How to Catch up a Child Who Is Behind in School? - Stem Learning
The global pandemic over the past two years has significantly affected the public education system. School-aged children have been unable to attend school in person, play with their friends, or participate in sports.
Even though it will take years to comprehend the effects of the traditional K-12 education system collapsing, recent studies show that these disruptions have caused U.S. students to fall behind in school performance and social skills like cooperation, compassion, and self-control. While online learning has offered a brief solution to the lack of in-person teaching and cooperation, it has also made it much more challenging for classroom teachers to note where students are falling behind.
Today, we must look at education much more holistically and take factors out of a student’s control into account. The following strategies can help keep students engaged and make sure their education is accessible inside and outside of the classroom.
How to Help a Child Who Is Falling Behind in School Catch Up
The pandemic has definitely changed the way students learn and absorb information. The lack of in-person learning and collaboration has made it challenging to keep students engaged. The four strategies listed below can help a child improve their academic achievement and reduce interruptions to their learning following COVID.
After-school Programs and Extracurricular Activities
High-quality after-school programs can be an excellent opportunity to use extra time effectively and help children improve their language and math skills, social behavior, and school attendance.
For example, research demonstrates that at-risk youth who participated in after-school programs increased their school-day attendance. They were also less prone to misusing drugs.
In the same way, extracurricular STEM activities like a math club or science fair can improve students’ self-esteem, help them do better in school, and teach them essential social skills like cooperation, communication, persistence, and resilience.
Project-Based Learning
Project-based learning (PBL) is a great way to follow a child’s interests and encourage them to gain knowledge by working on a specific project for an extended period and investigating a complex real-world problem or question.
Because it is based on intrinsic motivation (doing something because it is fun or meaningful to us), such a teaching style promotes autonomy and freedom in learning and student engagement. Also, PBL fosters accountability, allowing students to take greater responsibility for their own learning.
Some project-based learning examples for elementary students include making posters to promote healthy nutrition or growing plants and tracking the progress in a calendar.
High school and middle school students can do PBL projects like making an app, running a campaign to raise money for a community issue, or planning a community event. PBL can encourage students to engage in grade-level content outside of school hours and make the learning process fun!
Tutoring Sessions
Tutoring can be a valuable asset to a child’s development and learning. Working with a tutor, for example, can help a child do better in school by assisting them in understanding certain subjects better and feeling more confident as they prepare for tests.
In addition, tutoring provides personalized attention and learning flexibility, allowing a child to work at a pace that suits them.
Also, knowing that their tutor is working hard to help them get better helps children learn to be responsible for their school progress and hold themselves accountable.
Teaching Holistically
To teach students holistically means meeting their academic, social, emotional, and moral needs all at once.
This new model of teaching the whole child instead of focusing on developing their core-academic skills can benefit students’ cognitive and social-emotional development in many ways.
Providing support for both a child’s academic and non-academic needs encourages children to:
Develop empathy and understanding of the world around them.
Use critical thinking and problem-solving skills to solve real-life problems.
Reflect on how their actions affect others and develop accountability.
Form strong bonds with teachers.
Conclusion
Early childhood is a critical stage for learning experiences and healthy development. During the first five years, the brain is most flexible. It develops faster than ever, with more than a million neural connections formed every minute.
The above teaching strategies can instill a love for learning and help children use their natural resources to gain knowledge, catch up, and improve their school performance outside of school hours.
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