Now that you have some idea about possible interest areas, you will be able to think about ways to motivate underachieving students to pursue enrichment in one or more areas.

Gifted education teachers or enrichment specialists are excellent sources for enrichment activities and for advice about alternative teaching units or materials, and mentoring student projects.

For teachers who don’t have access to specialists, many commercially published materials are available. These kits, books, and activity cards offer high quality at reasonable prices, and can be adapted to individuals or small student groups of all ages. To see a description of some enrichment materials available in print, click here.

Of course, these are only some examples!! Hundreds of resources are available in your school, thousands in your library, and millions on line to help students’ interests. The time you spent with the student helping him or her compact out of the regular curriculum and find an interest may create the bond that we believe will help this student break the underachievement cycle.

Encouraging underachieving students to develop interests and pursue projects that can help them to develop a love of learning. If students develop an interest and want to pursue an independent study, a 12 step process for guiding students through independent study is provided in the next section.

Next Section: Guiding Students Through Type III Studies
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