Content area
Full Text
Students who are slow learners frequently see school as a punishment, but classroom strategies enable teachers to tap into these students' strengths to enable them to succeed.
Jessica has struggled with reading and basic math skills since first grade despite academic supports and after-school tutoring. In fourth grade, the school psychologist reported that although Jessica's test scores for intelligence and achievement were quite low and she had clear educational need, she was not eligible for special education services. Her intelligence test scores were not low enough for her to be considered a student with intellectual disabilities. Neither did the tests indicate that Jessica's academic skills were lower than would be predicted on the basis of her intellectual ability, so she did not qualify as a student with a learning disability. As a result, Jessica has remained in regular education classes and neither she nor her classroom teachers have received additional support. Instead, Jessica has been labeled a "slow learner" and has been left to struggle, even fail. Progressively, she has lost academic motivation, and now at age 16, she is considering dropping out of school.
Students at Risk
Jessica and her teachers have fallen through one of the largest and most pervasive cracks in the educational system - the slow learner trap. Slow learners (i.e., students with borderline intellectual functioning) represent one of the most challenging student populations for administrators and teachers. Standard systems and supports are often ineffective - even counterproductive - because they fail to meet students' specific learning needs and instead create a cycle of failure. By the time many of these students get to high school, their academic difficulties and related self-perceptions and attitudes toward learning are entrenched. The education system and the students themselves assume that they are destined to fail in school. This attitude results in serious consequences for the students - many of whom get held back, develop social and behavior problems, or drop out - and the schools suffer in terms of their student outcome measures.
Principals and teachers can help prevent this cycle and promote success for slow-learning students by recognizing that it is most productive to consider borderline intellectual functioning as a risk factor to overcome, not as a sentence to fail. Like...