10 ways to help your struggling students

A teacher is someone who enables her students to soar high and reach success. But she does not do this for a handful of students, a sincere teacher is very much concerned for all of her pupils. She tries her level best to keep away the bias and work on each child individually and make sure their skills are polished to make them be successful. A god teacher takes her class together and does not leave any pupils behind. It is not a new concept for teachers to have students of different availabilities in a class. There are all sorts of pupils in a class, ranging from high achievers to average students who have the potential and the struggling students who are the main focus of teachers. These struggling students are the pupils who need the teacher’s undivided attention. There can be many reasons for a student to struggle in a class. And there can be many type of struggles a student faces, not just academically. There are many struggles such as socializing that pose a problem to students. To help students counter struggles you need to use these 10 ways to be of help to struggling students.

1. The first and foremost thing is to identify the struggle that your pupil is facing. Is he or she struggling with submitting assignments on time? Or are they unable to perform well in examinations? Is there a delay in their understanding? As a teacher you need to first identify where the problem lies. Observe your child and try to predict what he will do in certain situations and then record his behavior and see what went wrong. To get to the root of the problem you can even talk to the student.

2. Once you have identified the problem, talk to your pupil about it. If your student is the last one to hand in their assignment go ahead and inquire what happened and why the assignment was delayed. A proper communication helps the teacher understand the student properly. Many a times, students are labelled and thought of as irresponsible. There is almost always a reason for their irresponsible behavior, maybe they are facing some sort of family issues that is disturbing their school life in particular. Talk to your pupil in a friendly manner and make them feel comfortable. Struggling students are a tough nut to crack and won’t let you in easily. Talk to them on a regular basis and try to establish a relationship, once that is done they will be more open to you and share their problems. 

3. If the child is struggling academically in the class and is a slow learner, then your course of action will be different. Identify all the slow learners of your class and try to make your classes inclusive. Not every child learns the same conventional way. There are all sorts of learners in a class for example auditory learners who learn with the help of their sense of hearing. These learners learn better when they hear the information rather than reading it. Similarly we have kinesthetic learners who find it extremely hard to sit in a class all day long listening to lectures, they hardly learn from listening to lectures until they are stimulated with the help of a hands on activity. To cater to different types of students you need to devise your lectures in such a way that enables all learners to benefit from it. 

4. You may have students in your class who are very quick at grasping concepts and are eager to jump on the next thing leaving behind struggling students. Do not get carried away with them and try to make sure the entire class has grasped the concept. You can be sure of it by cross questioning students who are not very quick. Try not to be invasive and walk your struggling students through the answer. Have an encouraging attitude and try to motivate your students to try and solve questions independently without worrying about them being wrong. 

5. Many students struggle to ask questions even if they desperately want to. The reasons can be many. Maybe they are shy and cannot raise their hands in a class full of students. Or maybe they fear being made fun of. Try to first work on the environment of your class. This is the twenty first century, try to make your classroom a comfortable place for students so they can confidently voice their opinions and questions. Establish the mindset of learning instead of the hunger for getting stellar grades. Tell your pupils that they are here to learn and when you learn you make billions of mistakes, and mistakes make you learn better. Once your children do not fear mistakes they will be able to learn better and in a more comfortable and open space. They will ask you questions without the fear of sounding stupid. 

6. An important thing that you must focus on as a teacher is to make sure that the instructions you provide are crystal clear. First you need to gain the attention of all of your class and then deliver your instructions. Your instructions should be delivered in a clear voice and loud tone. The choice of words should be children friendly, avoid using fancy vocabulary your students may not be familiar with. If verbal instruction don’t make the cut then write down complete instructions on the board for students who have a short attention span. These students can refer to the board whenever they get stuck and need to repeat the instructions. 

7. When you have given the task to your pupils, take rounds and try to observe each child and gauge who is struggling. Go over to students who have a history of struggles, they probably need your help but are too shy to ask for it. Go over to them and silently see if they are on the right track, if they are doing everything correctly then appreciate them and move along. However, if they are stuck then you can crouch near them and try to cross question them in a very polite manner. Ask them whether what they are doing is right? Ask them if they think there is something wrong and then dig further on it and see if they can come to the right answer on their own. Do not tell the answer or right away tell the pupil that whatever he is doing is not correct. This will shatter their confidence. 

8. If you think your student needs extra help, try to plan activities for struggling pupils. Extra activities will help the students gain more practice and their concepts will be clearer and they will be able to cope up to the class’s level. If there is not enough time during the school hours you can assign the extra work to them as homework. Keep a check on it and see that they are not slacking and doing the homework on time. 

9. Keep encouraging them, struggling students hardly get appreciated for their efforts. Make it your prime focus to appreciate their efforts, every small input they make can change their future greatly, motivate them by giving them stickers on the work they have put more effort in than they do usually. You can appreciate them in front of the entire class by telling them that you are very proud of xyz student. This will help your pupil gain confidence. 

10. Try to make beneficial seating arrangements, pairing up high achievers with struggling students will help the struggling students learn from their classmates, this is called peer learning and is very advantageous. For example if you are doing essay writing in your class you can ask the high achiever to help the struggling student with his by reading each other’s essays. This will help the struggling student without letting them down as they too will be asked to read the other student’s essay. However, the purpose will remain the same.