How do you help the weaker students in the class (young ones) to learn?

Question

I teach english and not all children appear to have a grasp on what is being taught to them. How can I help them keep up with the others when time in class is limited?

I cant decide which answer is best so I'll put it to vote. All answers were good

Answer 1

Does your school have a learning resource center where they can be sent for extra help during the regular class time? If not, then maybe you can suggest they develop one. They work wonderfully well. If school says they don't have money for this, you can ask for parent volunteers. Most parents that would volunteer for this are actually the educated ones. (my experience)

Another way would be to teach by playing a game...Get out the flash cards or have them work from the board. Games have been one of my children's favorite way of learning. My one son rarely looses so the kids really try to "beat" him. When they do the child really thinks he is something else! Kinda neat to see. This also encourages the smart kid to stay on top of his game. (he doesn't want to loose usually and will put in extra effort.)

Please, please, please do NOT pair with a bright student!! My very bright son has had this happen since the beginning of schooling. You may be helping one child but you are doing the bright one no favors. How do you accomodate the brighter ones? Most teachers don't. They only have time for the struggling students. Bright children are often left sitting in utter academic dullness while they are "waiting" for the others to "get it." Please talk to the parents of the struggling child and give supplemental work. Them them there are numerous tutors available -- encourage them to look into it. Yes, I am all too aware that teachers have it tough these days. Parents are too involved in their things and many don't think there a problem with their child's schooling. Some even think that sports are more important!

Thank you for being a teacher. I personally could never do it.

Answer 2

I agree with the person that says match them up with a student that has grasped the concept.
Also, implment game to be played like baseball, divide the class into two teams and give the question on the board and someone from each team can answer whoever gets it correct advances a base etc.You can teach the lesson this way in the limited time you have. Also when the weather in inclement instead of free time, play a learning game with them. Our school system uses CCC and accelerated reading, does your school have this? If not find software you can use in the classroom to help you. Speak with someone from your schools pta and see if there is anyone available to volunteer in the classroom to help with those children struggling, maybe have the child read to them or write some sentences. Be sure to let the volunteer know what is to be done and how to do it. There are a lot of parents that would love to help in this way.

Answer 3

The biggest challenge with weaker students is how to increase their learning, while still keeping the stronger students stilmulated. I think the best way to do this is to involve the stronger students in the teaching process. Pair a weaker student with a stronger, have them read each other rough drafts of essays/assignments, and grade them. Let them talk to each other about why they gave the "grade" they did to the other person. Make them fill out a paper explaining to you what the strong/weak parts of their partner's assignment was- make it count as an assignment that's worth points. This will ensure that they take the assignment seriously.
By reading a stronger student's work, the weaker students will get to see exactly what a paper SHOULD look like. Teaching them to have an eye for grading will make them better writers- they will know what to do/what not to do, and have hands on examples of each through their peers work. In turn, the stronger students will also develop a more keen sense of paper writing, because they too are learning to critique work. Instead of just writing, they are learning to read critically as well.

Answer 4

There are a couple of things you can do. First, whether you feel it's right or not, you really will have to give them special attention more than you do to the other kids. You can slow down your class a couple of days just to make sure that they understand what's going on and are caught up, or else they will get discouraged and will give up. Next, try a new seating arrangement. Seat the struggling kids with the kids that are stronger. Make sure that the kids that are stronger are not the strongest in the class, because this may lead to either the stronger kid thinking the stuff is too easy and being haughty about it and not helping the other kid, or the struggling kid feeling even worse about themselves because "they're not good enough." You can also give the struggling ones extra practice and try to talk to their parents, even though these days it seems that less and less parents are staying involved in their kid's education. Hope this helps! It worked for me.

Answer 5

We do something is our school district called Universal Access. We preteach the concepts instead of reteach. What we do is we pull out the struggling students for about 30-40 minutes in the beginnning of the day. The rest of the students are working on grade level appropriate material (writing on their journal, doing a book report, making a project with our story anthology or working on the same exact thing I am doing with the struggling students but on their own). Whatever concept we are learning, I teach to them first. If we are learning about summarizing using beginning, middle, end. I read that group a small story, we talk about summarizing etc. If we are working with spelling, I introduce the pattern to them. I picture walk the anthology before we read it as a whole class so they know the vocabulary before hand. This helps the students because rather than being spacy during whole group instruction, they are excited that they know exactly what I am talking about.

