helping students develop skills for focus and attention
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Helping Students Develop The Skills For AttentionDomain: Executive Functions
Attention controls the flow of information in and out of the mind. If a student tunes in and tunes out, he will miss details in the information. A capable child with weak attention is likely to produce inconsistent work.
Strategies to Support Students with Weaker Attention
Test Taking:· Make sure students are familiar with the start and stop icons between sections. Some children miss them in their haste and inadvertently move into subsequent sections and lose valuable time.· Teach students to eliminate obviously wrong answers first. If time is running out or they just do not know, guess from the good remaining options.o Students often select the first or second choice because "it sounds right" and they can move on to the next question. For students who can afford the time, go through all the answer choices and eliminate all the incorrect ones by crossing them off. This approach forces the student to focus and carefully consider all the choices before picking a final answer.
· Teach students to cross out the wrong answers as they narrow down their selections and then circle their final answer before transferring it to the answer sheet. This will help if a student has accidentally skipped a line on the answer sheet and/or goes back to check work.· Take timed sample tests using a visual timer. Teach students to pace themselves and appreciate how far along they should be after a given amount of elapsed time.· Focus on questions that come more easily. Consider having them skip over the harder or longer questions and come back to them later. When using this strategy you MUST teach children to clearly mark skipped questions so they can easily find them later.· Teach which questions will go faster. A student can almost always complete a vocabulary section more quickly than reading comprehension, for example.· In reading comprehension, have students skim the questions first so they read the passage with a focus on what they need to know.
Instruction:· Make sure the desk is clean with no distractions· Make sure you have student’s attention when giving instructions· Introduce information in small quantities and then “check in”· Teach students how to check work (they usually don’t know!)· Specifically teach them how to avoid calculator mistakes· Guide them on when to skim and when to read deeply· Regular breaks after 20-30 min (short walk, drink of water, stretch)· Routine is important. Give them a daily schedule and checklist
Tools:· Fidget toys· Timer· Visual schedules· Provide homework schedule and checklists with estimated time to be spent
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Student Primers
The student primer is a helpful first-step explanation of a cognitive skill and how and when a student uses the specific skill. Written in child-friendly language, students are building self-awareness by relating the information to their actual school experiences. Depending on the age and maturity of the student, parents might want to read the primer to their child. Primers include links to top strategies for each specific cognitive skill.
Oftentimes students who are struggling with attention also have difficulties with working memory and processing speed, and it is equally important to have strategies to support these affected skills. While attention controls the flow of information in and out of the mind, working memory is the ability to hold on to information while you are working with it. Also, students with attention weaknesses are sometimes putting forth more effort to process material and need more time to respond or complete work. Students who have difficulty with processing speed might fall behind in work, or they might rush to finish on time, but compromise the quality of their work. This chapter includes student primers for attention, working memory and processing speed, so students can understand each skill and gain insight into the complex intersection between these important skills.
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Instructional Strategies to Support Attention
When students have weaker skills they might need to receive instruction with a slightly modified approach. Here are strategies to adopt when teaching a student with weaker attention. Start with these strategies which are typically the most helpful. If they don't seem to be working or are not sufficient, you can find additional ones in your Mindprint Toolbox. If a student has an IEP or 504 Plan you can request that these strategies be explicitly offered at school to ensure the student receives all the supports he or she needs.
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Study Strategies to Support Attention
The most important study and homework strategies for students with attention difficulties involve support with organization and time management, and helping students learn how to approach bigger tasks. We've included top strategies to help with school and homework tasks.
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Apps, Games and Activities to Support Attention
It is important for students with attention weaknesses to have the organizational tools they need at their fingertips. In general when choosing apps, games and other activities for your students with attention weaknesses, it is important to make sure the product design is simple, free of distracting ads and flashing colors, and ones in which your student can feel successful.
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Get A Free Mindprint Toolbox
Our Free Toolbox includes actionable learning strategies to help make learning more efficient. Our research-based learning strategies are written by child psychologists and learning specialists to strengthen and/or compensate for weaker cognitive skills. The techniques in these strategies have proven effectiveness either in the research literature or in practical classroom application. Teachers and parents have access to the comprehensive database of over 300 strategies searchable by cognitive skill.
Mindprint also recommends thousands of certified teacher-reviewed supplemental education products including games, apps, websites and workbooks. Educators can choose products by academic or cognitive skill depending on their goals and objectives. All of the products have been evaluated using a proprietary rubric based on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) standards. Hence, Mindprint’s reviews reflect the use of multi-modal delivery methods, undesirable difficulties, and potential of stress-inducing features such as timers and negative feedback. Overall, our reviews help parents and teachers select products with the best pedagogy while helping them avoid products that will be unnecessarily challenging based on cognitive needs. Avoiding undesirable difficulties is shown in research to be critical to engaging and effective learning for all students.
What is a Learning Profile
Every child has a unique learning profile. It is important to understand HOW each child learns best by gaining objective insight into their individual learning strengths and needs
WHAT vs HOW
Academic skills refer to content knowledge, or WHAT the child knows otherwise known as learned knowledge. Students' learned knowledge is measured on the standardized tests students take in school (Common Core, Iowa Test of Basic Skills, other state tests). Cognitive skills are the underlying mental processes required for learning -- the HOW of learning. They include how quickly a student works, how long they can focus, how efficiently they memorize, whether they work more easily with pictures or words, how they problem solve etc. A good understanding of one’s relative cognitive strengths and needs is the key to helping students learn more easily and efficiently. Unlike academic skills where some students excel in all areas, every student has relative strengths in some cognitive skills and relative weaknesses in others. For example, a student who has an exceptional capability in remembering pictures will likely have a relative weakness in remembering text-based information. When educators have objective data on cognitive skills, they can design instruction that is most effective for each student. In the example above, the educator might encourage drawing and diagramming over writing for ensuring mastery of concepts. Most children never have their cognitive skills assessed in school. Cognitive skills are assessed through tests such as the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), The Woodcock-Johnson Test of Cognitive Abilities, and Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales which are traditionally given one-on-one with a child psychologist. This binder is based on an online cognitive test, Mindprint Learning Assessment, that can be administered to students by any adult. The binder shows how an educator can design instruction that is most effective for this specific student. Educators can easily create a binder of their own for any student's unique learning profile.