STRATEGIES FOR LOW ACHIEVER'S

When dealing with slow learners, patience and grace are important virtues to remember. Instead of being ashamed, leaders, teachers and parents must help them reach their true potential. If we are to support students and faculty as connected learners and instructors, we must rethink our approach to academic technology architecture.

Connections enable the construction of pathways. The myriad of personalized and individual pathways is assuming an importance equal to that of the traditional pathways predetermined by higher education institutions.1 These new pathways are built out of the interplay of learners, faculty, and support teams—all on the foundation of IT infrastructure. Much like social networks, the new pathways and communities form organically, they come and go, and they often form in ways that can't be anticipated, requiring new levels of agility by all participants in order to take advantage of the opportunities they offer.

Not every child learns the same way or at the same pace. Not every child excels in the same areas; some are better readers while others are fascinated with numbers. Does this make one child smarter than another? Definitely not!

Seems like a lifelong tag suggesting that such children are non-achievers. On the other hand, slow learners are being a part of regular schools, thus only proving that they are not physically or mentally disabled but only pace disabled. The only problem with them?is that they learn concepts and achieve developmental milestones at a pace slower than their peers if they do not suffer from any other disabilities.

There are, however, instances in which some children are slower to mature and develop both fine and gross motor skills and comprehension and retention skills. Often times these children are labeled ‘slow learners’.

Personally, I despise this term. To label children as anything at all is deplorable, but to label them as ‘slow’ is demeaning and degrading–not to mention telling them they are not as good as others.

But nevertheless, there are children who do need extra help and who do need specialized teaching to allow them to learn and grow. Does this make them a slow learner? Maybe, but remember–if you tell someone they are something long enough and loud enough they will become just that.

Telling your child he needs extra attention

One of the most difficult tasks of parents and educators is to determine if a child is learning more slowly because they cannot keep up with others or because they choose not to keep up with others.

Children who are labeled ‘slow learners’ are those that:

Reach normal infant and toddler milestones later than the average child on a consistent basis. These milestones include crawling, walking, speech and vocabulary and motor skills such as clapping, hopping, skipping, recognizing eyes, ears, etc.

Have trouble concentrating–all children have limited attention spans. but those who have trouble concentrating for more than two or three minutes at a time and are unable to recall what they did in that time and/or repeat what they did without instruction or prompting later on, will likely be in need of specialized attention and be labeled ‘slow learners’.

Struggles with the simplest of concepts and has difficulty retaining what they learn. This is a true indicator of a child with a learning disability. But rather than focusing on the disability, focus on finding how to work with the disability to make it less of an issue.

Is socially immature or reclusive. Children who are labeled ‘slow learners’ will a) notice the fact that they are ‘slow’ or learning at a different pace or b) be singled out by the teacher and/or their peers as being ‘slow’. This is embarrassing, humiliating and demeaning to a child. Their self-esteem and confidence levels suffer tremendously and they withdraw in an effort to shield themselves from the pain–holding it inside themselves.

A parent’s responsibility

If indeed your child does have a learning disability, don’t try to explain it away or hide it. There is nothing to be ashamed of. Well, nothing unless you are making your child feel less than cherished, loved and important.

If your child is labeled a ‘slow learner’, then slow things down for them. Give them the grace and time they need and deserve to reach their potential. Provide for them the environment and tools necessary to excel.

Think about it–if your child was a gifted musician, wouldn’t you do whatever you could to make sure they were able to develop that talent to the fullest? No child deserves any less of a chance.

What you can do to help your child

Provide a quiet work/study area. Distractions are detrimental.

Keep assignments and homework sessions short. Again, it’s the attention span thing.

Be accessible. Help your child. Help doesn’t mean do the work for them, but help them work through the assignment giving clues, having them repeat the process or concept with similar questions and problems, etc.

Ask questions such as ‘what does that word mean?’ ‘do you see how that works?’ ‘why did you choose that answer?’.

Read to your child.

Be patient and consistent.

Do not allow them to give up on their work or themselves. If necessary, take a break, but always come back to the task and see it through to completion.

Don’t be overprotective. Labelling your child as a ‘slow learner’ only makes them feel slower. Don’t ever tell them they can’t accomplish something. Instead, help them find a way to get it done–in their own time.

Be their advocate. Stay connected with their teachers and make sure your child doesn’t fall through the cracks of the system.

Every child has potential. Not every child will be a doctor, nuclear scientist or college professor. But who cares! If they were, we’d be hungry, naked and wouldn’t have a cell phone to chat on, now would we.

Teachers and parents play pivotal roles in a slow learner’s life. Their support and motivation go a long way to help such children overcome their hurdles. This duly signifies that teachers and parents have added responsibility from schools and society toward them.

Creating a healthy and conducive environment for a slow learner is of utmost importance to improve their pace. Often teachers who have a slow learner in their class face grave problems: keeping up with the term syllabus, fear of losing empathy toward such students, and many others. We have put up a few motivation tips for teachers alike to help them cope with at least the basic issues.

