Teaching Strategies for Slow Learners

 

Education is a basic right of each and every individual be it men, women , children, adolescents or anyone no matter in which stage of their lives they might be. Provision of Education is never age bound thus there is an equal opportunity for the individuals to obtain and quench their thirst for knowledge at any point in their lifetime. It is likely crucial to accentuate the importance of education for normal children as well as the children who are a bit slow and have any sort of disability, so they can cope up with the challenging world in their later years.

 A slow learner is described as a person who has a low learning capacity or slightly weak in grasping new ideas and concepts. Moreover children who are slow learners  have their inclusion not only in the specialized schools but also in the normal schools.Therefore it is important that the teacher who are teaching in normal schools should have the capacity to teach slow learners as teaching them can be entirely different from that of other children who don't need special attention. For the said purpose there are varied techniques that a teacher should opt for in order to tackle with such students and these techniques should be learnt as a major part of their training.

 The IQ of a normal child lies between 85 to 110, any child that scores less than that is considered to be a slow learner and requires special learning techniques to understand various materials. Not to forget that every child is special in their own way, they have their own strengths and weaknesses as well. The key to deal with the children is to understand them and see potential in them and encourage them to be the best version of themselves.

 Besides numerous concerns and  special needs, slow learning is another special need for which such children require special attention and education techniques to be used by the teacher which is certainly not possible for the teachers who do not acquire knowledge regarding how to tackle such cases.

 The major problems faced by slow learners are as follows:

 

❏      Struggling to understand abstract information, concepts and ideas.

❏      Limited vocabulary due to memorizing problems.

❏      Little or no motivation towards achieving certain goals.

❏      Likely to have least understanding ability of materials as compared to other fellows of their age.

❏      Requires material to be repeated more often to memorize or understand it.

 The presence of such students is quite high in almost every institution and there is a high probability that they do not receive the attention that they need due to unseen obstacles that are not identified directly.Considering the importance that there is no visible difference or disability in the slow learners makes it more difficult for teachers and the parents as well as the child seem like any other normal child to their eyes. This can create many problems for the child as parents as well as their teachers carry high expectations from them as they are unable to understand the barriers that the student might have facing and are unable to communicate his suffering in this regard.

 

Teaching Techniques for Slow Learners:

 There are multiple techniques the the teacher should opt for in order to deal with slow learners:

 

❏      Repeat a learning point more than you would do for a normal child, as the slow learners need to hear a point or a concept a few more times in order to grasp and clear understanding.

 

❏      Include audio and visual elements to the lecture as such students who find it difficult to read may grasp the concept real quick and you can use different media to repeat the concepts to make them memorize it.

 

❏      Identify the main points from the lessons as such might feel overwhelmed with additional information and may find it difficult to chalk out or identify the main point that should be remembered.

 

❏      When teaching subjects like maths teacher must employ real life objects.Use drawings and props, like pennies, beans, or marbles, to help students visualize the numbers.

 

❏      Such students need serious attention in terms of reading skills, so it is important to give some extra time to the group of slow learners as compared to the other students.

 

❏      Help them speed up their study time by teaching them efficient methods of outlining, note-taking, and memorizing.Give your class demonstrations of note taking and outlining.Teach students to break down big tasks into small pieces so they aren't overwhelming.

 However, it is quite evident that the high prevalence requires that the teacher who is being hired in the normal schools should be able to identify such students and should have the ability and knowledge regarding the techniques that must be followed in order to take out the best from such students. This is understandable that the teachers of normal schools are not specialized in this area but if the school has a significant inclusion of such students then they should provide the adequate training to the teachers as well as their top most priority.