Helping Low Achieving Students Understand Concepts

1. WHEN CHILDREN DON’T GET IT
Helping Low Achieving Students Understand Concepts

2. Introduction
 Abstract concepts are essential to achieving in
school.They are also a source of frustration and
difficulty for students who struggle in the classroom;
many of these students find even basic concepts
difficult to grasp.Teachers can provide low achieving
children with the necessary support by applying
alternative teaching techniques that take the
student from where he is conceptually to the next
level in the learning process.Teachers need to use a
high support approach that aims at helping low
achieving children comprehend and interpret what
they hear, see, and read in the classroom. Some
suggestions follow.

3. Help Students Connect the Information
 Students can relate the new information or unfamiliar concepts by
connecting it to something with which they are already familiar; for
example, discussing how the Renaissance is like a video game.
 Begin your lesson with a known concept and progress to the new
concept. Relationships are more obvious when we progress from the
known to the new.
 Compare two seemingly unrelated objects, ideas, or topics by analyzing
and discussing the similarities and differences between the two.
 Move from simple comparison to contrasting based on multiple
attributes.
 Relate what the student has learned in one setting or situation to other
settings or situations. For example, concepts and vocabulary words
learned during the morning should be pointed out in the afternoon’s
social studies lesson or when the child is solving math word problems.
Concepts and new vocabulary words should be incorporated in writing
activities.

4. Help Students See Patterns and Relationships
 Explicitly teach relationships among the different concepts,
topics, or pieces of information.You can use graphics like
flowcharts or concept maps to help children see how two
different concepts relate. Have the students talk about the
patterns they see emerging, and link the patterns to what
they already know.
 To help your students see patterns, provide examples and
“not an example” of the concept, e.g. aren’t and we’ve are
examples of contractions; Tom’s is not an example. Help
students formulate a rule from the examples.
 Identify related concepts and explain how we can
generalize from one concept to others, e.g. from numbers
to money or from fuel to energy.

5. Make the New Information Relevant
 Relevancy, or meaning, is one of the major
factors affecting retention of new material.
The student is not likely to retain new
information if he or she perceives the
information as meaningless. Ask children and
discuss why the new information is important
to learn, but remember, it is students’
perception of relevancy what matters, not
the teacher’s.

6. Make Key Concepts Apparent
 Make sure that key concepts are both apparent and
unambiguous to children; in other words, do not
“bury” the important information in a lot of
distracting and irrelevant information, and make
sure that students can identify easily the salient
characteristics of key concepts.
 When lecturing or delivering directions, stop at key
points to check comprehension, clarify concepts,
and answer questions.
 During the lesson, provide explicit outlines and study
guides to help students organize the information.
Make sure the study guide includes questions for key
concepts.

7. Combine Storytelling with Multiple
Examples of the Same Concept
 Give multiple examples of the same abstract
concept.
 Give visual examples (e.g. drawings or pictures)
and auditory examples (e.g. analogies,
synonyms, and antonyms) of the same concept.
 Stories will help illustrate the main points;
examples will help associate them. Stories and
examples provide the associative context that
will help the low achieving child remember the
new information or concept.

8. Use Multiple Representations of the
Same Concept
 Some teachers believe that repeating the same information
louder, or several times, helps children retain the
information, but the truth is that repetition is only
minimally helpful.Teachers can enhance conceptual
understanding by presenting the new information or
concept several times in different ways, using different
formats and/or in different scenarios. For example, talk
about the concept and provide pictures to look at; have
students make drawings, or write songs or poems to
illustrate the concept; use films and videos, field trips, or
storytellers. When teachers provide multiple
representations of the same concept, we are presenting the
same information in more than one manner, e.g. modeling,
explaining, using maps, creating analogies, or singing.

9. Reinforce the Auditory Information with
Visual Stimulus
 Use visual support combined with your verbal instructions or
lectures as much as possible. For example, when you give
directions, or explain a new concept, point to the area on the
page, chalkboard, or chart where the relevant information is
placed.
 Train children to watch and use visual cues to reinforce the
information they hear. Explain to your students the importance
of using visual cues to clarify the auditory information. Make
children aware that watching the speaker’s face and paying
attention to the speaker’s tone of voice will give clues to
meaning. Students can improve their comprehension of material
delivered orally by paying attention to the emotional impact of
the speaker’s words, and watching the speaker’s facial
expression, body posture, and gestures.
 Train your students in using visual imaging of the verbal context
introduced by drawing a mental picture of what they hear.

10. Make Students Aware that Not All
Information is Equally Important
 Make children aware that certain points in your lecture are
more important than other points in the lecture. Give verbal
cues to direct children to pay attention to the important
information, e.g. “This information is important to know.”
You can begin your lesson with an advanced organizer,
where you write on the chalkboard key words or phrases of
the important points you are going to cover during the
lesson.
 Explicitly distinguish the important information from what
is less important, presenting the new concept in a way that
highlights what is especially pertinent; that is, what the
student must pay attention to.
 Use verbal organizational cues such as “first,” “second,”
and “now the most important point.”

11. Child guidance, an essential skill for
teachers and school counselors
 OUR FACEBOOK PAGES AND
GROUPS
 PSYCHOEDUCATION FOR
TEACHERS (Page)
 https://www.facebook.com/psyc
hoeducationalteacher
 FREE OR CHEAPTEACHING
RESOURCES (Page)
 https://www.facebook.com/freer
esourcesforteachers/
 WETEACHTHEWORLD (Group)
 https://facebook.com/groups/22
2247571474300
 BOOKS IN CHILD GUIDANCE
 THE PSYCHOEDUCATIONAL
TEACHER
 https://www.amazon.com/autho
r/thepsychoeducationalteacher/