I also do partners with a student but I let the partner know that they are teachers to the struggling student. I let the struggling student know too but the incentive for both of them is that if the student improves...they BOTH get rewarded. You will see a big difference in just pairing up students and telling them to work together than assigning the "teacher role" to one of them. They tend to actually help the student rather than just do all the work to get it done and turned in without benefiting the other student.

Answer 6

Peer teaming them with your more successful students is a good idea. Do some of these students have other learning disabilities that hinder their learning? You might want to have their hearing and eyesight checked by the school nurse or suggest it to the parents. Or they may just have learning disabilities that can hinder their learning as well.

If you have a class library, find books and magazines that are of high interest but low vocabulary to motivate these kids to read more and develop their english skills. I'm assuming you're in a north american school setting, if not , it may be something to discuss with your department head or principal or head master on what resources are available to you.

Answer 7

1)remedials/extra lessons?
2)try incorporating grp work so that the betta ones can help the weaker ones
3) provide lots of scaffolding and guidance to them
eg: dun let them write an essay on their own, write an essay as a class first with u acting as the scribe and then let them attempt doin the essay on their own
4) sometimes having differentiated activities help
eg: provide helping words only to the weaker ones
or if u covering multiplication, the weaker ones can use the timestable chart...
5) if all else fails, this is not encouraged, but drilling helps...so bring on worksheets and more worksheets...

i am a teacher too so i share ur sentiments. i do hope this helps.

Answer 8

USE MORE VISUALly ORIENTED TECHNIQUES AND REPETITIVE VERBALIZATION. IT TAKES ONLY A FEW MINUTES MORE TO HOLD UP A FLASH CARD WITH A PICTURE,,OR A PICTURE CUT OUT OF A NEWSPAPER OR MAGAZINE WHICH DEPICTS A MESSAGE OR WORD YOU ARE TRYING TO CONVEY AND REPEAT THE WORD OR PHRASE SEVERAL TIMES FOR THE ENTIRE CLASS.HAVE THE CHILDREN " DO" WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO LEARN WHEN POSSIBLE. DO IT QUICKLY AND WITHOUT FANFARE AS PART OF A REGULAR ROUTINE.I USED TO HAVE BIG CUTOUTS OF PUNCUATION MARKS PLACED ON A DESK..I WOULD WRITE A SENTENCE ON THE BLACKBOARD AND LEAVE OUT A NEEDED PUNCUATION. ANY CHILD WAS WELCOME TO SELECT ONE AND SHOW THE REST OF THE CLASS WHERE IT BELONGED . SOON WE STARTED VOTING IF THE PUNCUATION WAS IN THE RIGHT PLACE BY A SHOW OF HANDS.SOMETIMES..LEARNING FROM A PEER CAN BE VERY EFFECTIVE. GOOD LUCK TO YOU

Answer 9

Always ask them questions, explain it, then make them repeat and understand it...
Equal it out, make sure that the brighter students mix with the not so bright so that you can tell the bright ones to help the weaker ones....
make them discuss things, like, if its english, tell them to ask each other questions about the subjects
Kids usually like to sing and have fun so use that as an advantage, make up a little rhyme to help them remember, like the vowels a, e i, o ,u....make it into a fast rhythm song....make it fun and it should stick with young kids :)

it doesnt have to be long or time consuming, short, simple and effective eg. "i before e except for c"...that helps so many people out

Answer 10

So..
As parents, you're the most important first step in your children's journey into the wonderful world of reading. It is up to you to create the most supportive environment that turns your child on to reading - such as reading aloud to them often during the day and before bedtime, and placing age appropriate books for children around the house, so that the child will have access to plenty of books. Reading often to your child will help develop their interest in books and stories, and soon they will want to read stories on their own.

For a simple, step-by-step program that can help your child learn to read visit this site: http://readingprogram.toptips.org


Cheers.