How to Teach Your ADD/ADHD Child
ADD/ADHD children are intelligent and willing to learn - it’s up to us as parents and teachers to find a way to teach that will work with them. This is less difficult than it sounds: good teaching practices that work with all children will also work with an ADD/ADHD child. What is different is that our attention-deficit and hyperactive children hold us up to higher standards: we need to work harder, be more creative and more persistent to help these special children succeed.
So here is what you should do to teach your underfocused and overactive child:
1. Make it interesting
It’s amazing how fast children - whether attention-deficit, hyperactive, or not - learn when you take the trouble to make the topic interesting. Showing how what they read in a textbook relates to their life and using lots of practical activities and teaching aids is not easy, but it will make your teaching interesting - and very effective.
For example, in mathematics, if you are teaching fractions, use a circle (or a pizza!) to demonstrate 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 and so on. If you are teaching squaring and cubing, use real squares and cubes. One of my literature teachers used to read out passages from famous books, and then we would talk about what the passage meant to each person. She never had to provide much explanation or interpretation because we provided it ourselves, and she was one of the best teachers I’ve known.
2. Work with her strengths
Allowing your child to focus on what she does best and loves to do will empower her with a sense of her own ability. When my son was obsessed with cars, it was easy for him to learn multiplication and division using our car’s speed, and even some history using pictures of military cars.
Let her choose the way she wants to study or respond in a test. If you allow an ADD/ADHD child to give oral answers in a test, she may do well. But if you force her to write it all down the result will probably be an unhappy adult and child, both convinced she cannot do anything right. In a case like this, it is better to let her respond orally or use the computer. Keep aside separate time for instruction in writing. Always focus on what she can do, while working separately on weak areas.
3. Be organized
ADD/ADHD children thrive on structure. This might be difficult if you are an ADD/ADHD adult yourself (one in three ADD/ADHD child has an ADD/ADHD parent), but it is vital. Have a time set aside for study everyday, and time for outdoor and active play. Create a timetable and let your child know what she can expect through the day. Putting it up where she can see it often will help.
Making lists of important things to do each day, week, month, and year, with your child’s help, will help you get more done. But make sure she is not overwhelmed. Concentrate on one thing at a time, and don’t get too hung up on finishing activities when your child shows she understands and is getting bored. See that her schedule fits well with her biological clock - if she is able to concentrate best in the morning, schedule her most interesting as well as challenging work for that time.
4. Let her move
Most children can concentrate only when they are sitting still - but ADHD children need to be able to move. In fact, requiring them to sit still in their desks probably ensures that they will not be able to concentrate. So give them something productive, and hopefully related to what you are teaching, to keep their hands busy. You can use Lego bricks or play clay - one mother found that teaching her son while they both cleaned the kitchen floor worked well too!
Use lots of modeling and building activities and games with younger children. You can teach parts of speech with ‘hop on it’: you make mats with the parts of speech written on them (noun, verb, etc.) - and your child has to hop on the correct mat when you hold up a word. Or you can play shop to learn addition and subtraction. Allow older children to underline books and make notes in the margins.
5. Have high expectations
Good teachers know that the ultimate aim of education goes beyond just acquiring a set of skills or a body of knowledge - it is about empowerment. And the truth is that all children can excel when they have a good teacher. It depends on you to find the way to reach a child, and help her do her best.
So whether you choose to home school your ADD/ADHD child, or are helping her with her homework, your aim should be to help her do well whatever she was born to do. What may seem like a problem now - like high energy levels - can be her greatest asset when she is an adult.
Tags: hildren learning, children reading, how to reach and teach add adhd children, parenting children, teach activities, teach ideas, teach lesson plan, teach strategies, teaching children with add adh | hildren learning, children reading, how to reach and teach add adhd children, parenting children, teach activities, teach ideas, teach lesson plan, teach strategies, teaching children with add adh
December 25th, 2008 at 1:39 am
nice. I should try those points in my job. Thanks!