Presenting Your Lesson to ADHD Students

Dealing with Impulsive Behaviors

Improving Social Skills

Increasing Your ADHD Students Time on Task

Improving Consistency of Performance

Increasing Compliance in the Classroom

Organizing Your ADHD Students

Setting Up Your Classroom for ADD

Using Worksheets and Other Tips

• Use peer tutoring whenever possible with Attention Deficit students. Older children to help him, and perhaps allowing the ADD/ADHD student to tutor a younger child.
• Provide an outline to ADD/ADHD students with key concepts or vocabulary prior to lesson presentation.
• ADHD kids are easily bored, even by you. Try to increase the pace of lesson presentation. Include a variety of activities during each lesson.
• Use multi-sensory presentations, but be careful with audio-visual aids to be sure that distractions are kept to a minimum. For example, be sure interesting pictures and or sounds relate directly to the material to be learned.
• Make lessons brief or break longer presentations into discrete segments.
• Actively involve the attention deficit student during the lesson presentation. Have the ADD/ADHD student be the instructional aid who is to write key words or ideas on the board.
• Encourage the ADD/ADHD students to develop mental images of the concepts or information being presented. Ask them about their images to be sure they are visualizing the key material to be learned.
• Allow your students to make frequent responses throughout the lesson by using choral responding, frequently calling on many individuals, having the class respond with hand signals.
• Try role-playing activities to act out key concepts, historical events, etc. I have taught ADD/ADHD students the history of the Revolutionary War in the parking lot of the school, using cars, trees, and other objects to represent events and places in history. This can work well.
• Be creative! Yes, it is possible for even you to bore a student. Work at teaching, motivating, and entertaining. The more exciting a subject is to a child, the better he will learn. Be excited about what you are teaching!
• A small student to teacher ratio enables an increased amount of feedback during prime times of difficulty. Attempt to involve parent volunteers, para-professionals, or support staff in this capacity.
• Your attention deficit student will respond better to situations that he finds stimulating and engaging. Varying the instructional medium and pace will help sustain his interest.
• Your ADD/ADHD student would probably find lessons that emphasize "hands-on" activities highly engaging.
• Keeping the time required for sustained attention on task balanced with more active learning will improve his performance.
• Use cooperative learning activities, particularly those that assign each child in a group a specific role or piece of information that must be shared with the group.
• Develop learning stations and clear signals and procedures for how students transition from one center to another.
• Use game-like activities, such as "dictionary scavenger hunts," to teach appropriate use of reference/resource materials.
• Interact frequently (verbally and physically) with your attention deficit student. Use the ADD/ ADHD student's name in your lesson presentation. Write personal notes to the student about key elements of the lesson.
• Pair students to check work.
• Provide peer tutoring to help ADD/ADHD student's review concepts. Let ADHD students share recently learned concepts with struggling peer.
• When presenting a large volume of information on the chalkboard, use colored chalk to emphasize key words or information.
• Changes in instructor's voice level and variation in word-pacing will also increase his attention during instruction.
• Make sure that your Attention Deficit student establishes eye contact when receiving direction/instruction. This will improve his understanding and follow-through on the task.
• Your ADD/ADHD student will be more successful when given directions one step at a time. When a series of instructions are given, retention beyond the first direction is difficult.
• Combine verbal directions with illustrations or demonstrations of the desired task.
• The use of multiple modes of instruction increases the probability of successful learning of the task.
• After giving your attention deficit student directions, have him paraphrase what the teacher has said. This will increase his comprehension and provide an opportunity to check for understanding.
• Your ADD/ADHD student may tend to want to be "the first one done" on assignments. Set reasonable accuracy goals with him and collect the entire group's work at once to reduce time pressures.

