Obviously you are very aware of your child's strengths and weaknesses.  It may be time for a professional evaluation, though, since he seems to be struggling to gain fundamental academic skills.  The results could help you further identify very specific strengths that could be used in school to help in work on weaker areas. Check with your school to identify how to get a complete individual assessment.

Young children often develop a love of dinosaurs. If you have a computer and are connected to the Internet, there may be web sites where your son could learn more about dinosaurs with your help, which should help him see that learning can be enjoyable and that there are many ways to learn.

Many professional organizations recommend limiting children's time watching television because this takes away from time doing other developmentally appropriate activities such as playing outside and creative activities. I recommend that you have your son choose no more than 2 hours of television per day.  In the time created, he could be looking at age-appropriate books with the help of an adult or working on his artistic activities.

Your son sounds like he has great potential and now is definitely the time to make sure he is progressing well in the foundations of academics.

Jeanne H. Brockmyer, Ph. D.
education.com expert clinical child psychologist