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Questions & Answers - Behavior Concerns
I find everyone is quick to diagnose children with ADHD. I am a
second grade teacher. Is there a "normal rule of thumb" for attention
span? How long should a typical 7-8 year old be able to concentrate? I
find teachers are lengthy in their lessons and explanations. How long
should the child be expected to pay attention? Sometimes I feel children
are diagnosed with ADHD because teachers do not change-up their teaching
style...so energetic kids become fidgety and conversational. Teachers
are competing with iphones, Wii, and ridiculous technology...shouldn't
they provide concise, and entertaining ideas in their lesson plans?
Everyone is quick to label ADHD...when the teaching methodology needs to
improve.
ADHD is a diagnosis that should not be made quickly. There are many
parents and teachers who often wonder if a child is restless in the
classroom or does not pay attention if they might have ADHD, however,
this is a specific diagnosis which should be made by a trained
professional with careful testing, observation and parent/teacher
interviewing over time. Medication alone is not the simple answer for
these children who truly have this diagnosis. You can read a little more
about ADHD at our
Parenting Tips link.
Young children do have relatively short attention spans and generally do
best when alternating activities which require sitting still and
focusing with those that allow for physical movement. This is one reason
there are so many proponents of keeping activities like recess and gym
class a part of children's daily schedules. Creative teachers will find
ways to make lessons stimulating and can even incorporate movement into
lesson plans to hold attention. Therapy catalogs even sell toys called
fidgets to help children maintain focus in the classroom, and this is
something you can talk to an occupational therapist about if you have
children in your classroom who might need such an outlet to help them
maintain focus for longer periods during classroom lessons. Here is a
link to some "silent
classroom fidgets".
You are also correct that teachers today have to compete with the
technology that kids use at home, but often technology is also a part of
classrooms today, so again, creative lessons involving computers or
music can also help to hold young children's interest. We recently
answered a question similar to yours posed by an elementary teacher who
wanted to know the attention span of children in kindergarten and first
grade which I copied below. You can expect that your second graders will
be able to pay attention for a bit longer, but the reply below should
give you a general starting point:
Children ages 5-6 years old typically can attend to one activity that
is of interest to them for around 10-15 minutes at a time and should
generally be able to filter out small distractions occurring
simultaneously in the environment. They may only be able to attend to an
assigned classroom activity for only 5-10 minutes particularly if they
find it uninteresting or difficult for them and do not have adult
guidance to stay on task. As a guideline some research suggests using a
child's age as a general starting point for the number of minutes a
child can attend to a single assigned task...so 5 minutes for a 5 year
old, 7 minutes for a 7 year old, etc. Small groups of children may be
able to play together for 15 minutes or up to a 1/2 hour if they are
engaged in novel, interesting play activities. Children ages 6-7 years
may be able to sustain attention to one interesting or novel task for as
long a 30 minutes. Typically in kindergarten and 1st grade getting kids
motivated, interested and engaged in the lesson is the key way of
holding their attention. It also helps to keep lessons shorter and
intersperse movement activities in between your lessons that require
sitting and focusing behaviors. Another key to success in sustaining
attention with young children is to have a teacher or aide in the
classroom who is always able to help with new, difficult or frustrating
tasks and who can intervene and provide cues to stay on task before a
child loses interest.
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