Educational Remedial
Educational Remedial
Remedial education seeks to assist children who have an average or above average intellectual ability but are falling behind academically, more specifically it works on literacy and numeracy skills. This is different to special education which targets the needs of children who have disabilities that hinder their ability to learn in a mainstream environment. Children who are referred for educational remedial support usually require some focused attention on filling the gaps in order for them to catch up and be on par with their peers. When educational remedial support is offered as an early intervention, children who have been falling behind stand a greater chance of becoming effective readers and of developing a conceptually sound grounding in numeracy. Traditionally children who fall behind are separated from their peers and grouped together, despite their normal IQ scores, in order to help them catch up. There are benefits to separating children according to their skill set as it is easier to teach a group of children who are all on the same level, children are in an environment with peers who are of similar skill set and their environment can be enriched with activities that specifically target their areas of need. This approach however excludes and, in some ways, marginalises children who with the correct support could be successful in the mainstream class.
Educational remedial support does not necessarily have to remove the child from the class or mainstream school in order to be successful. In some cases, it may in fact be preferable to keep a child in their mainstream class and provide an individualised program in a one-on-one setting. Individualised programs specifically focus on the skills that are missing or are week and builds on those. These missing skills may display as deficits in reading, writing and numeracy but can fall part of a bigger skill set deficit. Deficits in other areas may include problems with attention, inhibition, flexibility, time management skills, problem solving skills, play, social skills and academic skills. When these skills are worked on holistically and in a one-on-one setting, children can quite often master these skills quickly and thus not need to be removed from the mainstream class at all.
Starting on an educational remedial individualised program such as the ones at Catch Up Kids, helps bridge the gap and set a child up for success at school. The one-on-one environment not only allows for intensive practice of skills but also helps children build their sense of confidence and gives them a sense of achievement. Children who are confident and who feel successful tend to put greater effort into areas where they struggle which then in turn has an impact on their academic performance. Once improvement in these areas are made children who have previously been signalled out for remedial support are able to integrate and successfully participate in the class environment.
