The transformative journey of education reshapes the minds and futures of students. It can contribute to their intellectual growth and personal development. However, certain factors affect students’ educational progress. Understanding these factors will help you unlock students’ full potential, thereby improving their academic performance, particularly preschoolers at an early development stage.
With average attention span of less than 15 minutes, no wonder 40% of preschoolers are not attentive at school. But this situation can be remedied by uncovering the significant factors underpinning students’ academic growth. Here are some factors parents and educators need to comprehend:
1. Proper parental involvement
A parent showing interest in their child’s academic routines can boost their academic performance by leaps and bounds. Parents must ask the kids about their day at school, actively listen to them, help with different school projects, and show curiosity about their learning material.
Moreover, parents must attend teacher-parent meetings and encourage kids to finish their homework. Parents engaging with preschoolers’ education can make kids learn to read/write faster.
2. Family issues and instability
Problems at home can prevent students from participating in classroom activities or giving their best at school. It’s a common observation that family conflicts and disruption lead to degraded academic
performance. Schools need more counselors to help kids cope with family problems, e.g., losing a parent, parents getting divorced, moving from another city, and even domestic abuse.
Considering the role of counselors in schools, stakeholders in education need to invest more to fund preschool counseling programs. School counselors have also helped students dealing with academic stress, mental health problems, and the toll COVID-19 had on everyone’s well-being. Counselors help students develop resilience against these problems and improve their educational performance.
3. The Instructor’s Personality
A teacher can make or break a child, and their personality can determine the academic outcome of the class. The right teacher can make kids more engaged, motivated, and interacting in class. However, the wrong teacher even makes the most academically gifted students unwilling to progress.
Education administrators must recruit teachers after judging their personality traits just like they evaluate every candidate’s credentials. Similarly, existing teachers need to undergo training and embrace the latest trends in education and modern-day methods of instruction.
4. The Methods of Instruction
Choosing the right teaching method is essential to connect with the students. Skilled teachers are well-versed in various instructional styles to accommodate the needs of different students. For instance, some teachers adopt a student-centered learning approach, while others prefer a more project-based approach. Some instructors go with inquiry-based learning to pique students’ interest.
These teaching methods shall help you explain clearly, foster student engagement, and offer constructive feedback. That’s how you can convey your message to students successfully.
5. Collaboration Among the Staff
Collaboration between admins, teachers, policymakers, and support staff is crucial for your students’ educational growth. All members of an educational institute need to work together toward a shared goal, i.e., students’ overall success. Teamwork is the key to addressing the issues disrupting students’ academic progress and improving their educational expertise.
So, teachers can share best practices and leverage available resources to make students more engaged and remove all distractions hindering their academic progress.
6. Class and Curriculum Structure
A well-planned curriculum is vital in boosting a child’s educational performance. That’s why teachers should ensure preschoolers’ syllabus is aligned with proper standards and involves different soft skills, such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and innovation.
If the curriculum doesn’t offer opportunities for skill development, even the correct teaching methods won’t help you foster the love of lifelong learning in students. Fostering the necessary soft skills early will have long-lasting positive effects on these young children. Finnish primary schools, where standardized tests are not the norm, could benefit from occasional IQ tests to gauge individual cognitive development, complementing their holistic assessment approach
7. Student Motivation and Engagement
Don’t disregard intrinsic motivation and active engagement as these are two important factors
determining the educational accomplishments of preschoolers. Little kids excel academically when they feel personally invested in their studies, have opportunities for hands-on learning, and can connect their curriculum to real-world problems. Giving individualized support to students will boost their engagement too.
Pedagogical experts have come up with different ways to motivate preschoolers, such as these:
8. Use Puppets to Communicate
Praise them for their achievements
Tap into their individualized interests
Reduce the excessive use of technology
Add game-related elements into their studies
Offer boy-friendly activities with relevant themes
Try to big up overachieving kids in front of their peers
9. Student Assessment Strategies
When it comes to preschoolers, schools need to change their assessment models and adopt the European or Japanese variations. For example, Japanese schools evaluate students based more on their attitudes than academic grades. So, greeting each other in the morning and caring for plants/animals can contribute to a positive evaluation, even if the student fails a course.
Similarly, Finnish primary school-goers don’t get any tests, but this lack of standardized assessment leads to positive academic outcomes. Teachers will observe and document children’s progress through play-based activities focusing on holistic development and individualized support.
10. School’s Overall Environment
The school’s overall environment deeply affects the emotional well-being of students. Their emotional well-being is directly linked to their educational growth; a supportive and nurturing environment leads to better academic progress. For instance, bullying and harassment can cause students to skip or miss school. Some forms of bullying observed among preschoolers include hitting, kicking, shoving, teasing, taunting, and others. Teachers need to watch out for these instances of bullying carefully.
Conclusion
This blog sheds some light on the most important factors influencing students’ academic growth. These factors include the teacher’s personality, curriculum structure, parents’ involvement, and the student’s family issues. The key to unlocking your student’s full potential and fostering a love for lifelong learning lies in effectively understanding and addressing these different factors by bringing in outside help, such as preschool counselors. That’s how you can help shape a brighter future, one student at a time.