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How To Help Slow Learners-Narrative

To help slow learners, teachers should take multiple approaches to teaching important concepts. They should repeat learning points more than usual, use audio and visual aids, and guide students to identify main lessons and test points. Specific strategies include using real-life examples for math, teaching reading skills to whole classes or small groups, and celebrating students' successes to encourage them. The goal is for slow learners to understand material at their own pace with patience and support inside and outside the classroom.

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Junar Alarcon
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109 views3 pages

How To Help Slow Learners-Narrative

To help slow learners, teachers should take multiple approaches to teaching important concepts. They should repeat learning points more than usual, use audio and visual aids, and guide students to identify main lessons and test points. Specific strategies include using real-life examples for math, teaching reading skills to whole classes or small groups, and celebrating students' successes to encourage them. The goal is for slow learners to understand material at their own pace with patience and support inside and outside the classroom.

Uploaded by

Junar Alarcon
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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How to Help Slow Learners

Co-authored by Emily Listmann, MA

Last Updated: January 30, 2020 References Approved

A slow learner is a child who learns at a pace a little behind others of their age and grade level. Slow
learners are not always learning disabled, and may have ordinary lives outside of the classroom.
However, academic subjects are a challenge for them. To help slow learners, take a variety of
approaches to teaching important subject matter. Get support for the students inside and outside the
classroom. Most importantly, encourage slow learners by working with them patiently and by
celebrating their successes.

Method 1 of 3:

Teaching to the Slow Learners in Your Class

Repeat each learning point more than you normally would. Slow learners need to hear information a
few times more than other students in order to understand it.[1]

Keep the other students interested by asking them questions and having them answer. Echo back their
answers and explain how they relate to the point you are trying to teach.

For instance, in a lower elementary class, you might say, "Saranda says 2x2 is 4, and she's right. We
know this because 2 and 2 is 2 + 2, and that's 4."

With older classes, you can reinforce learning points by leading discussions that encourage students to
repeat the learning points. Ask questions about the subject matter, and ask students to explain their
reasoning when they answer you.

Use audio and visual aids. Slow learners may struggle with basic skills such as reading, so movies,
pictures, and audio can help them learn things that they would not pick up from reading alone. Use
various media to repeat the information you want them to learn.[2]
For instance, if you are teaching conjunctions to elementary students, you can supplement your
explanations and worksheets with the classic "Conjunction Junction" cartoon from Schoolhouse Rock!

When teaching a novel to high school students, help slow learners by passing out worksheets and
supplementary materials with visuals, such as family trees of the characters involved, timelines of the
plot, and images of historical maps, costumes, and houses from the period of the novel.

You may even have all your students take a learning style quiz to find out what types of learners you
have and what approaches would be the most effective.[3]

Guide students to the main points of lessons and tests. Slow learners may struggle to identify the main
points of a lesson or a test, and may be overwhelmed by supplementary information. When teaching,
make sure to identify and emphasize the learning points. Don't overwhelm your slow learners by moving
on too quickly or asking them to learn many details beyond the main points.[4]

Before you start a lesson, summarize the main points so all your students know what they should be
paying attention to.

Provide study guides for tests so that slow learners know what information they need to concentrate on.

Assign quicker learners supplementary reading and worksheets that fill them in on supplementary
details about the topic.

Use real-life examples when teaching math. Introduce new math concepts by applying them to
situations that your students can relate to. Use drawings and props, like pennies, beans, or marbles, to
help students visualize the numbers.[5]

For instance, to introduce division to elementary students, draw a circle on the board and tell students it
is a cake that has to feed 6 people equally. Then draw lines to divide it into 6 slices.

For older students, some concepts may be more confusing using real-life scenarios. For concepts such as
solving for an unknown variable, teach the form directly.

Slow learners may be missing math information from previous years. If a slow learner is struggling with a
new concept, check to make sure they know how to do more basic skills.
5

Teach reading skills. Slow learners may struggle to read "automatically," the way their peers do. To help
them catch up, teach reading skills to your whole class, or to a small group of slow-readers while other
students work on supplementary projects.[6]

Encourage struggling readers to follow the words with their finger across the page as they read.

Teach students to recognize phonemes and to sound-out unfamiliar words.

Help your students with reading comprehension by training them to ask questions, such as "How does
this character feel?" "Why did the characters make this decision?" "What could happen next?"

Older students who are slow learners may also be helped by learning how to summarize chapters and
otherwise annotate their reading.

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