Handling Slow Learners - A Challenge for School Teachers

HANDLING SLOW LEARNERS – A CHALLENGE FOR SCHOOL TEACHERS

Every student has his own pace of learning. His learning capacity or cognition depends on heredity as well as environmental factors. The heredity factors are those which he receives from his parents while the environmental factors include the socioeconomic conditions, the peer group, society, diet, fitness, exposure to changes in the society etc. His individual traits such as intelligence, age, motivational levels, achievements, socio-personal conditions, attitude, aptitude, interest, attention, practice also play a vital role in his learning process.

When every child in a class is in the learning process and the pace of his learning depends on so many factors, how can we label someone as a slow learner?

In a class of students, some are very active, energetic and scholastically well ahead of the others. Some of them are neither very enthusiastic nor very lethargic in participating in the classroom activity and somehow manage to complete their work by one or the other means.  

But there are a few students who are indifferent and uninterested in the teaching - learning process. These students usually do not like school, do not perform well in the examinations, do not respond to any activity in the classroom, are in a confused state of mind and have fewer friends. These students are usually shy, don’t like to interact with others and have learning disabilities. Such students whose learning pace is very slow and have a dull aptitude for learning can be termed as slow learners. 

There are many factors which are responsible for this slow pace of learning. The student may not be interested in the subjects, may be malnourished or ill, maybe afraid of the teacher or some of his classmates, there might be a disturbance in the family or he might have gone through some bad experience. Some of these issues can be addressed and solved by the teacher whereas some of them like disturbance in the family are certainly out of her control.

Now the question arises that once a teacher has identified a slow - learner in her class, how should she handle the child?

Handling a slow-learner carefully and improving the child’s learning speed is though not very easy for the teacher but certainly not impossible either. Once she identifies a slow-learner, the teacher should go through the case study (Read my blog on Case Study – A Tool for School Teachers) of the student. She should try to find out the problem areas and work out on all possible solutions.

Then she should talk to the parents and co-teachers to get a better understanding of the child. Taking the parents and co-teachers into confidence is most important as improving the performance of the child cannot be done by the teacher alone. It should always be a cooperative effort. When parents and teachers work in co-ordination, the child’s morale and performance can be boosted very easily.

The parents should constantly speak to the child and try to make him speak out his problems. They should try to build up the confidence levels in the child. The child’s likes and dislikes should be considered. The parents should always try to keep the child away from any incident which may have a negative impact on the child. Showering love, making the child feel secure and constant counseling by the parents proves to be vital in the transformation of the child.

The teacher’s role is also equally important. The teacher has to put in more efforts than the parents as she has to attend to many students in her class. However the teacher should first of all trust the child, have faith in his abilities and then make special efforts to provide the necessary guidance to the slow learner. The teacher should also help the child forget / overcome his weaknesses and showcase his strengths.

The teacher also should speak to the child, counsel him keeping in view his problem areas and motivate the child, changing the technique as per the response and attitude of the child.  One of the best and time – tested method to motivate the child would be rewarding him on every achievement. The rewards, selected as per the child’s liking, should be given in accordance with the level of achievement.

She should take the help of co-teachers and also counsel the child’s peer group in their approach towards the child. The areas in which the child is interested must be given top priority and the teacher should help him to excel in those areas. For instance, if a child is more interested in drawing and painting, he should be provided proper guidance in that area to perform better.

History has a long list of people who were once slow learners but have turned out to be great achievers and highly successful just because of someone who had placed trust in them and given the confidence to follow their passions. Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Nelson Rockefeller, John Lennon of The Beatles’, Winston Churchill, Walt Disney, Pablo Picasso, Leonardo Da Vinci are some of the slow learners who went to become great achievers in the field of their choice. 

It has to be understood that in spite of constant coordinated efforts by the teachers and parents, a considerable change in the performance of the slow learner cannot be brought in a day or two. This takes time as such children are usually reticent and need lot of confidence to come out of the shell and open up. So patience and perseverance on the part of the parents and teachers is most needed.