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• ADD/ADHD children tend to act without thinking first. Behaviorally, this shows itself in a lack of understanding of cause and effect. Attention Deficit students do things without thinking about the consequences of their actions. They say things without considering how others will respond.
• Research also suggests that attention deficit students can often verbalize the rules in place for behavior but have difficulty internalizing them and translating them into thoughtful behavior. Difficulties in delaying gratification also add to the impulsivity.
• Some clinicians believe that this lack of self-control (poor regulation and inhibition of behavior), rather than their ability to pay attention, is the main problem with ADD/ADHD. How can you help these ADD/ADHD students with their self-control?
• By having attention deficit students think "out loud" when they are problem-solving, the teacher will gain insights into their reasoning style and the process will slow them down before they respond impulsively. Or ask the ADD/ADHD student your question, but ask him not to answer for 15 or 20 seconds, long enough to think about it first and not just respond impulsively.
• Quite often, attention deficit students will continue to have difficulty with certain types of interactions on a regular basis; difficulty in taking turns, over-interpreting others' remarks as hostile, personalizing others' actions excessively, and misreading social cues. With the help of your ADHD/ ADD student, his teacher, and his trusted peers, problems that happen over and over again can be identified.
• Role-play the problems, and possible solutions, ahead of time. Use his friends to help in the role-playing. Have your ADD/ADHD student practice these responses during the school day and have him and others give you feedback on their success.
• Teach your attention deficit students to "Stop and Think" before talking. This will help him to learn to slow down before talking. Encourage thoughtful responding and decrease impulsivity by waiting 10 to 15 seconds to receive responses during whole group instruction.
• Keep the classroom behavior rules simple and clear. Have the class agree on what the rules should be. Define and review classroom rules each day.
• Implement a classroom behavior management system. Actively reward the behaviors that you want the students to do. Focus on the positive.
• Use a kitchen timer to indicate periods of intense independent work and reinforce the class for appropriate behavior during this period. Start with brief periods (5-10 minutes) and gradually increase the period as the class demonstrates success. When necessary, develop contracts with an individual student and her/his parents to reinforce a few specific behaviors.
• Set hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly goals depending on the reinforcement needs of the ADD/ ADHD student. Provide frequent feedback on the attention deficit student's progress toward these goals.
• Provide a changing array of backup rewards or privileges so that ADD/ADHD students do not "burn out" on a particular system. For example, students can earn tickets for a daily or weekly raffle for the display of positive behavior.
• To improve out-of-the-classroom behavior, allow the class to earn a reward based on he compliments they receive on their behavior from other teachers, lunchroom staff, playground aides and principals.
• Avoid giving the whole class negative consequences based on the ADD/ADHD child's behavior. The Attention Deficit child, as well as the whole class, can benefit from implementation of social skills curriculum for the entire class.
• Modeling and requiring the children to use a systematic method of talking through classroom conflicts and problems can be particularly valuable for the ADD/ADHD child.
• Praise specific behaviors. For example, "I like how you wrote down all your assignments correctly," rather than, "Good boy!"
• Use visual and auditory cues as behavioral reminders. For example, have two large jars at the front of the room, with one filled with marbles or some other object. When the class is behaving appropriately, move some marbles to the other jar and let the students know that when the empty jar is filled they can earn a reward.
• Frequently move about the room, manage by "walking around." When you catch your ADD/ADHD student working on-task, reward him with a simple wink or smile. "I like the way that you are working hard" goes a long way with Attention Deficit students.
• With students who can be quite volatile and may initially refuse negative consequences (such as refusing to go to time-out), set a kitchen timer for a brief period (1-2 minutes) after refusal has occurred. Explain to the child that the child can use the two minutes to decide if she/he will go to time out on her/his own or if more serious consequence must be imposed. Several experienced teachers insist this method has successfully reduced the extent to which they have had to physically enforce certain negative consequences with students and seems to de-escalate the situation.
• Provide a safe environment for the child with ADD ADHD. Make sure the child knows you are his friend and you are there to help him. Treat him with respect. Never belittle him in front of his peers. Both he and the other children know that he stands out, and if the teacher belittles the child, then the rest of the children will see that as permission from the teacher to belittle the child as well. Children can be cruel.
• Students with attention deficit disorder can experience many difficulties in the social area, especially with peer relationships. They tend to have trouble picking up social cues, they act impulsively, have limited self-awareness of their effect on others, display delayed role-taking ability, and over-personalize other's actions as being criticism, and tend not to recognize positive feedback.
• ADD ADHD students tend to play better with younger or older children when their roles are clearly defined.
• These attention deficit students tend to repeat self-defeating social behavior patterns and not learn from experience.
• Conversationally, they may ramble and say embarrassing things to peers.
• Areas and time-periods with less structure and less supervision, such as the playground and class parties, can be a problem. Students with good social awareness and who like to be helpful can be paired with the ADD ADHD child to help. This pairing can take the form of being a "study buddy", doing activities/projects, or playing on the playground.
• Cross-age tutoring with older or younger students can also have social benefits. Most successful pairing is done with adequate preparation of the paired student, planning meetings with the pair to set expectations, and with parental permission. Pairing expectations and time-commitments should be fairly limited in scope to increase the opportunity for success and lessen the constraints on the paired students.
• Students with attention deficit disorder tend to do well in the cooperative group instructional format. Small student groupings of three to five members, in which the students "sink or swim" together to complete assignments/projects, encourage students to share organizational ideas and responsibilities, and gives an ideal setting for processing interpersonal skills on a regular basis.
• Small "play groups" of two to four students can help your ADD/ADHD student to develop more effective social skills. These groups are most effective if socially competent peers are willingly included in the group. The group should be focused on activities that stress interaction and cooperation.
• Your ADD ADHD student would benefit most when the target social skills are identified and practiced with them prior to the activity and processed after the activity. Role-play ahead of time.
• Many Attention Deficit students lack friends to be with outside of the school-setting. It can be beneficial to strategize with your ADD ADHD student and his parent on developing a "friendship plan" for the home setting. Sometimes the goal of establishing one special friendship is ambitious and sufficient. This could include steps of identifying friend possibilities that might be available/accepting, practice in making arrangements using the phone, planning an activity or sleep-over that is structured/predictable, and tips on how to maintain friendships over time.
• A subtle way for your ADD ADHD student to learn social skills is through the use of guided observation of his peers on the playground. Accompany them on to the playground and point out the way other students initiate activities, cooperate in a game, respond to rejection, deal with being alone, etc.
• For many attention deficit hyperactivity disorder students, thirty minutes on the playground is beyond their capability to maintain peer relationships successfully. If necessary, break-up the recess into ten minutes of activity, a ten-minute check-in with the playground supervisor, then another ten minute activity period.
• Restricting the area available for your ADD ADHD student during recess can increase the contact with adult supervision and lessen the complexity of social decision-making. This can be done privately with your attention deficit student prior to recess. Many ADD ADHD students welcome this manner of simplifying their social interactions during this period of low structure.
• It is helpful to meet with your ADD ADHD student prior to his lunchroom/playground period to review his plan for recess activity and with whom he will sit during lunch. Have him ask peers in advance of the recess block to do a certain activity with him. Process the activity with your attention deficit student after recess and make suggestions for the following day.

