SCHOLASTIC BACKWARDNESS UNDER ACHEIVERS
INTRODUCTION:
Scholastic backwardness is a vague term that could be reflective of a number of factor’s. To make it convenient to understand it is organised into the following.
- Physical disabilities – Visual, hearing etc.
- Developmental disorder – Autism & Mental Retardation etc.
- Dyslexia (or) Specific learning difficulty – Problem in reading and writing etc.
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
- Emotional disorder Depression, anxiety etc.
- Environmental reason Poor schooling, parental pressure etc.
Of the above specific learning disability or dyslexia is the most frequently encountered problem. Studies have shown an incidence of 10 - 12% of normal school going children suffer from this.
Our school aims to support these children to perform along with other children in the class in an equal manner. They are provided remedial training by skilled and committed special educators with the support of the school psychologist.
Dyslexia – What is it?
(Modified from international dyslexia association, 1994)
(10 – 12% of all school children have dyslexia)
Dyslexia is a neurological familial disorder interfering with acquisition and processing of language. Difficulties in reading, writing, spelling, handwriting and sometimes math may occur.
Dyslexia is not a result of lack of motivation, sensory impairment or poor opportunities to learn. The condition is life long but responds to appropriate time intervention. Dyslexia should be diagnosed before the child reaches Class II for providing timely and effective remedy.
Dyslexia should be differentiated from mental retardation, autism, attention deficit disorder (ADD or ADHD) and Sensory impairment (hearing, visual) or Children with LD is are found rarely in every classroom. These children have average or above average intelligence.
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SYMPTOMS
Dear Teachers & Parents, do you find your student……..
- Performing poorly in tests, although appearing to understand the information.
- Having difficulty in skimming or listening to the main ideas.
- Having performance fluctuations.
- Unable to generalise or integrate the skills
- Reading a letter or symbol or numbers inconsistently e.g: reading ‘b’ as ‘d’, ‘was’ as ‘saw’, ‘girl’ as ‘gril’, ‘31’ as ‘13’, reversing ‘3’s ‘5’s
- Repeating words when reading, reading slowly and word by word j
- Having difficulty in sequencing for e.g. days, weeks, months etc
- Substituting / inserting / omitting letters or words
- Having difficulty in writing organized sentences
- Having trouble in organizing thoughts on paper
- Disliking / avoiding written work in the classroom
- Having difficulty communicating efficiently
- Unable to copy from the blackboard
- Grasping pen / pencil awkwardly
- Having trouble following oral directions
- Having difficulty in responding to and formulating questions (especially ‘wh’ questions)
- Having difficulty in expressing self in conversation
- Being slow in responding verbally
- Having problem in word finding
- Having poor memory
- Behaving immaturely for the age
- Showing a discrepancy between his / her intellectual ability and school achievement
- Left-right confusion
- Having low self esteem
The most probable cause is learning disorder. Every single learning disabled child will not display all the characteristics mentioned here. One child may show a set of characteristics different from those manifested by another child. They may also show attention problems and hyperactivity.
Children with learning disabilities are found nearly in every classroom. These children have average or above-average intelligence. Their eye sight and hearing capacity are in normal range. They are not physically handicapped, mentally retarded or emotionally disturbed. A child with learning disabilities might be just as smart as someone sitting next to him / her in class, but the child’s performance in certain areas is not as good as his or her classmate . This does not mean the child is stupid or lazy.
The child with a learning disability is like a cricket player, who has the ability to hit, but is given a broken bat to score.
These children have vivid imaginations and have musical ability, mechanical ability. They are good in drawing, coloring. They are highly intuitive and insightful. They are curious to know about how things work. They have strong graphical skills. Children from all social and economic strata have this problem.
Are there any famous people who have learning disability?
Of course! Yes. Thomas Edison, Nelson Rockefeller the former President of U.S, Isaac Newton, George Bush, Alexander Graham Bell, Walt Disney, Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill suffered from severe learning disability.
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FAMOUS DYSLEXICS:-
A dyslexic child may find difficult to cope up with school education, however the dyslexic condition may be associated with one or more of the following strengths:
- Curiosity
- Willingness to question
- Look at things differently
- Humour
- High energy
- Drive & ambition
- Hard working
- Mechanical abilities
- Spatial, artistic musical abilities
- Can focus for a long time in a task that interests them
- Ability to understand concepts
- Ability to recognise patterns in unrelated data
- Eminent personalities like Leonardo da Vinci, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill were dyslexic and therefore performed badly in school. However their strengths and talents in other areas enable them to contribute in other areas like arts, science and mathematics, etc.
Problems of LD Children
- Unable to understand the learning method of the child, and teachers terming him as an under performer or worse.
- Pressure from parents and in turn from school, to perform better in regular academics.
- Child is aware that he is an intelligent as his classmates and school education is not possible for him. This in turn can turn the child into undesirable areas in society.
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REMEDY WE PROVIDE
DYSLEXIA PROGRAMME AT BHARATH VIDHYA NIKETEN MATRIC HIGHER SECONDARY SCHOOL
We firmly believe that children with dyslexia should not be separated from other children in education. If done so it may lead to inferiority complex, which will be difficult to tackle later. This is the reason that we do not recommend total separation.
IDENTIFICATION OF SPECIFIC LEARNING DISABILITY (SLD) AND SLOW LEARNING IN STUDENTS
At the closing of every academic year the class teachers from classes KG to VI prepare a list of underachieving students. Details like their marks scored in the previous exams, their attentiveness and grasping ability during class hours, behaviour inside and outside classroom and peer relations are collected. Their parents are informed about the need for special intervention. Parents who consent for remedy meet the school psychologists with their child for assessment on specific learning disability.
