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Essay on Characteristics of At-risk High School Students
Many students suffer from failure from one time to another. Many students start their school year feeling energized, but towards the ending, all of the energy dies away. Every September, three million 6-year-olds enter our nation s first grades. Most enter confident of doing well in school, highly motivated, and eager to learn. Just nine months later, many of these bright, enthusiastic youngsters have learned a hard lesson: they have failed first grade. These students who have difficulties are known as at risk students.
The struggle to read, write, compute, or master concepts might lead students to discouragement or dropout. Although many might think that there is no hope for these children, there are. The school system and their educators have implemented many programs to help students over come their struggle to succeed in school, through school funded programs. Students who struggle with reading, writing, and computing basic concept are known as at-risk students (Sharon, 2002).
There are many discouraging words to describe these children: “underachievers, slow learners, retarded, below average, gifted, troublemaker, unmotivated, emotionally distress, and mentally disabled“((Sharon, 2002). The students who are at risk may come from the disadvantaged socioeconomic background, such as poverty, mentally or physically abused, single parent household, learning disability, delinquency, bilingual, those with risky behavior and the exceptionalities.
Some characteristics of at risk students are poor academic performance, counterproductive attitudes and behavior, and excessive absentees. At-risk students are those prone to not graduating. Some of the other characteristics are health problems, substance abuse, sexual active, suicide, and pregnancy (Sharon, 2004). At-risk students are those who fall under these four categories: remediation, retention, dropping out, and substandard basic skills. These categories describe students who need additional instruction, those who repeat a grade, those who do not finish a grade, and those who score low on their test respectively..................
