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In this article we will discuss about how to teach slow learner children.
Special Methods of Teaching for Slow Learner:
Educationalists as well as psychologists have conducted many experiments to devise special methods of teaching for slow learners. Their results indicate that the slow learners require short and simple methods of instruction based on concrete experiences. Verbal instructions should be limited.
Educational excursions to places of historical, geographical, scientific and cultural interest may be conducted. The use of pictures, models, charts, films and other audio-visual aids will also be profitable. An employment project method is helpful in imparting education. As the slow learner needs security, an atmosphere of assurance and love should be created. Direct experiences and concrete example are great help for children.
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(1) Home Visits by the Teacher:
To make family environments sophisticated and healthy, the teachers should take an interest in visiting the homes of the parents and advise them accordingly. An unfavourable home environment and autarchic homes are important factors for slow learning. Teachers may suggest some remedial measures for slow learners to the parents relating to home environment.
(2) Maintenance of Progress Record:
Assessment of children’s progress is essential for recommending their entry into a higher group. There should be a well-planned regular evaluation of the progress of the children in all curricular or co-curricular aspects. Records of evaluation should be preserved properly. Progress charts and cumulative record cards may be great help for them. These records are essential for individualized treatment. Considered case history with assessments helps the teachers to provide better educational treatment for slow learners.
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(3) Programmed Instruction:
The programmed instruction material can be prepared for slow learners.
Teaching Techniques of Slow Learners:
Individualization of treatment should be adapted to teacher slow learners children according to the needs of a particular type of mental ability.
User of Appropriate Methods of Learning:
The various aspects of growth physical emotional and intellectual should not be considered in isolation but as parts of a dynamic integrated process.
1. Providing Motivation:
The slow learners are to be motivated. It can be done through a sense of satisfaction through the sense of accomplishment. He can learn if the situation given him security and confidence. Good teacher pupil relationship is good at all times.
2. Learning Readiness:
Activities should be planned to provide readiness for learning for preschool stage of all kinds’ intellectual, emotional social and physical. The teacher has to recognize whether the child is ready of the next stage by systematic observation of his performances.
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3. A Practical Approach:
Practical approach based on meaning and usefulness. The slow learning children would be more at home if they can hear, see and touch and which are within this experience. Teaching which is related to practical human experience is more successful than teaching which involves abstractness, symbols and delayed gratification.
4. Concept Formation:
Slow learners children are capable of making simple generalizations but they must be given ample opportunities to experiment, explore and discuss. The child can be shown or let to discover relationships, similarities, his curiosity is aroused, and his interest can be expanded and enriched. In a nurturing classroom he will be willing to experiment and learn by doing, his concepts are to be developed.
5. Grading of Work:
In case of SL children the materials are to be graded to ensure continuous progress and feelings of success. This is real difficulty for the teacher as text-books are written by others. The teacher can make his own material or analyse the task and make a graded presentation to ensure learning by the slow learning pupil.
6. Assessment of Progress:
It is recommended that of the SL child a cumulative record be kept of his achievements over a period, so that individualized treatment is ensured. The child here can compete against himself.
7. Consolidation:
Frequent repetition, adequate revisions are to be encouraged for better consolidation of the learned material.
8. Activity Methods:
The child must do things with his body, his head and his brain. He must be given freedom to learn and experience. He must experiment and experience.
Cooperation among Various Professionals:
In diagonals, treatment and research cooperation between teachers, doctors, psychologists, administrator and social workers is vital. The psychologist can make a contribution by providing a detailed picture of the child’s personality, by discovering any anomalies in development, perceptual and conceptual difficulties, and intellectual strength and weakness emotional abnormalities and by investigating learning difficulties generally, including treatment procedures. The importance of social workers is greatly felt but it has not taken off.
Parent Education and Guidance:
There are many difficulties that can arise because of wrong attitude in home. The improvements brought by teachers of SL children are often nullified by bad home conditions and parental neglect or ignorance. Parents therefore need advice on how to promote development of their handicapped children. The parents therefore are to be guided and in this context a social worker would be of great assistance.