The following important information is obtained through the IQ and Dyslexia assessment.
- IQ (helps to differentiate average/above average intelligence from MR)
- Fine motor ability (essential for good handwriting)
- Reading age
- Spelling age
- Comprehensive skill
- Written expression – ability to plan and organize ideas, grammatical skill.
- Mathematical skill
- Identification of emotional disturbances
COUNSELING FOR PARENTS
Soon after the assessment, as a first step the psychologist counsels the parents and makes the parents aware that through proper and regular remediation the child can be helped to improve in studies. Furthermore the following points are explained to the parents:
- Parents are not supposed to blame the child, as there is an invisible handicap.
- Parents to reduce their expectations according to the child’s capacity.
- Understanding the gap (the child’s actual level might be I std and the class he/she is studying may be 7th std.)
- It takes time to make them independent learners.
- Duration of remedy may vary from child to child (2 to 3 years or sometimes throughout school life).
- Importance of remedy – If proper remedy is not initiated now then in the future the child’s confidence level may come down which will cause secondary
problems – behaviour/emotional problems that can affect his/her personal, family and social life.
REMEDY AT THE RESOURCE ROOM
| Long Term Goal: To Make Them Independent Learners |
| Specific Sub goals |
| |
Reading Accuracy, Fluency And Comprehension
Spelling – Methods To Arrive Spellings
Handwriting Legibility And Writing Speed
Basic Operations In Math’s
Tamil Reading & Spellings
Behavior And Social Training |
| Methods & Techniques Used |
| |
Phonologic Awareness
Clover (For Syllabification)
Word Dissection
Joint Oral Reading
Independent Story Reading
Sentence Writing Strategy
Handwriting Exercises & Practice
Customized Methods For Math & Tamil |
| Tools Used |
| |
Flash Cards
Graded Passages
Story & Text Books
Computer Games
Computer Word Processing & Presentations
Soft Ball Exercises, Sand Tray
Reward System |
The ultimate goal of providing remedy is to develop the student into an independent learner. LD tutors conduct the dyslexia program under the guidance of special educator and psychologists. Providing remedy for a dyslexic child is generally a long-term process, especially when our primary goal is to strengthen their ability to score better marks. To achieve the above goal, in many cases the areas to be addressed are manifold.
The problem areas are:
Other than the above areas, lack of motivation and behaviour problems may be present which are sure to interfere with the remedial process. These problems are to be addressed definitely and carefully. Psychologist counseling, encouragement, corrective feedback and obtaining support from peers, teachers and parents are the tools that can help in these areas.
Reading, comprehension & Spelling
Most of the dyslexics have problem with reading, spelling and comprehension. Therefore strategic tutoring methods are used to teach phonological awareness, syllabification, comprehension and sentence writing. Aids like flash cards, sand tray, power point presentations, picture books and storybooks are used. When the student’s reading grade and comprehensive accuracy improves, memorizing becomes better. Memory techniques are also taught to them.
Handwriting
Ball press, ball catch, arranging beads and similar exercises are given for improving visual motor coordination and fine motor activity.
Customized methods are adopted for providing remedy in mathematics and Tamil depending on the student’s weak areas.
Stress free learning
Each student spends an average of 5 to 8 periods every week in the resource room. Other periods they learn their subjects in the regular classroom.
The regular class load is reduced to enable these students to concentrate more in the remedial process. Though they learn the same lessons like their classmates, their written work, homework and examination questions are curtailed.
Students are made to learn through group activities, fun learning and peer tutoring.
The progress in each student is closely monitored and students who lag behind are given extra care. Rewards are given regularly to motivate them.
Students who improve with the training are linked to the mainstream. Other students who continue to be slow learners are supported with the special education program throughout the year.
IDENTIFYING THE STRENGTHS OF STUDENTS WITH DYSLEXIA
The students who are dyslexic may be gifted with special strengths that other students may not have. For example a child with dyslexia may have spatial, artistic musical abilities or mechanical abilities or an ability to understand concepts, etc. Such strengths of the dyslexic students are watched for and any attempt by the student to show his / her ability is strongly encouraged and motivated.
A toy car that moves forward using the repelling law of magnetism “like poles repel”. A dyslexic student of standard five accidentally discovered the principle when his magnet fell down and broke into pieces. He fixed one piece in the back of a toy car and used another piece of magnet to move the car forward.
SPECIAL PROGRAMS FOR TEACHERS
Special programs are conducted for teachers and parents through the psychologists and the following are the points highlighted to them in order to have a positive attitude towards the dyslexic students.
- Accept the child’s problems
- Do not make the child feel guilty
- Reduce the load in studies
- Wait till the child develops the skills
- Increase the load gradually
- Little improvement - encourage
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OUR SCHOOL'S STATISTICS
| STATISTICS OF DYSLEXIA PROGRAMME |
| A) STUDENTS IDENTIFIED |
| |
2003-2004 |
2004-2005 |
2005-2006 |
2006-2007 |
| School Strength |
200 |
300 |
428 |
476 |
Underachievers
(as suggested by class teachers) |
35(KG to IX) |
46 (KG to IX) |
48(KG to IX) |
42(KG to VI) |
|
| |
| B) STUDENTS WHO UNDERWENT REMEDY |
| |
2003-2004 |
2004-2005 |
2005-2006 |
2006-2007 |
| Total Students |
35* |
12 |
12 |
16 |
|
| * Assessment / remedy provided free of cost. |
| 
