1. Introduction

The purpose of the study is to interpret the concept of "learning difficulties" and to study the pedagogical and psychological reasons for the low academic performance of a primary school student.   

Research methods: study of professional literature, observation, questionnaire survey, conversation.

According to our observation, such studies conducted in this area cannot lose their relevance, since the education system is not static, it is constantly changing, and with it the requirements for students, ways of evaluating their activities, and the content of education are changing: Pedagogical In psychological literature, the concept of "learning difficulties" is interpreted in different ways. Send some of them.

I.V. Dubrovina interprets "learning difficulties" as a discrepancy between the student's training and the mandatory school requirements in mastering knowledge, developing skills and abilities, creativity, forming experiences and fostering cognitive relationships [3, P. 23].

P.P. Blonsky connects the emergence of learning difficulties with the driving forces in his contradictions. According to this approach, in all cases where there is a mismatch between the abilities of learners and what is required of them,learners experience learning difficulties [1, P. 13].

According to M.V.Ignatenko, "learning difficulties" are associated with changes in the content and goals of learning, as well as with shortcomings in the organization of the pedagogical process [13, P. 838–841].

According to Tsetlin, for example, a student experiences "learning difficulties" when he does not fulfill the requirements (or any of them). at any intermediate stage of the learning process, which is considered a period for determining the success of learning.

According to N.V. Byckova, "the "learning difficulties" that cause a junior student to show poor results can be divided into two groups: general and specific. General refers to a stable, relatively long record of poor results in the main subjects of the school curriculum, such as mother tongue and mathematics. A specific one means recording results in only one of these subjects (core subjects) below, even with good academic performance [2].

The observations of some psychologists are interesting, according to which / L.A. Regush, A.L. Orlova / when talking about the concept of "learning difficulties" in psychology, they mean its psychological causes, which, as a rule, are the characteristics of the student himself, his abilities, motivation, interests, etc. And in pedagogy, the source of "learning difficulties" are the forms and methods of organizing learning, and even the education system as a whole [11,  P. 114–115].

Consider groups of students who may have low learning outcomes due to "a number of learning difficulties":

1. Children with mental retardation (ADR) are children who, for various reasons, fall behind the age standards.

2. Not developed enough for school-early development (abnormalities during pregnancy, birth injuries, severe illnesses). They're suffering They suffer from various types of childhood diseases and experience difficulties. adapts to school conditions and academic workload.

3. Functionally immature children — they are loving and conscientious. They do all the schoolwork, but that's for sure. In the coming months, their well-being and behavior will change. Some get restless, others get lazy, some get lucky, some of them՝ nervous, complains of headaches, eats poorly, sleeps poorly: Children do not adapt to school conditions, rules, to the requirements: mental and physical stress, which were extremely emotional, do not have the appropriate physiological endurance, as a result of which they often get sick and do not have enough lessons.

4. Gifted — gifted, talented,brilliant, exclusive, intelligent advanced students who sometimes do not attend school for various reasons.

5. Schools and families deprived of school children, some are brought up in unfavorable microtalk conditions: This is a social omission.parents, alcoholism,disputes and conflicts, atmosphere,cruelty and coldness towards children,physical violence, humiliation of the child's personality [8, P. 138–141].

Students who are more likely to have difficulties during their studies can be roughly divided into two groups:

1) students with speech disorders, vision and hearing problems, mental and physical development problems, in need of special learning conditions;

2) hyperactive, slow, gifted, left-handed, children with problems of attention, memory and fine motor skills, with low ability to work and early fatigue, with low self-esteem, overly busy parents, etc. [12, P. 43–46].

Over the years, in different historical periods, many facts have been collected, theories and assumptions have been put forward about the causes of low academic performance: An analysis of literary sources shows that many authors have studied the problem of younger schoolchildren with low academic performance.

