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There is an excellent book of games for 3 to 5 year olds called Follow Me, Too by Marianne Torbert and Lynne B. Schneider. It is available through NAEYC's website. This book has fun games to play (more than one child is involved though). It details those games that can be used to gain specific skills including focus and timing. While this is NOT academic, children who can focus on these games will be better able to focus on their academics, too.
Step away from the school work to work on focus and attention. Believe me this will pay off in school too even though it seems to involve playing games.
He spends forever building with Legos and focusing to the max. I wish that counted but I am afraid I read that just because an ADHD child can focus on certain activities (usually tactile) that does not mean he will also be able to focus on academic work.
He spends forever building with Legos and focusing to the max. I wish that counted but I am afraid I read that just because an ADHD child can focus on certain activities (usually tactile) that does not mean he will also be able to focus on academic work.
Remember this is a marathon, not a sprint. You want to use the hyperfocus to help him be productive.
Start him out with an assignment that he considers interesting and fun. After he completes it, praise him in a mild but meaningfully way, such as a pat on the back or by saying “Good job.†Then get him to do a few minutes of exercise, say on an indoor bike or using Wii Fit for just a few minutes. Give him some incentive for getting off of the Wii fit if playing it turns out to be a moment of hyperfocus!
Immediately, get him to do another assignment that is not so interesting to him and give him intermittent reinforcements, such as a snack that he likes. It is important to give him intermittent reinforcements so that he is never sure when he will receive them. If you do not want to give him a snack or if he is not hungry, you can arrange a different reinforcement adjusted to his interest. The reinforcement could be playing with Legos after he finishes the assignment.
If you notice that he is hyperfocusing, walk away and let him do his work independently. Later, you can praise for doing his work independently as well as completing it and he will feel so proud of himself. This intervention is not a guarantee of helping your child to achieve a hyperfocus in a productive way, but it is certainly worth a try.
Granted problems and academics in general will get harder and harder...it worries us that he will make a complete cabbage salad out of standardizes tests in the future.
And he may. He he. A story for you. When I was going into second grade I started a new school and everyone had to take a stan. test. When I got in there, there was a boy next to me with so many freckles that it made my eyes swim to look at him so of course I stared the whole time. Then we got into the test and I was soooo bored! When the first student had finished she asked if she could leave and the teacher said sure and I was so jealous but then I thought, "Well I'm done too," so I got up and turned in my half finished test and sneaked out of there and couldn't believe that I was getting away with it. My mother was so mad, esp when she realized that all of the problems I had done were correct. They kept asking me why I hadn't finished the test and I couldn't answer b/c I really didn't know.
When I got older I did all my homework rather haphazardly and always worked the easy ones first. Found out later that this was an excellent test taking technique. Now I spend my days helping ELL kids take tests and I stress those test taking skills b/c it's good for their grades and it's really good for the school. My mantra is "Do the easy ones first." The second one is "strike out the wrong answers." The third major technique is "if you don't know the answer, wait and come back and maybe you'll run into the answer in another question." The kids with ADD always get this sooner than others b/c they love to skip around and my students always do better on tests when they follow my advice, but you can't really get them to internalize this type of behavior until high school. One thing I did with my own non-ADD kids though to get them to be more accurate with math was to have them work the problems on graph paper to help them keep it lined up and guard against careless mistakes--maybe you could send a couple of pieces to the teacher to give your son for test taking time.
I hope this helps. But just remember, these tests are for the benefit of the school, not for your family. I mean sure, you get some bragging rights if your son scores a high percentile, but other parents don't like you if you brag about your kid. Actually I think the biggest benefits of the tests goes to the company that administers them--they lobbied to get those things made mandatory and then they make the schools do the dirty work and . . . (stepka must stop now as smoke is coming out of her ears!)
And he may. He he. A story for you. When I was going into second grade I started a new school and everyone had to take a stan. test. When I got in there, there was a boy next to me with so many freckles that it made my eyes swim to look at him so of course I stared the whole time. Then we got into the test and I was soooo bored! When the first student had finished she asked if she could leave and the teacher said sure and I was so jealous but then I thought, "Well I'm done too," so I got up and turned in my half finished test and sneaked out of there and couldn't believe that I was getting away with it. My mother was so mad, esp when she realized that all of the problems I had done were correct. They kept asking me why I hadn't finished the test and I couldn't answer b/c I really didn't know.
When I got older I did all my homework rather haphazardly and always worked the easy ones first. Found out later that this was an excellent test taking technique. Now I spend my days helping ELL kids take tests and I stress those test taking skills b/c it's good for their grades and it's really good for the school. My mantra is "Do the easy ones first." The second one is "strike out the wrong answers." The third major technique is "if you don't know the answer, wait and come back and maybe you'll run into the answer in another question." The kids with ADD always get this sooner than others b/c they love to skip around and my students always do better on tests when they follow my advice, but you can't really get them to internalize this type of behavior until high school. One thing I did with my own non-ADD kids though to get them to be more accurate with math was to have them work the problems on graph paper to help them keep it lined up and guard against careless mistakes--maybe you could send a couple of pieces to the teacher to give your son for test taking time.
