How To Teach Slow Learners And Effective Methods To Improve Slow Learning

It is the duty of an educational institution and its teachers to find out the children who are backward in learning and understand their problems and help them.  In every class, there will be some slow learners. However, with a little extra care and attention, these slow learners can catch up with other students. You can modify pedagogical methodologies to keep other learners on the same page. Let’s look at some of the characteristics of slow learners to better understand them and it will also help you identify slow learners among your students.

What is Slow Learning?

Slow learners do not have learning disabilities and should not be compared to children with disabilities. But they academically stand behind other children,  perform poorly in school, and exhibit a discrepancy between expected and actual achievement based on their intellectual ability assessment scores. Slow learners are children whose IQ ranks between 70 – 90%. Their educational attainment is less than 80% of what is normal for their age. Slow learners are just as talented as normal children and therefore need more time and attention from a specific perspective to achieve success. Therefore, education should be done mainly in schools to accommodate slow learners.

Teaching Methods to Slow Learners

Teachers and parents need to help children who are slow learners to study. Remedial classes help slow learners to catch up with other children in learning. Remedial education is often the first step in addressing a student who is struggling in a core content area, and then the main role of a teacher is to identify potential learning gaps that are hindering the student’s progress in the general education classroom.  In schools, teachers should provide learning materials for children, provide regular feedback and monitor the progress of that student. 

Different learning exercises can be prepared to help students understand difficult topics and allow them space to go through the concepts, starting with the basics if necessary. With this type of learning method, children can grasp the subjects easily, which instils confidence in them and motivates them to grasp the intricacies of those subjects and makes the process of understanding easier.

Effective Methods To Improve Slow Learning

Slow learners may learn more easily from peer interaction. As they belong to the same age groups, they might be able to break down the complex learning topics into manageable simple bits that may facilitate the learning process of the students who are lagging behind. 

Appreciate students’ small achievements. Such performances will motivate them to perform better and improve their performance. Lack of motivation kills interest in learning in students. Also giving small gifts to the students helps them to progress in their studies. These  small rewards can have a great impact on their outlook toward learning.

Active learning can have a significant impact on their scores. Once they start relating the concepts to real life situations, they can understand the concepts in a better way that they will never forget.

Some Activities for Slow Learners

• Organise games related to their learning topic in order to still curiosity towards it. 
• Conduct group activities to boost interactive learning and confidence among them. 
• Rectify their mistakes and guide them properly to formulate their ideas into words. 
• Come up with oral activities where students are encouraged  to express their ideas. 
• Curate exercise and homework with lower difficulty levels and gradually increase the difficulty level for the students to get acquainted with the topics at a slower pace

Improving the performance of slow learners can be quite challenging, but the methods mentioned above can be implemented to help them. The success of teachers lies in the collective growth of all the students in class.