STRATEGIES FOR “SLOW LEARNERS”

Contrary to common belief, slow learners in the regular classroom are neither rare nor unique. The student commonly called a slow learner is one who cannot learn at an average rate from the instructional resources, texts, workbooks, and learning materials that are designed for the majority of students in the classroom. These students need special instructional pacing, frequent feedback, corrective instruction, and/or modified materials, all administered under conditions sufficiently flexible for learning to occur. Slow learners are usually taught in one of two possible instructional arrangements:

1) A class composed mostly of average students, in which case up to 20%may be slow learners, or 2) a class specially designed for slow learners. Whether you meet slow learners in a regular class or special class, you will immediately feel the challenge of meeting their learning needs.

Their most obvious characteristic is a limited attention span compared to more able students. To keep these students actively engaged in the learning process requires more than the usual variation in presentation methods (direct, indirect), classroom climate (co-operative, competitive), and instructional materials (films, workbooks, co-operative games, simulations). If this variation is not part of your lesson, these students may well create their own variety in ways that disrupt your teaching. Other immediately noticeable characteristics of slow learners are their deficiencies in basic skills (reading, writing, and mathematics), their difficulty in comprehending abstract ideas, and most disconcerting, their sometimes unsystematic and careless work habits.

1.Compensatory Teaching-

Compensatory teaching is an instructional approach that alters the presentation of content to circumvent a student’s fundamental weakness or deficiency. Compensatory teaching recognizes content, transmits through alternate modalities (pictures versus words), and supplements it with additional learning resources and activities (learning centers and simulations, group discussions and co-operative learning). This may involve modifying an instructional technique by including a visual representation of content, by using more flexible instructional presentations (films, pictures, illustrations), or by Shifting to alternate instructional formats (self-paced texts, simulations, experience-oriented workbooks).

2. Remedial Teaching

This is an alternate approach for the regular class room teacher in instructing the slow learner. Remedial teaching is the use of activities, techniques and practices to eliminate weaknesses or deficiencies that the slow learner is known to have . For example deficiencies in basic math skills are reduced or eliminated by re-teaching the content that was not learned earlier. The instructional environment does not change, as in the compensatory approach. Conventional instructional techniques such as drill and practice might be employed.

3. Instructional Strategies for Slow Learners

While no single technique or set of techniques is sufficient teaching the slow learner, the suggestions that follow are a starting point for developing instructional strategies that specifically address the learning needs of the slow learner. Develop Lessons that Incorporate Students’ Interest s, Needs, and Experiences.

This helps address the short attention spans of slow learners. Also, these students should be made to feel that some of the instruction has been designed with their specific interests or experiences in mind. Oral or written autobiographies at the beginning of the year, or simple inventories in which students indicate their hobbies, jobs, and unusual trips or experiences can provide the structure for the lesson plans, special projects, or extra-credit assignments in the year. Frequently Vary Your Instructional Technique Switching from lecture to discussion and then to seat work provides the variety that slow learners need to stay engaged in the learning process. In addition to keeping their attention, variety in instructional technique offers them the opportunity to see the same content presented indifferent ways. This increases opportunities to accommodate the different learning styles that may exist among slow learners and provides some of the remediation that may be necessary.

4. Incorporate Individualized Learning Materials

Slow learners respond favorably to frequent reinforcement of small segments of learning. Therefore, programmed texts and interactive compute r instruction often are effective in remediation of basic skills of slow learners. In addition, an emphasis on frequent diagnostic assessment of the student progress, paired with immediate corrective instruction, often is particularly effective.

5. Incorporate Audio and Visual Materials

One common characteristic among slow learners is that they often learn better by seeing and hearing than by reading. This should be no surprise, because performance in basic skill areas, including reading usually is below grade level among slow learners. Incorporating films, videotapes, and audio into lessons helps accommodate the instruction to the strategies learning modalities among slow learners. Emphasizing concrete and visual forms of content also helps compensate for the general difficulty slow learners have in grasping abstract ideas and concepts.

6. Develop Your Own Worksheets and Exercises

Textbooks and workbooks, when written for the average student often exceed the functioning level of the slow learner and sometimes become more of a hindrance than an aid. When textbook materials are too difficult, or are too different from topics that capture your students’ interests, develop your own. Sometimes only some changes in worksheets and exercises are needed to adapt the vocabulary or difficulty level to the ability of your slow learners. Also, using textbooks and exercises intended for a lower grade could ease the burden of creating materials that are unavailable at your grade level.

7. Provide Peer Tutors for Students needing Remediation

Peer tutoring can be an effective ally to your teaching objectives, especially when tutors are assigned so that everyone being tutored also has responsibility for being a tutor. The learner needing help is not singled out and has a stake in making the idea work, because his or her pride is on the line, both as a learner and as a tutor.

