According to Dehaene (2020), attention is the gateway to learning. This is why the condition I have written about – Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is so important to learning. If we can’t get a child’s attention, we can’t teach the child English language or any other subject. Here are 5 tips for teachers to support children with ADHD especially during this distance or virtual learning period.
1. You may not be able to understand all the disability and neurodiversity conditions but you should equip yourself with the tell-tale signs so that you can identify them early and ask for specialist help. You can learn more about ADHD here.
2. Be flexible with your teaching. Allow them to move around. You can help them make up for what they have missed as a result of constantly moving by sending them activities to learn at their own pace. Also, incorporate physical activities into their learning e.g scavenger hunt where they hunt around their homes for items starting with a letter sound or jump spelling where they jump for every letter of a word they spell. Remember, if a child isn’t learning then we haven’t found the right way to teach the child yet.
3. Give intense praise and give it immediately because affected kids struggle to wait to receive gratification.
4. Use discussion style/video style/ debate style teaching methods e.g watch a video clip and talk about what you learnt in that video or record yourself discussing the video with someone in your household.
5. Most importantly carry the other children in your classroom along so that they understand and feel more positive about supporting. Empathy is crucial in supporting children with ADHD and other neurodiversity conditions.
Free colouring activity sheets of ‘I am not naughty – I really really mean it!’ book can be downloaded below.
Free online reading sessions which form part of the ‘Inclusion Starts with Me’ programme can be booked below.
BOOK A READING SESSION