the diagnoses). She doesn’t always retain things and it can be scary. We are on our 4th year homeschooling and she is 9. If I were to put her in school she’d be behind her peers in math due to her working memory. I’ve also had to change curriculum. Also, since my dd is a visual learner…the more visual and hands on things I can incorporate the more it helps her with retaining. Also, a lot of times very smart or even gifted kids can have problems with working memory.
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Thank You for your reply. Abeka didn’t work for us either. We do more interactive curriculums now. We are more of an eclectic homeschooling type. For English this year we use BJU. It just seems the older she is getting the more I noticed this becoming more of a problem. I think when they are younger you think it is an immerturity problem, but the older she gets it becomes more of a problem.
You may have something hidden going on that you may need testing to know for sure how to address. A problem with working memory also came to my mind. Processing speed could also have an impact as well. Many bright kids struggle in school because of one or both. You may also have a “blocked learning gate” as Dianne Craft explains it on her website, where information coming in one way (auditory, visual, etc) isn’t being processed correctly by the brain. If you feel like you want to do more reading yourself before testing your child, The Misunderstood Child by Brooke and Fernette Eide is a good read. It is a little outdated, but not much and very helpful. The authors are neurologists that specialized in learning challenges but now focus mainly on dyslexia. If your child struggles are more around reading or what she has read, you may want to research dyslexia. If the struggles are in math, read up on dyscalcula, and read up on dysgraphia for writing struggles. Some people can have all three as well. If you are seeing it in every subject and topic, the quickest way to get to the bottom of find out what is going on will be testing with a educational psychologist or a neuropsychologist. The testing can identify both strengths and weaknessses and help you know how to tech your child best for the information to stick and also see where the strengths are to continue to develop them so they also feel successful at something.
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