Researchers have developed a new programme that helps shy kids to become more engaged in their class work and improve their math and critical thinking skills.
The programme helps teachers modify their interactions with students based on an individual's temperament, said researchers at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development.
"The needs of shy kids are important but often overlooked because they're sitting quietly, while children with behavioural problems get more attention from teachers," said Sandee McClowry, a professor in NYU's Steinhardt's Department of Applied Psychology and the study's senior author.
Shyness is one of four temperaments identified in INSIGHTS into Children's Temperament, an intervention designed to help teachers and parents match environmental demands with an individual's personality.
The programme provides a framework for appreciating and supporting differences in the personalities of children, rather that trying to change them.
Participants in the programme learn to recognise four temperaments: shy, social and eager to try, industrious, and high maintenance.
In the current study, the researchers evaluated whether INSIGHTS supports the academic development - specifically critical thinking, math and language skills - of children in urban, low-income schools.
Nearly 350 children and their parents across 22 elementary schools were followed during kindergarten and across the transition into first grade.
Half of the schools participating were randomised to INSIGHTS, while the other half, which served as the control group, participated in a supplemental after-school reading programme.
Over 10 weeks, teachers and parents in the INSIGHTS programme learned how to recognise differences in children and support them in ways that are specific to their individual temperaments.
During the same time period, children participated in INSIGHTS classroom activities, using puppets, flashcards, workbooks, and videotapes to help them solve daily dilemmas - for instance, having a substitute teacher or a play date at an unfamiliar house - and understand how individuals differ.
While all children enrolled in INSIGHTS showed improvements in academic skills, the effects were substantially greater for shy children.
Shy children who participated in INSIGHTS had significant growth in critical thinking skills and stability in math skills over the transition from kindergarten to first grade, compared to their shy peers in the control group who declined in both areas.
The findings appear in the journal School Psychology Review.