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• Provide a safe environment for the child with ADD ADHD. Make sure the child knows you are his friend and you are there to help him. Treat him with respect. Never belittle him in front of his peers. Both he and the other children know that he stands out, and if the teacher belittles the child, then the rest of the children will see that as permission from the teacher to belittle the child as well. Children can be cruel.
• Students with attention deficit disorder can experience many difficulties in the social area, especially with peer relationships. They tend to have trouble picking up social cues, they act impulsively, have limited self-awareness of their effect on others, display delayed role-taking ability, and over-personalize other's actions as being criticism, and tend not to recognize positive feedback.
• ADD ADHD students tend to play better with younger or older children when their roles are clearly defined.
• These attention deficit students tend to repeat self-defeating social behavior patterns and not learn from experience.
• Conversationally, they may ramble and say embarrassing things to peers.
• Areas and time-periods with less structure and less supervision, such as the playground and class parties, can be a problem. Students with good social awareness and who like to be helpful can be paired with the ADD ADHD child to help. This pairing can take the form of being a "study buddy", doing activities/projects, or playing on the playground.
• Cross-age tutoring with older or younger students can also have social benefits. Most successful pairing is done with adequate preparation of the paired student, planning meetings with the pair to set expectations, and with parental permission. Pairing expectations and time-commitments should be fairly limited in scope to increase the opportunity for success and lessen the constraints on the paired students.
• Students with attention deficit disorder tend to do well in the cooperative group instructional format. Small student groupings of three to five members, in which the students "sink or swim" together to complete assignments/projects, encourage students to share organizational ideas and responsibilities, and gives an ideal setting for processing interpersonal skills on a regular basis.
• Small "play groups" of two to four students can help your ADD/ADHD student to develop more effective social skills. These groups are most effective if socially competent peers are willingly included in the group. The group should be focused on activities that stress interaction and cooperation.
• Your ADD ADHD student would benefit most when the target social skills are identified and practiced with them prior to the activity and processed after the activity. Role-play ahead of time.
• Many Attention Deficit students lack friends to be with outside of the school-setting. It can be beneficial to strategize with your ADD ADHD student and his parent on developing a "friendship plan" for the home setting. Sometimes the goal of establishing one special friendship is ambitious and sufficient. This could include steps of identifying friend possibilities that might be available/accepting, practice in making arrangements using the phone, planning an activity or sleep-over that is structured/predictable, and tips on how to maintain friendships over time.
• A subtle way for your ADD ADHD student to learn social skills is through the use of guided observation of his peers on the playground. Accompany them on to the playground and point out the way other students initiate activities, cooperate in a game, respond to rejection, deal with being alone, etc.
• For many attention deficit hyperactivity disorder students, thirty minutes on the playground is beyond their capability to maintain peer relationships successfully. If necessary, break-up the recess into ten minutes of activity, a ten-minute check-in with the playground supervisor, then another ten-minute activity period.
• Restricting the area available for your ADD ADHD student during recess can increase the contact with adult supervision and lessen the complexity of social decision-making. This can be done privately with your attention deficit student prior to recess. Many ADD ADHD students welcome this manner of simplifying their social interactions during this period of low structure.
• It is helpful to meet with your ADD ADHD student prior to his lunchroom/playground period to review his plan for recess activity and with whom he will sit during lunch. Have him ask peers in advance of the recess block to do a certain activity with him. Process the activity with your attention deficit student after recess and make suggestions for the following day.

