Engaging and Maintaining Students’ Attention (Part 1)
August 2, 2012
by Sandra Rief
This is the first of a 4-part blog that will focus on getting, focusing, and maintaining students’ attention – particularly important for kids with ADHD. Adapted from my books: How to Reach & Teach Children with ADD/ADHD and The ADD/ADHD Checklist: A Practical Reference for Parents and Teachers.
GETTING STUDENTS’ ATTENTION
- Arouse students’ curiosity and anticipation. Ask an interesting, speculative question, show a picture, tell a little story, or read a related poem to generate discussion and interest in the upcoming lesson.
- Try playfulness, silliness, humor, use of props, and a bit of theatrics to get attention and peek interest.
- Use storytelling, real-life examples, and anecdotes. Students of all ages love to hear stories (particularly personalones, such as something that happened to the teacher when he or she was a child).
- Capture their attention at the emotional level if possible.
- Add a bit of mystery. Bring in an object relevant to the upcoming lesson in a box, bag, pillowcase. This is a wonderful way to generate predictions and can lead to excellent discussions or writing activities.
- Signal students auditorilly through the use of sound/music (chimes, rainstick, xylophone, playing a bar or chord on a keyboard, or a few seconds of a recorded song).
- Try using various toys that make a novel sound, clap patterns, and clear verbal signals (e.g., “1,2,3…eyes on me”) also work well.
- Vary the tone of your voice: loud, soft, whispering. Try making a louder command: “Listen! Freeze! Ready!” followed by a few seconds of silence before proceeding in a normal voice to give directions.
- Use visual signals: flash the lights, raise your hand which signals the students to raise their hands and close their mouths until everyone is silent.
- Write key words or pictures on the board or projector while presenting.
- Frame the visual material you want students to be focused on with your hands or with a colored box around it.
- Project an object on the screen when using a projector (e.g. little toy car or plastic figure) to get attention.
- Cover or remove visual distractions. Erase unnecessay information from the board and remove clutter in the environment.
- COLOR is very effective in getting attention. Color highlight key words, phrases, steps to computation problems, spelling patterns, and so forth.
- Eye contact. Students should be facing you when you are speaking, especially while instructions are being given. If students are seated in clusters, have those students not directly facing you turn their chairs and bodies around when signaled to do so.
Tags: ADHD, attention, student engagement