The study of the causes of low academic performance of younger schoolchildren was conducted by B.G. Ananev, Yu.K. Babannsky, A.N. Bastoon, V.V. Voloshina, P.P. Borisov, A.M. Helmont, Z.I. Kalmykova, B.S. Cobzor, N.P.Mayorova, O.N. Gladkova, L.S. Slavina, L.M. Spivak, R.V. Ovcharova, A.L. Venger, G.A. Tsukerman, G.I. Vergeles, L.A. Matveeva, V.S. Tsetlin and others.

Let's also introduce the Russian teacher of the XX century O.N. Gladkova's observations, which relate to the following difficulties in teaching a student:

- unformed educational activity;

- poor mental development of the student;

- certain manifestations of the pupillary nervous system and features;

- the student's lack of formation of a new inner position of the student;

- unsatisfactory position of the student in the classroom [4, P. 31–33].

The Russian educator of the XX century A.M. Helmont combined the causes of difficulties that arise during studies into three groups [5, P. 102]:

1. Physiological factors.

2. Social factors.

3. Psychological factors.

The author further notes that the social and domestic causes of learning difficulties include neglect of the child, parental indifference and lack of contact between the child and his parents, unfavorable living conditions, an incomplete family, lack of household routine, etc. The same point of view is expressed by N.N. Kuzminov, K.P. Kochetkova. They identify three factors that cause learning difficulties:

1. Physiological: physical activity, nervous system, low resistance, diseases suffered by a child, operations and much more.

2. Social: relationships with the child and his peers, the attitude of parents towards the child, unfavorable family conditions, etc.

3. The psychological characteristics and abilities of a child's mental development are.

The Russian educator of the XX century P.P.Borisov considers three groups of learning difficulties:

1) general pedagogical;

2) psychophysiological;

3) socio-economic and social: according to the author, the causes of the first group arose due to shortcomings in the educational work of teachers.

Accordingly, these reasons are divided into two groups: didactic (violation of didactic principles and rules) and educational (mostly incomplete performance of extracurricular and extracurricular activities with children).

The causes of the second group are due to violations of the normal physical, physiological and mental development of children. The third group of reasons does not directly depend on teachers and their location. Schools have a weak material and technical base, low level of preschool education, family conditions of students, parents, educational level, family relations, lack of teachers [6, P. 48].

Later, A.P. Kovalevskaya in her work identifies several reasons for low academic performance related to the lack or improper formation of skills and means of educational activity:

- difficulties with assimilation of educational material;

- inability to work, lack of educational and cognitive processes;

- skills and means of educational activity [7, P. 49–55].

A.L. Wenger and G.A. Tsukerman (psychologist) among the reasons for low academic performance, the following are highlighted:

- mental development problems;

- behavioral problems;

- emotional and personal problems;

- problems with learning;

- nervous (neurotic) manifestations, etc. [14, P. 36].

G.L. Vergeles, L.A. Matveeva, and I. A. Raev believes that low academic performance may be due to:

- with the psychological characteristics of students;

- with a lack of volume and quality of knowledge;

- with unformed learning activities;

- in relationships with others;

- with the deformation of educational motives [10, P. 120].

We conducted a study in Yerevan basic schools № 2 named after Khachatur Abovyan, basic schools № 106 named after « Knights of Vardanants» of Yerevan and secondary schools of Hartavan village of Aragatsotn region. A total of 473 primary school students (452 from the city, 21 from the village), 38 teachers (29 from the city, 9 from the village) and 122 parents (102 from the city, 20 from the village) participated in the study.

In the above-mentioned schools, we regularly conducted lessons, assigned written work, and conducted conversations in the subjects of "Mother Tongue", "Mathematics", "Me and the world around me" in order to identify younger students who showed poor academic results and find out their causes.

The "native" topic of classes reveals the low learning outcomes achieved by its students who were writing and reading, thoughts of correct design, replication, their own opinions to express, experiences and thoughts to express,thematic discussions to participate,compare and contrast characters, create, analyze, draw conclusions difficulties, etc. [9].

