Setting Students With ADHD Up for Success

Teachers often come to the classroom with an unclear understanding of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and they are rarely provided with strategies that detail how to work with students who have been diagnosed with ADHD.

Nina Parrish, a special education teacher and tutor who coaches struggling students, many of who have ADHD, shares classroom strategies she has found to be effective.

Create Urgency

Provide deadlines: I teach students time management skills by breaking projects into chunks, each with a detailed description, rubric, and due date. For example, a research paper might have a separate due date for a topic, completed research, outline, rough draft, and final paper.

Time tasks:  Timing is used not to create anxiety but to increase performance over time—students are never graded on timed activities and don’t share their scores. Instead they’re challenged to beat the clock and to do better than they did last time.

Activate Interest

Students with ADHD are often capable of focusing intensely on something they’re interested in.

Engage students’ passions: Providing a hook to each lesson in the form of a story, game, or question gets students excited to figure out a problem.

Give students choices: Giving kids a choice in the books they read, activities they complete for a grade (visual art display, paper, slide or video presentation, blog, skit, podcast, etc.), and the ways they learn a skill encourages participation.

Allow for Breaks and Movement

I’ve found that taking breaks results in more focus for all of my students, but especially those with ADHD.

Use brain breaks: I try to help them increase their focus to 15 to 25 minutes of working time, and after periods of concentration, they receive a short break. This timing method, sometimes called the Pomodoro Technique, helps students increase focus over time.

Let students move: I find that I get more out of students if I give them a chance to dance, stretch, or exercise before they have to sit down and work quietly. This can be led by the teacher, a short video, or a student.

Provide Structure

I believe all students thrive when they know what to expect. For students with ADHD, having an orderly environment is essential.

Have clear expectations: Establishing a routine that stays the same even when activities change makes children feel secure.  This strategy is also useful for highlighting age-appropriate social skills like how to listen when someone is presenting or how to determine the appropriate amount of personal space.

Teach study skills explicitly: Students know they can Google facts, but teaching them how to learn creates relevance. Regardless of what subject is being taught, it’s possible to incorporate study skills lessons—how to take notes, read a textbook, or study. Students will need these skills in the future when they’re required to learn on their own.

You may have noticed that these strategies will help not just students with ADHD—they’re useful for all students because they encourage the development of executive functions such as self-regulation.

We rarely look at ADHD as an advantage, but I’ve found that having students with ADHD in my classroom challenges me to update the way I teach so that my curriculum is more versatile, interesting, and compatible with the skills all students will need in an increasingly fast-paced world.

Excerpted from “Setting Students With ADHD Up for Success” from Edutopia. Read the full article online.

Source: Edutopia | Setting Students With ADHD Up for Success, https://www.edutopia.org/article/setting-students-adhd-success | ©2023 George Lucas Educational Foundation

Learn more about the Strengths of ADHD in CHC’s Voices of Compassion podcast.