Interventions for Struggling Students

Teachers see struggling students on a daily basis. You may have more than one in your classroom. There are several things that you can do to help the student achieve, including adjusting the seating arrangement, modifying the class work, and opening lines of communication.

Adjust Seating Arrangement

First, take notice of where the student is sitting. Is he sitting among a group of noisy workers? Is he sitting near a window or near the back of the classroom? Make sure that the seating arrangement provides for best opportunities for focus, and sitting the child near other good students may help as well.

Modifications of Class Work

There are several things you can do to modify a student’s assignments to enable the child to succeed.

Modify the number of questions. If you are asking each student in the class to answer 20 questions for homework, consider asking the struggling student to answer only 15. If the cause for struggle is an inability to complete assignments, limiting the number of questions may help the student to be more successful.

Modify the type of question. If you are asking each student to write a paragraph answer for each question, consider asking the struggling student to write 2 sentences, or in some cases, answer multiple choice questions instead.

Modify the type of assignment. If you are assigning individual projects for the students to do, consider assigning students in pairs to complete a project. This way you can enable the struggling student to have the guidance and support of a stronger student.

Opening Lines of Communication

Communicating with both the parents and the child may help you as the teacher to understand how to help the child succeed. Find out if there is something going on at home that may be impeding the child’s ability to learn. Find out if there is something going on at school that you are unaware of that may be affecting the child’s success.

Make sure the parent understands that you desire to see each child succeed and work together to come up with solutions that may help the child in your classroom. This should be a two-way conversation. Solutions should include things to be done differently at home, and things to be done differently in the classroom.

Consider talking to the special education teacher in your school. She may be able to give you more ideas on what to do to help the child. You can also talk with the teacher that the student had last year, and find out what, if any, ideas that teacher had that helped.

Every child can learn, it is just a matter of finding the method or path that learning must take for each child to succeed. Optimizing seating arrangements in your classroom, modifying assignments as needed and opening lines of communication will help ensure that even the struggling students in your class will find success.

Helping All Children Succeed

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