Students who are different learners often appear to have a learning disability. But there is an enormous difference between the two and parents need to understand this.
Parents often think that their child has a learning disability when the issue is that their child is a different learner and needs a different teaching approach
A few days ago I got a call from a mother who is worried about her son’s ability to learn. Her concerns started when he moved into Grade 4. She told me that her son is very bright and that he used to get straight ‘A’s’ but that his grades had started to go down, and he was having problems studying.
What could they do? The parents were afraid that their son had a learning disability. They wanted to know how they could help him learn.
The family gave me two enormous clues that helped me determine that this boy did not have a learning disability.
Firstly, his troubles only started when he went to Grade 4. If he had a genuine learning disability they would have been apparent much earlier.
Secondly, he had been getting ‘A’s’ and it seemed that his grades were dropping because he was not studying.
These are signs of a ‘different learner’ rather than a learner with a disability.
It was a brief call, but here is my read on he situation.
Many children start to have learning problems when they go into Grade 4 as a result of changes in the way they are taught. In Grades 1 – 3 teachers use very visual ways of teaching. Children may have limited language ability at this age and the teacher understands this and compensates by using visual ways of getting the message across.
Then, in Grade 4, everything changes. Teachers assume that children have developed the language skills they need and they use a much more verbal teaching style.
Most children can accommodate this change in teaching style, for some ( about 25% is my guess) it creates real learning difficulties. These students may, or may not, have developed the language skills they need but they cling onto their preference to learn visually.
This is when bright students start to create wonderful strategies to either avoid working or to find ways to make the teaching make sense. I am always amazed at how hard some of these students actually work and how little progress they end up making.
Then, two things start to happen.
1. Because learning is so hard the student stops trying so hard, grades drop, and
2. The student starts to think he or she is stupid and cannot learn, so stops trying to learn.
The situation becomes a downward spiral.
The ONLY way to stop the student spiraling downward, and the parents becoming upset and frustrated, is to find out how the student likes to learn (preferred learning style) and show the parents, and student, how to adapt the teaching situation to meet their learning needs.
And the irony is that it is easy to do, prevents a lot of anxiety and frustration, and best of all, helps the student become the kind of learner that he is capable of becoming.
It is a guaranteed process, it works every time!! What else can you say that about?