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• Listen to the child. They want to be heard too.
• Provide a safe environment for the child. Make sure the child knows you are his friend and you are there to help him.
• Treat him with respect.
• Never belittle him in front of his peers. Both he and the other children know that he stands out, and if the teacher belittles the child, then the rest of the children will see that as permission from the teacher to belittle the child as well.
• Give him a break once in a while. Know the difference between big things and little things, and don't confront him on each little thing. It is hard for these children to control themselves all of the time.
• Be alert to how much movement they may need. Allow for some extra trips to the restroom, or to run some errands. You may want to allow him to run around in a designated spot in the play yard.
• Help the child find his areas of strength so that he can build his self-esteem.
• It is important to pair verbal praise with a reward. This will facilitate "weaning" from a concrete reward structure to an internalized system.
• A simple nod, wink, smile, or touch on the shoulder can be very powerful.
• Instead of confronting your student continually on activities/behaviors that are inappropriate, point out the alternative choices that are available. This will make the expectations clearer to him and avoid the negativity inherent in what he would perceive as criticism.
• Some students respond to a prearranged cuing system with the teacher. In this system, the teacher gives a visual signal (touching the ear) or verbal phrase ("Remember, I'm looking for good listeners") when a targeted inappropriate behavior occurs. The cue can remind your student to correct behavior without direct confrontation or loss of self-esteem. It can involve the classroom teacher or any support personnel available to the student.
• Encouraging your student to monitor his own behavior has many benefits. It can provide an opportunity for discussion when your student and the teacher agree/disagree on the ratings. It also prompts movement toward your student's internal frame of reference in evaluating his behavior.

