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 It is important for each and every child and individual to achieve academic goals not for anyone else but for himself or herself…for their own self-esteem and confidence. 

Another major fact here is all these children or individuals struggling with SLD or Dyslexia and/or ADHD, have average or above average intelligence.  In simple words, they are intelligent, but only because our education system and society tend to gauge their potential and intelligence based on the marks they obtain, they end up being tagged as “Academic Underachievers or Failures or The Iconic Backbenchers.”

 

They are intelligent, highly creative and gifted ones and can perform well, so shouldn’t they get the required and entitled support to showcase their potential and to achieve their academic goals, which is a fundamental right of every human on this earth!!

 

So yes, this needs to be addressed and addressed at an early stage to make things easier for the child, but it is never too late to address and start.

 

How to address & What to do?

1.     Believe in your parental gut feeling or basic instinct.  If you feel there is some hurdle for your child, then definitely there is one.

2.     Once you have this gut feeling, talk to the teachers, talk to almost everyone around you to try to understand, do a lot of research and reading work in Google.  Just type academic difficulties in children and read whatever you come across only for an understanding, not everything will be applicable for your child, but even if a few are, you need to take the next step.

3.     Talk to a professional and seek support and guidance and start with remedials.  In India as of now people who are doing this are Special Educators, but any good remedial educator or teacher who knows how to teach the child in their way of learning will be more than enough.  But starting remedials asap is THE most important step.

4.     Start remedials at the earliest.  Do not wait to do some more R&D and then start, because the more you delay the more is the academic gap that keeps widening for your child, so even one day is important.  The gap needs to be filled as soon as possible and keep achievable goals so that the journey becomes stress free and achievable for the child and the parents.

5.     Parent and teachers are the two best advocates to address this issue in school and in home.  Remedials and special education is an expensive business in India and abroad plus there are many other hurdles like distance, time, travel, quality, etc.  All these hurdles can be address if parent takes up the initiative and empower themselves to address and remediate their child’s academic journey. 

6.     Continue remediation to fill the gap as much as possible.  If achieved fully, child can continue in the regular stream.  If there is some difficulty, child has the right to avail exemptions and flexibilities from any school and any board. Again, her goals and expectations must be real and achievable.

7.     Remediation is a long process, depends on the gap.  The wider the gap, the longer the duration is going to be.

8.     After remediation, if grade level syllabus becomes difficult as the child progresses to higher standards, take exemptions for certain subjects, writing, spelling and/or grade level assessments. All these are available from all boards and schools as per government notifications. So, child can avail all these facilities.

9.     Once the child reaches 8^th grade, and passing out 10^th or 12^th grade looks difficult, look for alternative ways of achieving 10^th, 12 and graduation like NIOS - National Institute of Open Schooling, IGCSE Open Schooling, Skill based & Strength based Vocational and Graduation courses. 

10.            Lot of flexibilities in NIOS which benefits children who are struggling with LD and/or ADHD.

 

Academic achievement till graduation can be achieved easily as there are plethora of options and courses that are available in our country and/or abroad. There is no ready platter available, so lot of research and search needs to be done to get all information.

11.            Child needs support only till he or she clears 12^th.  Once they reach graduation, they know how to take it forward as they are big enough to manage their difficulties.

 

“Each and every child can and will learn.  Just teach them in their dominant learning style.”

Everything is possible and achievable.  As adults we only need to ensure that we open different paths for them to achieve their academic goals.

SINI BIJU JOSE

Founder 

Achievance Alternative Learning Space,

Bangalore