Developing Skills and Abilities among Slow Learners:
The measure task of a teacher to develop the following skills and abilities among slow children:
1. Teaching for verbal ability and skills.
2. Developing Reading skills and competency.
3. Teaching for developing number ability and skills.
4. Teaching for developing Creative Arts Skills.
1. Teaching for Verbal Ability and Skills:
In school verbal instructions and explanations are quite important. Many of the slow learners have retarded speech articulation, vocabulary, brief sentence, grammatical errors. Emotional reluctance is the chief reason for their backwardness of expression. They need a great deal of speech stimulation through play and through talking to adults, listening to them.
Expression is often lacking in order, sequence and selectivity. Error in usage are quite frequent i.e., he runned, he catched etc. These children are also poor in remembering messages and listening to instructions, stories and other forms of spoken words. Attention therefore, should be given to listening and reproduction skills.
Poor language may be due to several factors—poor background of speech and language at home, a limited background of experience, emotional and social factors and the limitation of the slow learner’s thinking capacity.
These children can develop their language by talking about what they have seen or done, by discussing what they are going to do and how they are going to do it. These are most effective for they evoke stronger feelings of enthusiasm and interest and therefore expression.
The teacher should guide and stimulate the child’s thinking about his experiences e.g., what they noticed while conceding to school, climbing tree, making and explaining scrap books, explaining what they learned in television, role playing in a drama in school, listening to stories, puppetry allowing the puppets to speak to each other conversation among peer groups. The fact that many children do acquire a better form of speech for use in school does suggest that progress can be made.
2. Developing Reading Skills and Competency:
Reading similarly is not an isolated skill. It is an aspect of the integrated language development programme which includes speaking, writing and spelling. For slow learning or backward children a sound reading programme is necessary.
It should consist of:
(a) The Development of Reading Readiness:
In the early stages visual method should be used. Teacher should concentrate on the acquisition of slight vocabulary of meaningful words. The classroom should contain plentiful materials to allow activities at different levels of maturity, sand, water, paint, clay, toys, colour, picture books, scrap books, group models.
These increase knowledge and interests, vocabulary, powerful expression, improved work habits, social relationships, interest in reading, classification, labeling, visual discrimination by looking at pictures, jigsaw puzzles, matching games, drawing and tracing pictures, personal and social development through play.
(b) The Acquisition of Sight Vocabulary of Meaningful Words:
The teacher gives written sentences and words and asks the child to draw a picture on the opposite page about what she/he read. The child was asked to trace over the word and sentence. The teacher makes independent sentence cards and word cards independent of the book. In this way, the child recognizes the words. Each child learns comprehensions and it becomes an ego involved activity. In this way the slow learning children learned, consolidated their learning, and learned vocabulary. The child gradually learns through supplementary materials.
(c) The Development of Independent Reading Aided by the use of Phonic Analysis and Other Word Recognition Techniques:
Backward children are usually deficient in these abilities and require a systematic programme of word recognition exercises of reading progress is to be maintained. It should be a right, isolated, elaborate course of phonic drills or word form, and an interesting, integrated controlled attack on the analysis and synthesis of sound units which will lead to continuing improvements in reading for content and ideas.
(d) The Development of Speedy, Relaxed, Silent Reading for Content and Ideas:
The choice of books is important at this stage to cater for the children’s individual interests and reading levels Backward SL boys should be little less difficult than their level or understanding SL girls like family situation books, fairy stories and books on animals. With these children particular attention has to be paid for word meaning comprehension and development of ideas.
Writing plays an important part in reading process and programme. It assists visual discrimination and memory and the relation between visual and auditory patterns.
Some fundamental cognitive incapacity underlay reading problems of slow learner. In fact, it requires a significant change in the attitudes. The anxiety which is likely to control the slow learner should be reduced by giving continuous encouragement and initial success. The crux of the matter is motivation. The non-reader is to be persuaded that reading is interesting, it can be useful to him and he can master it.
Remedial teaching must take into account the child’s weakness ‘noticed at reading. Silent reading and refreshing are quite significant. Silent reading can be brought by work sheets with instructions. The other method is Kinaesthetic method i.e., tracing and writing words. Systematic work in spelling and a technique of learning would be important in doing so.
