The number of students with learning difficulties is increasing every year. From the very first days of schooling, a group of students is identified who have difficulty in mastering the program including https://argoprep.com/blog/k8/go-math-grade-4-vs-argoprep-grade-4-workbooks/ in basic subjects.
Attention should be paid to the very first manifestations of school difficulties, because with them begins a serious lag in the child’s studies, a loss of interest in it and faith in oneself. If at the same
time he is punished by both the teacher and the parents (by censure or more drastic measures), then the desire to learn disappears for a long time, and sometimes forever. The child begins to consider himself helpless, incapable, and all his efforts are useless. Psychologists are convinced that learning outcomes depend not only on whether or not a person is able to solve a problem, but also on how confident he is that he can solve this problem. If failures follow one after another, then naturally, there comes a moment when the child says to himself: “No, I will never succeed.” Once “never”, then there is no need to try! Thrown by mom or dad among other things: “Well, how stupid you are!” – exacerbate the child’s uncertainty. Not only a word, but simply an attitude that you demonstrate (even if unintentionally) with a reproachful look, intonation, gesture, sometimes speak to the child more loud words. Sometimes parents make excuses: “Yes, I don’t scold him for his assessment, but can he sit quietly in class ?!” The fact is that it is not so important for the child what you are unhappy with, what you scold, what you reproach – for bad grades or bad behavior, for something that turns in the lesson, or for not understanding the educational task. There is only one sense: they scold me – it means that I am bad, I am not good for anything.
1. Weak level of development of abilities
Each child has his own level of development of memory, thinking, attention and his own limit of possibilities. Someone easily learns from only fives, while others need to make great efforts to get a solid three. If you suspect that your child is doing poorly for this reason, a child psychologist can confirm or deny your assumption. He will conduct a series of psychodiagnostic studies and tell you whether the child’s intellectual abilities allow him to successfully master the school curriculum including https://argoprep.com/blog/k8/go-math-grade-3-vs-argoprep-grade-3-workbooks/.
2. Knowledge gaps in academic subjects
Basically, such a problem occurs in children who are often absent from school, or in children with a slow pace of assimilation of information (they do not have enough study time to understand and learn the topic, and the class is already moving further along the school curriculum). Gradually growing, such gaps in knowledge of the subject lead to the fact that the child has to make more and more efforts to understand the new material.
3. Excessive requirements for academic performance
Many parents want to be proud of their child’s successes in https://argoprep.com/blog/k8/adjectives-starting-with-i-760-words-to-boost-your-vocabulary/, dream that he received only good grades at school. But what efforts should the child himself make for this, can he always meet your expectations?
High demands, especially when combined with various punishments for not meeting them, often create in a child the feeling that his parents love and accept him only when he is successful and has something to be proud of. And then, if the child is able to fulfill the requirements of the parents, he learns well at any cost. Including at the cost of not getting enough sleep, refusing to communicate with friends, hobbies, etc. This can lead to overwork, nervous breakdowns, depression, fear of making a mistake, and other negative consequences.
It is even sadder if the child is not able to fulfill the parents’ requirements for various reasons: lack of ability, not enough willpower to sit for hours on textbooks, etc. Then, faced with failure (low grades), the child is acutely experiencing it. Parents, on the other hand, often exacerbate the situation with their criticism and discontent. All this is repeated from time to time, the child feels helpless and gradually ceases to believe in himself, as a result: loss of interest in learning, refusal to do homework, truancy, the establishment of double diaries (for parents and for school), etc. …
4. Inability to subordinate your behavior to the rules and requirements
It is important to note here that there are children who cannot and children who cannot physically control their behavior (children with hyperactivity and impaired attention, neurological diseases, etc.)
Problems caused by the physiological characteristics of brain activity, as a rule, cannot be compensated for only by measures of pedagogical and psychological influence; medical assistance is also required here. In those cases when it comes to the inability and unwillingness to obey existing requirements, our efforts will be aimed at creating a positive attitude towards the rules, working out educational motivation, actualizing the need to be accepted and, possibly, restructuring the entire system of norms and rules of behavior. This may take a long time and deep joint work of the child himself, his parents and the psychologist.
5. Conflicts at school (with children or teachers)
This problem is quite rare among children studying in primary school, more often parents of adolescents face it. The point is that there is a very big difference between the two ages. Learning success is very important to children of primary school age, so classmates who study well and do not experience behavioral problems are most sympathetic. A teacher for them is most often an important and authoritative person.
For adolescents, everything is completely different: it is more important for them how they look in the eyes of their peers, whether they enjoy the authority and respect of their peers, whether their classmates accept them. The importance of the figure of the teacher and school success fade into the background. Therefore, in order to solve the problem of relationships in the classroom, a younger student needs to become successful in school, while in a teenager, on the contrary, conflicts in the classroom can provoke a significant drop in academic performance. And only after solving the issues of relations that are of concern to the teenager at school, he can concentrate on his studies.
Conflicts happen in any team, and if the child knows how to cope with them, then there is nothing wrong with that. The danger occurs when the situation gets out of control and becomes unfavorable for the child (affects his status in the team, emotional well-being, the right to receive objective marks, etc.).
6. Lack of interest in learning
This reason rarely occurs on its own, much more often the reluctance to learn is the result of various difficulties that a child faces in connection with school: failures, conflicts, frequent criticism of teachers and parents, a constant feeling that he is worse than others, etc. That is, any of the above problems can lead to a lack of interest in learning. In this case, it is necessary to understand what is the primary problem and pay special attention to its solution.
Only by understanding what factors led to a decrease in academic performance and an unwillingness to study, you can effectively help your child. Indeed, in different cases, different methods of assistance are needed.