“No student is weak or bright by birth; it’s the way we feed the knowledge and how they imbibe it which makes them so. Many parents feel apprehensive about their child’s pace of learning and put pressure on them. This is a wrong practice.” – India Today
You’ve certainly heard the tale of The Tortoise and the Hare. Where the slower tortoise eventually wins the race. Parents of children who are slow learners get needlessly stressed, not realising that in time, their ‘Tortoise’ children might overtake all the ‘hares’ that are running the race.
If that’s not convincing enough, here’s an interesting fact you might not have known already: Albert Einstein was himself a slow learner!
Do we really wish to take out our frustrations on our kids, because they are not getting good grades in class? Might we not rather change our approach for addressing them?
In this article you will find a compilation of wonderful activities for slow learners that will help your little one who might be struggling with the process of learning. But first, a look at what a slow learner really is.
Who Is a Slow Learner?
A child can be defined as a slow learner, if their thinking skills develop at a considerably slower rate than that of their peers. Bear in mind here, that the child will go through the exact same developmental stages as their peers, albeit at a slower rate. What are the characteristics of slow learners?
Needless to say, slow learners learn slowly. However, they cannot link one learning to another unless they are specifically told. Also, they are unable to apply certain concepts in different situations without help. That is why they cannot do abstract teaching, and instead need teaching of the rigorous kind.
That’s not all. Slow learners have social issues, too. As you can see, it’s not an easy journey for them and we must do our best to help them progress.
Did you know that a rigid and fast-paced teaching style in schools creates challenges for certain children to learn? They are often termed slow learners.
How to Deal with Slow Learners?
Effective learning is one of the teaching approaches to deal with slow learners. However, what is effective learning? It is a teaching learning process where the focus is on good understanding, intelligence, perseverance, and opportunities for growth.
It is important to create an action plan for slow learners using a combination of the mentioned effective learning methods.
9 Efficient Effective Learning Methods to Help Slow Learners
The good news is, there are several things you can do to bring about a significant change in the performance of slow learners, and subsequently uplift them.
- Repeat each point more often than you normally would
- Make those lessons interesting
- Use audio and visual aids
- Praise and reward them
- Guide them to the Main Points of Lessons
- Set Realistic Expectations
- Improve their concentration power
- Try and partner them with a stronger peer
- Teach them the importance of learning
Of course, slow learners need to hear things more often than their peers, to have the concepts being taught soundly register in their minds.
Note: When doing this in the classroom, teachers need to keep other kids interested by asking them questions and having them answer.
When looking at how to motivate slow learners, you want to mix things up. Have them participate in games and activities for slow learners, pertaining to the lessons you teach them. This will make learning all the more fun for them. Moreover, you will find that not only are they able to understand concepts more easily, but they will sharpen their social skills, too. In addition, efforts to make the lessons interesting is one of the crucial action plan step for slow learners.
How to motivate slow learners? Audio and visual aids are one of the interesting ways to encourage slow learners to gain knowledge. When looking at how to deal with slow learners, have you considered the fact that they might be struggling on account of their difficulty in reading?
It might be a great idea to bring in things like movies, pictures and even audio, to help teach them things they would not understand by reading alone. For instance, when teaching a book to students, you could hand out visuals of elements like the characters involved, and timelines of the plot.
When looking for how to motivate slow learners, this one’s at the top of the list. Make sure that you praise them, even when they achieve the smallest goals they have set out to achieve. Further, offer them rewards for those milestones completed, that will egg them on to work even harder to complete the next milestone.
Slow learners might be overwhelmed with all that supplementary information that comes along with every lesson. It’s best that you guide them to the salient points. When you are teaching them, make sure you identify and explain the learning points of the lesson. Have them use study guides for tests, so that they can know what information they need to be focusing on.
Did you know with the right kind of support and love kids who are slow learners can reach their full potential?
Parents of children who are slow learners should not set the bar too high, where it comes to the expectations they set. Instead, they should be patient with their kids and not needlessly hurry or pressurise them. The mistake you want to avoid is teaching them like other kids who are fast learners. Set smaller, more realistic targets for them and see the positive effects that have on their progress.
Use Educational Puzzles to stimulate their Imagination
When looking for activities for slow learners to get engrossed in, try tossing in some educational puzzles. When you vary their instructional technique by using active learning experiences like this one, the results can be profound.
Slow learners struggle with concentration skills, so it is a really great idea to focus on their power of concentration, with a view to subsequently sharpen their learning skills. You can request their teacher to let them sit in the front rows of the classroom, so they can better understand the concepts being taught. At home, ensure they have a space that is quiet and free from distractions, to help them focus.
It might be a great idea to provide an invaluable support system for your slow learner, by grouping them with a stronger peer. This will also help the higher-performing peer, as it will give them a chance to teach your slow learner, and in the process firmly cement in their minds the information they have already gleaned.
Slow learners are often disillusioned by learning. It might be worth your while to talk about distinguished personalities, who like them, were slow learners. Case in point, Albert Einstein. It’s probably the best way to get them to enjoy learning. These are some of the crucial effective learning methods to help children who are slow learners.
Conclusion
Slow learners are children who go through the exact developmental stages as their peers, however at a slower rate. These children find it hard to link one learning to another unless they are told specifically. In this article, we explained who is a slow learner, how to deal with a slow learner, and 9 efficient effective learning methods to help your child. Most importantly, we have also provided details on the characteristics of slow learners, which will clear up any questions you may have regarding your child’s learning habits. Which of the above mentioned strategies are effective? Please share your valuable thoughts.
Here at EuroKids, each and every child is equally important. We pay special attention to children who are slow learners, doing our very best to give them the wings to soar high. We encourage all parents of slow learners, to give them all the encouragement and support, to help them reach their full potential.
For informative and accurate articles on all things related to your new born-toddler’s development, growth, health and nutrition, follow EuroKids Blogs and do check out our nationally recognized preschools – EuroKids for the first step in your kid’s educational journey!