3. Teaching for Developing Number Ability and Skills:
Arithmetic is a way of thinking about number. Arithmetic teaching therefore is concerned with application of number system to the arrangement, manipulation, and measurement of quantities and the development of the ability to deal with member relationship symbolically and by abstraction in the absence of concrete objects. They should be taught through concrete-pictorial-symbolic models in addition to general pedagogical concerns being kept in mind. Piagetian approach to teaching number system and arithmetic is quite effective i.e., conservation and formal logical operations.
The Piagetian approach to teaching of concept of number and arithmetic through conservation exercises have been exemplary, e.g., more less, same or less, long and short, heavy and light, fast and slow, middle and end, before and after. The readers are here referred to a book written by the author on this approach. The examples of mass, quantity, number area, volume movement are all found in the text.
4. Teaching for Developing Creative Arts:
It has been said earlier that most slow learners enter into schools with needs of achievement and success to counteract their loss of confidence and sense of inadequacy. Many children are able to achieve success or have it contrived for them in one or other creative activities. On this foundation the academic achievement can be based.
Apart from this there is a valuable relief and relaxation obtained through touching and handling of materials of moving about and doing. It is as if saying X is frustrated as fatigued in his school work then let him do his painting. There is much to be said in favour of formal work being closely and genuinely linked with creative work. Pent up feelings and hostility or frustration finds a safe outlet in a free drama. The fact that such outlets are achieved in a situation watched and controlled by a tolerant teacher seems to make emotional release all the more effective. Art has therapeutic value.
One of the outstanding characteristics of slow learner is poor concentration. They are often destructible and lacking is persistence. Within limits the ability to concentration is learnt in the repeated experience of absorbing and satisfying activity. Plan and creative work offer conditions for the development of concentration and persistence.
Role of Teacher:
More specifically, Tanseley and Guilford (1971) suggested that the teacher of slow learners should:
1. Organise the class in small, carefully selected group.
2. Have wide range of supply of activities e.g., readers, free access to arts and craft materials.
3. Pay particular attention to preparation of materials.
4. Allow brighter children to help duller ones.
5. Encourage children to participate in planning activities.
6. Allow as much as freedom as possible within the well-established limits.
7. Avoid rigidity and accept student’s suggestion.
8. Be sensitive to children’s suggestion.
9. Have several periods each week when the class is engaged as a whole on one activity, story, drama, music.
10. Try to obtain parental cooperation.
11. Do not be reluctant to admit failure with an individual child.
Suggestion for Slow Learners Children:
Slow learning children cannot advance much but their intellectual limitations, often reinforced by social and cultural ones, restrict the range of his experience as well as the depth of his understanding. The child’s activities, in relation to his environment nourish his mental growth and language development. Their experience and knowledge can be increased at the initial stage by understanding of the natural environment, why and how things happen exploration, talking and questioning, and nature study.
It is said, by Seguin:
i. Teach nothing indoors that can be learned outdoors.
ii. Teach nothing with dead things when you can make observations on living things.
iii. Nature should be classroom and the school book in case of difficulties.
Of course, the metropolis/urban schools may apply these principles by appropriately having pets and aquarium and by arranging field trips occasionally.
(1) Non-Promotion:
Experimental facts of a group of psychologists are in favour of non-promotion of slow learners. These psychologists follow a policy that promotion of slow learners. These psychologists follow a policy that permits retention of a child in a class for the second year. But very often, it is found that when a child is not promoted and retained in the same class, he resorts to self-punitive measures. For this reason, many educationists object to this idea of non-promotion. Rather, they lay emphasis on remedial instructions and understanding.
(2) Reinforcement:
Slow learners lack the experience of reinforcement in the home environment. Fear of failure and disinterest are pertinent in their daily school activities. So adequate and appropriate measures should be taken to improve their academic status. When a slight improvement is noticed some motivational techniques may be used to stimulate. Use of illustration, examples and aid may also be conducive for creating motivational atmosphere inside the class. A teaching expert should try to instill confidence in children and he must also make constant efforts to remove fear of failure.
(3) Individual Attention:
Treatment of slow learners should be given individual attention. The teaching experts may place emphasis on recognition of individual difference among students. They must also respect the individuality of the child through helpful environment. Again teaching experts.