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Students who have Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity (ADHD) are notorious for underperforming. They are often quite brilliant, but can’t seem to focus or settle down enough to learn the material. What can a teacher do to help children with ADHD learn more effectively?
Try breaking down instructions into simple steps. For example, instead of saying, “Joe, go to the bookshelf and get the book on the bottom shelf, sit down, open it and turn to page 200,” you would say, “Joe, go to the bookshelf and get the book on the bottom shelf.” After Joe gets the book, you say, “Now you can have a seat.” Wait until Joe sits down, and then add, “Open the book to page 200.” This way, Joe is not hearing a large chunk of information that he may have difficulty processing. ADHD children are easily distracted, and if he sees Paul playing with his eraser when you are giving the instructions, he may miss part of them, or not be able to remember them due to small events that he notices between the time you give him the instructions and the time until he is back in his seat. This is not a choice that ADHD children make consciously. These are the children who will notice if the fan is wobbling, or if the air conditioning is making a strange noise. Often, the sensory input that they experience is overwhelming. Breaking down instructions into small pieces helps them to process the large influx of information that they are constantly receiving.
Sitting still can be extremely difficult for children with ADHD. Even adults who do not have the disorder usually do not enjoy long meetings. A hyperactive child who must sit in a seat seven hours a day is a very restless child, and may be unhappy as well. Find hands-on activities that you can do with your class. This is tricky, because although the child will be moving around, there may be even more distractions, so you must make the hands-on activities very structured. Choose a partner for the ADHD student who is not easily distracted.
ADHD children tend to rush through work. They are usually the first ones to turn in assignments, often done with terrible handwriting, and with many incorrect answers. It is difficult for an ADHD student to take his time with work and double-check his answers. Try reducing the assignment for this student, and emphasizing that you would like him to turn in accurate work. Do not let him get away with quickly turning in incorrect work. Check his work first and hold him accountable. He will learn the habit of double-checking his answers, especially if there is a reward tied into the accuracy of the work.
Break the activities in the classroom into small chunks. Instead of lecturing for a long period of time, and then giving a quiz, try a change of routine. Do a short warm-up, give a mini-lesson, allow students to practice the skill in groups and then administer the quiz. The class period will not seem to be quite so long and drawn out this way, and the student will be able to have some movement when switching to group work. Remember to keep the activities, as well as the transitions, very structured. You will also find that students with ADHD respond well to multi-sensory instruction. You may want to add visuals to your instruction, or increase the number of hands-on activities that you do.
Help the student get organized. Most likely, unless he is receiving organizational assistance at home, his backpack will be filled with crushed papers and forgotten homework assignments, and perhaps even last month’s lunch. Spend a few minutes with the student every day helping him to organize his papers.
You can also help him by breaking longer assignments and projects into smaller pieces. That way, if he loses part of an assignment, or forgets to do it, he can move on to the next phase without blowing his grade for the entire project. If he is not turning in work, do insist that he look in his backpack, and thoroughly. It is probably in there, complete or incomplete.
ADHD children are accustomed to being corrected frequently. “Joe, sit down.” “Joe, stop tapping the pencil on the table.” “Joe, look up here and pay attention.” These children hear behavioral corrections so often that after a while, they begin to tune them out. It is far better to catch them doing well on task and reward them by saying, “Joe, great job getting the first question right,” or “You did an awesome job drawing the picture for your group today.” In fact, you don’t have to say anything at all. You can walk by the student’s seat, see that he is on task, and give him a simple thumbs up.
Parents of ADHD children are typically very familiar with phone calls home from the teacher, asking for assistance with their child’s behavior. Often, they may feel that they are at the end of their collective rope. Try making a phone call home to tell a parent how well their child participated in a class discussion, or outline some other positive behavior that you have noticed. The parent will be shocked, and you will have made their day. The next day, the student will be very pleased that he has gotten a positive phone call home and may work harder on his assignments in order to get more of this positive feedback. With a little extra help from you, this is possible, and a negative academic spiral can be turned into a positive one.
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