In the lessons on the subject of Mathematics, we identified difficulties associated with performing operations of addition and subtraction in Columns, the multiplication table, mastering the components of the simplest arithmetic operations, as well as the simplest instructions for tasks, the requirements of tasks, understanding geometric shapes, performing logical conclusions, as a result of which the final results set by the subject standard were not provided.

During the lessons on the subject "Me and the world around me", we identified difficulties mainly related to reproduction, expression of thoughts, expression of one's own opinion, point of view, analysis, memorization of dates and place names.

In the course of a questionnaire survey and interviews conducted among parents and teachers of the above-mentioned schools, we found that the main reasons for the low academic performance of younger students are: dependence on ICT, parental employment, extracurricular activities, social conditions, poor mental abilities, frequent absenteeism, lack of attention, concentration etc.

2. The results of the study

Having studied the research, observations, and approaches of a number of scientists and educators who examined the causes of low academic performance of a primary school student, based on these observations and taking into account the age, individual, and ethnic characteristics of a primary school student, we have developed four groups of causes of low academic performance of a primary school student: 

- pedagogical: insufficient professional training of the teacher, teacher's lack of communication skills, the student's lack of motivation to learn, lack of effective teaching conditions (overcrowded classrooms, lack of technical facilities, places in the educational institution, benches, etc.);

- psycho-emotional-volitional: poorly developed psychotechnical processes of the student: difficulties with perception, memory, attention, behavioral problems: difficulties in managing one's feelings, emotions, difficulties in expressing emotions and feelings., the presence of factors that cause anxiety in a child, student's discomfort (maladjustment), hyperactive children;

- social and communicative: low level of cooperation between parents and teachers, parents' lack of basic knowledge and pedagogical education, excessive care of parents or other family members, ack of parental control, attention (insufficient care), dependence on ICT, student employment in extracurricular and extracurricular groups, delays, frequent skips;

- neurophysiological: children with problems of mental and physical development (with disabilities)՝ visual, hearing and speech disorders, disorders of the musculoskeletal system and nervous system.

We have developed the following 4 conditional groups of primary school students with low learning outcomes:

group I: general and stable. They record relatively low long-term results in the main disciplines.

Group II: certain. Registers poor results in only one subject.

Group III: temporary. Low results are recorded in diseases, injuries, moving from school to school, socialization, contact, adaptation due to problems.

Group IV: functionally immature children. They have underdeveloped memory, attention, lack adaptation to school conditions, mental and physical stress, they cry, they are nervous, they are very emotional, they often complain of headaches, they do not have sufficient physiological endurance, which is why they often get sick and miss classes.

The results of the study showed that 117 out of 473 primary school students showed poor academic results — 26%, of which 45–38% in their "native" subject, 42–36% in the subject "Mathematics", 20–17% in the subject "me and the world" and 10–9% in all subjects: Our research has shown that the main reason for low academic performance is dependence on ICT, mainly mobile phones, which accounts for more than 68% of the above reasons.

Since the main reason for students' low academic performance is dependence on ICT, we propose "parent-teacher cooperation" as a way of pedagogical support and suggest that joint efforts (parents, teachers, representatives of education and health authorities) should, if possible, monitor younger students while using phones or other information technologies. Also set the age for accessing certain websites.

We recommend that teachers assign as few ICT-related tasks as possible, and that parents limit and control the time during which children use ICT. After some time (6–8 months) after applying the prescribed measures, re-conducting observations, desertion and conducting surveys, we received the following results: out of 117 primary school students who showed poor academic results, 62 showed satisfactory results, and 55 need to continue these activities.

3. Conclusion

Thus, the problem of registering low learning outcomes for younger students will be solved if younger students who have registered low learning outcomes are identified in a timely manner, the reasons for registering low results are identified, and ways of pedagogical support are proposed, taking into account the educational needs of students.   

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