8. Encourage Oral Expression Instead of Written Reports

For slow learners, many writing assignments go un - attempted or are begun only halfheartedly because these learners recognize that their written product will not meet even minimal writing standards. A carefully organized taped response to an assignment might be considered. This has the advantage of avoiding spelling, syntax, and writing errors.

9. When Testing Provide Study Aids

Study aids are advances organizers that alert students to the most important problems, content, or issues. They also eliminate irrelevant details that slow learners often laboriously study in the belief that they are important. The slow learner usually is unable to weigh the relative importance of competing instructional stimuli unless explicitly told or shown what is important and what is not. Example: test questions or a list of topics from which questions may be chosen help focus student effort.

10. Teach Learning Skills

You can increase learning skills by teaching note-taking, outlining, and listening. These skills are acquired through observation by higher ability students, but they must be specifically taught to slow learners. Unless your slow learners are actively engaged in the learning process through interesting concrete visual stimuli, there will be little contact emotionally and intellectually with the content you are presenting. This contact can be attained most easily when you vary your instructional material often and organize it into bits small enough to ensure moderate-to-high rates of success

11. Be patient with slow learners

The foremost aspect of teaching a slow learner is that the educator should be patient and consistent throughout the entire process. The core problem of slow learners’ education is their weak cognitive skills coupled with the slow speed learning. A teacher has to be understanding and patient toward their ability to get distracted easily and having a low attention span. Moreover, teachers must find creative ways to cope with this situation so that the entire class is not affected. One of them is patient repetition. Try repeating every basic instruction, keyword and concept time and again without being boring. Do not over speak, but over teach.

12. Seek school management’s help

Request the school to arrange special classes for slow learners after/before school. Also, check whether you can get a co-teacher or an assistant teacher for your class. This will help you concentrate better on them.

13. Engage fellow classmates in your efforts

Teach the other students to empathize with the special students. Specially ask them not to bully or tease slow learners. Inform them about their condition and how they could make a difference. Ensure you have these timely sessions in the slow learner’s absence.

14. Provide minimum homework

We all agree that homework although with its benefits is more of a burden for a child and her parent. Slow learners, in particular, find it difficult to be attentive throughout the school day, let alone coming home and completing homework assignments. For such children, quality matters over quantity. Having minimum homework would help them understand learning and reduce their anxiety. This, in turn, would maintain their enthusiasm toward school. An educator can assign and alter homework personally and leave out small details that may be of little importance. For example, a homework of writing an essay on an English chapter could be modified to reading the chapter twice, and telling the summary to the teacher would be a better idea.

15. Let a buddy teach

Peer tutoring works better for slow learners. When their teachers are of the same age, they get encouraged. Let them select 1 or 2 of his friends to form a study group. Assign the study group the task of reiterating the new teachings of the day and assisting with homework.

16.Encourage and Teach the right things

Invite them?to come forward during art classes, school activities, or volunteering. Recognize and reward their participation. This would do wonders to their self-confidence. Teach special skills rather than unnecessary skills. This may include following the correct instruction words (count, color, circle, etc.) or listening and focusing on keywords. Remember the main goal is to make them self-sufficient.

17.Give them special takeaways

Hand out special cheat sheets, mini dictionaries, or visually graphic information sheets. One good idea is to give lesson pamphlets for pinning them to their soft boards so that they are surrounded by constant reminders of lessons and activities. Do check out our stash of Math tips and tricks?to help motivate?them.

18. Praise and raise them

Always praise every tiny effort of a slow learner in front of the class or in public. This would raise their self-esteem and confidence.

19. Encourage constant Parent–Teacher Association

Work very closely with their parents. Ensure the homework and tasks assigned are successfully completed on a daily basis. Be accessible and open to communication. Make sure to listen out to parents’ problems and help to solve them. Conduct special meetings for their parents of apart from the general PTA meets.

20. MOST IMPORTANTLY

Demonstrate effective teaching, classroom organization and management skills in order to ensure that students' learning needs are appropriately addressed

?Monitor the effectiveness of their instructional methods as well as the learning profiles (preferences, characteristics, strengths, interests, talents, tyles, etc.) of the students they teach?

.Adjust or change their teaching methods as required to meet the learning needs of each of their students

?As part of their responsibilities as professional educators, engage in appropriate professional development and in-service activities, particularly in the areas of literacy and mathematics, in order to gain new knowledge, skills and attitudes that relate to teaching students who experience difficulties

?Maintain an awareness of the performance level of all students in their classes so that the school-based student services team can discuss those students experiencing difficulties.

Lastly, a few don’ts:

Do not reprimand in front of the class. You may do that in private.

Do not emphasize on writing, concentrate on reading. Oral education is more beneficial for them.

Do not let them quit trying. Encourage them to continue their hard work to complete their tasks even if it means postponing it.

Do not be overprotective. Let their slow learning not become their introduction.

?We all need to remember and timely remind ourselves while teaching slow learners that it is okay to let them learn things slowly than not learn at all. If you find this post beneficial, please leave a comment.