I hope this helps. But just remember, these tests are for the benefit of the school, not for your family. I mean sure, you get some bragging rights if your son scores a high percentile, but other parents don't like you if you brag about your kid. Actually I think the biggest benefits of the tests goes to the company that administers them--they lobbied to get those things made mandatory and then they make the schools do the dirty work and . . . (stepka must stop now as smoke is coming out of her ears!)
Thank you, stepka. I am completely familiar with those test taking skills as I had developed them myself when I was first exposed to standardized testing for the GRE exam; and they are indeed very helpful, especially later on.
For now, my son is just simply prone to making mistakes out of pure inattention, impulsivity and lack of focus - not so much for not having been taught test taking strategies.
I know what you mean about bragging rights. It is exactly because I am a big NON-FAN of placing children in "tracked" classes based on standardized tests, that I NEVER, EVER mention my son's performance in such situations. So no parent would ever find out from me that my son is in "that class". He was very borderline anyway.
Only our close family knows how he scored - as well as a friend/acquaintance who has the child in the same school district and pretty much forced the information out of me, as she clearly wanted to know how my son did. I could not lie that I didn't know, so I told her - but it was no big deal because her son also scored high, and he too got into the "oh-so-rarified" Gifted program. As it stands right now, I have four acquaintances with children in this district (all of them foreign-born) and ALL got into the "Gifted" program; so you can imagine the concentration of "geniuses" in the area.
Having worked closely with children in my son's class, including those who have been tested for the program, I know with 100% certainty that these programs simply look for children whose parents had enough time in their hands at home that they were able to pump them with extra academics ahead of time, so now they are simply more advanced than other kids.
In no way, shape or form, are these children truly gifted old-souls, "genius-type" creatures. They are 100% normal kids, some of them I would say hardly impressive - but whose mothers generally have very cozy relationships with the school, they volunteer a lot, and just simply have a lot of time to drill them and teach them at home. That in itself will put you ahead of children whose parents don't have that kind of luxury in their hands. I don't but I am usually a basket case trying to keep on top of children's education as well as a full-time career (a completely different story).
The sad reality is that the schools DO track, the classes DO have labels attached to them ("gifted"/"advanced placement", "regular", "special ed") and children DO understand this is a hierarchy...that often has long-term consequences and resonance.
So while I completely disagree with the system itself, the use of standardized tests for placement, and displaying bragging rights based on such petty and early stratification of children...I would never take the practice lightly as it DOES affect children in the long run.
Knowing that my son DOES have high cognitive abilities, be they often tainted by neurological handicaps, I expect him to be IN there, as opposed to NOT in there - all that SANS bragging rights.
Recently, I had lunch with a neighbor whose son has autism and she was telling me how the boy told her one day" Mom, next year I want to be in the TAG program". My neighbor asked him why he wants to be in that program, and he said "because this is where the smart kids are" - the implication being that those who are NOT there are simply...well...NOT smart.
Children don't understand nuance and complexity and yet such labels affect them; so in this case I am of the mind "if you can't beat them, join them".
Thank you, stepka. I am completely familiar with those test taking skills as I had developed them myself when I was first exposed to standardized testing for the GRE exam; and they are indeed very helpful, especially later on.
For now, my son is just simply prone to making mistakes out of pure inattention, impulsivity and lack of focus - not so much for not having been taught test taking strategies.
Yes I assumed that you knew the test taking skills but I write for anyone who might be reading this. Sorry I wasn't more specific. My real point however and I wasn't clear on this, is that while he may be careless now, that will be offset later by the natural advantage he will have as a kid who has ADD b/c those techniques that come so naturally to kids with add are a real advantage in a test taking situation. I never did well on homework, but I did great on tests. Later that is. One great thing about add too is that they see the "big picture" so well so anytime he learns something new, it's good to provide an overview first so he can see where he's going.
The sad reality is that the schools DO track, the classes DO have labels attached to them ("gifted"/"advanced placement", "regular", "special ed") and children DO understand this is a hierarchy...that often has long-term consequences and resonance.
Very true.
Which is why I'm a big believer in parents talking to their kids about where they are in The System. I think (especially for the kids put in regular or special ed classes) the parents need to make sure that their children know their parents are in their corner no matter what. Kids can be awfully mean to each other. I think it's up to Mom and Dad to make sure their child knows his value as a person isn't determined by where the school system has him pegged.
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Actually I think the biggest benefits of the tests goes to the company that administers them--they lobbied to get those things made mandatory and then they make the schools do the dirty work and . . . (stepka must stop now as smoke is coming out of her ears!)