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• Use dividers and folders in his desk so he can easily find things.
• Teach him how to organize himself better.
• Help the child with Attention Deficit Disorder to organize his written work or numbers.
• Allow the ADD ADHD child to move a pencil or his finger across the page while reading. If he's writing, allow him to use one or two fingers for spacing between words.
• During math, graph paper may be very helpful to organize his numbers and columns.
• Your attention deficit student will function better when able to anticipate times requiring increased concentration. A visual representation of the day's schedule will provide another opportunity to internalize classroom routine.
• Break longer assignments into a series of smaller "sprints" for the ADD ADHD student to complete one after another. Your Attention Deficit student will feel less "overwhelmed" and he will complete the total project in far less time.
• Consider having the ADD ADHD student complete every second or third problem, instead of answering each one. Require him to show mastery of concepts.
• Emphasize practice and assignment completion on the word processor to lower the frustration many ADD ADHD students feel with written work.
• Model an organized classroom and model the strategies you use to cope with disorganization.
• Establish a daily classroom routine and schedule.
• Show that you value organization by following 5 minutes each day for the children to organize their desks, folders, etc.
• Reinforce organization by having a "desk fairy" that gives a daily award for the most organized row of desks.
• Use individual assignment charts or pads that can go home with the child to be signed daily by parents if necessary.
• Develop a clear system for keeping track of completed and uncompleted work such as having individual hanging files in which each child can place completed work and a special folder for uncompleted work.
• Develop a color coding method for your room in which each subject is associated with a certain color that is the that subjects textbook cover and on the folder or workbook for that subject.
• Develop a reward system for in-school work and homework completion. One example of a system that reinforces both work quality and work quantity involves translating points earned into "dollars" to be used for silent auction at the end of grading period. For ADD ADHD children needing more immediate reinforcement, each completed assignment could earn the child a "raffle ticket" with her/his name on it . Prizes or special privileges could be awarded on the basis of a random drawing held daily or weekly.
• Write schedule and timelines on the board each day.
• Provide due dates for assignments each day.
• Divide longer assignments into sections and provide due dates or times for the completion of each section.
• Tape a checklist to the ADD ADHD child's desk or put one in each subject folder/notebook that outlines the steps in following directions or checking to be sure an assignment is complete.
• THE BLACK HOLE OF HOMEWORK exists in your ADD ADHD student's desk or backpack. We have seen attention deficit students struggle for hours with homework, only to not turn it in and then lose it in their desks or backpacks. Please check to make sure that they are actually turning in the work. It is strange but true. They have probably done the homework, but just are not paying attention when you ask them to turn it in.
• Provide study guides or outlines of the content you want the child to learn, or let the child build her/his own study guide with worksheets that have been positively corrected.
• Be clear about when student movement is permitted and when it is discouraged, such as during independent work times.
• Your ADD ADHD student should be encouraged to utilize assignment sheets, broken down by day and subject. He or his teachers can record assignments at the completion of each task.
• An organizing time at the end of each day can be helpful to gather the necessary materials for the assignments and develop a plan of action for completion. This will greatly aid the development of the "executive processes".
• Some Attention Deficit ADD ADHD students now take a small dose of their medication when they come home from school to aid in studying/homework completion. Check with the doctor about the time period of maximum medication effectiveness to help set-up a sensible homework schedule.
• One of the simplest interventions for ADD ADHD students is to have an extra set of textbooks at home to minimize the problem of not having the necessary homework materials.
• Your ADD ADHD student should have a regularly scheduled time for cleaning up his desk at least once a week. However he may need some help from teachers, volunteers, or his parents.

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• Stress accuracy instead of quantity of work. This is really what you want as a teacher anyway.
• The ADD ADHD child may be easily overwhelmed and discouraged. Reduce the quantity of work on a page. Instead of giving 30 problems on a page, give only 10 or 15. Then the ADD ADHD child won't be overwhelmed, and successes will build up his self-esteem.
• Your ADD ADHD student may tend to want to be "the first one done" on assignments. Set reasonable accuracy goals with him and collect the entire group's work at once to reduce time pressures.
• Use large type.
• Keep page format simple. Include no extraneous pictures or visual distracters that are unrelated to the problems to be solved.
• Provide only one or two activities per page.
• Have white space on each page.
• Use dark black print. (Avoid handwritten worksheets or tests.)
• Use off-white or buff-colored paper rather than white if the room's lighting creates a glare on white paper.
• Write clear, simple directions.
• Underline key direction words or vocabulary or have the students underline these words as you read directions with them.
• Draw borders around parts of the page you want to emphasize.
• Divide the page into sections and use a system to cover sections not currently being used.
• If possible, use different colors on worksheets or tests for emphasis, particularly on those involving rote, potentially boring work.
• Have the students use colored pens or pencils.
• Give frequent short quizzes and avoid long tests.
• Provide practice tests.
• Provide alternative environments with fewer distractions for test taking.
• Using a tape recorder, have the ADD ADHD student record test answers and assignments or give the student oral examinations.
• Shorten assignments. If the attention deficit student can demonstrate adequate concept mastery in 10 or 20 questions, don't require 30-40 problems.

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