Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Reading, numbers and learning differences
When a child keeps failing at a task, try reducing what it demands of attention and memory before you increase the practice. Shorter steps, one instruction at a time, the working written down where they can see it.
Attention, holding things in mind and switching between steps all set a ceiling on how much of a lesson gets through. You cannot easily raise that ceiling, but you can lower what the task asks of it, and that change is available today rather than next term. Watch what happens when a five step instruction becomes two. Often the child who looked incapable had simply run out of room.
Qur’an and Sunnah
God does not burden any soul with more than it can bear (Quran 2:286). Setting work at the size a person can carry is a principle already given, not a concession you are inventing on the spot.
لَا يُكَلِّفُ ٱللَّهُ نَفۡسًا إِلَّا وُسۡعَهَاۚ لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتۡ وَعَلَيۡهَا مَا ٱكۡتَسَبَتۡۗ رَبَّنَا لَا تُؤَاخِذۡنَآ إِن نَّسِينَآ أَوۡ أَخۡطَأۡنَاۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تَحۡمِلۡ عَلَيۡنَآ إِصۡرࣰ ا كَمَا حَمَلۡتَهُۥ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبۡلِنَاۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تُحَمِّلۡنَا مَا لَا طَاقَةَ لَنَا بِهِۦۖ وَٱعۡفُ عَنَّا وَٱغۡفِرۡ لَنَا وَٱرۡحَمۡنَآۚ أَنتَ مَوۡلَىٰنَا فَٱنصُرۡنَا عَلَى ٱلۡقَوۡمِ ٱلۡكَٰفِرِينَ
God does not burden any soul with more than it can bear: each gains whatever good it has done, and suffers its bad- ‘ Lord, do not take us to task if we forget or make mistakes. Lord, do not burden us as You burdened those before us. Lord, do not burden us with more than we have strength to bear. Pardon us, forgive us, and have mercy on us. You are our Protector, so help us against the disbelievers.’
Qur’an 2:286read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A meta-analysis of randomised trials of cognitive training in children with ADHD found some improvement on neuropsychological measures, but effects on symptoms shrank sharply once blinded raters were used and academic gains were not established. Even the foundational trial in this area showed improvement mainly on the trained computer tasks. Read together, they point towards fitting the task to the child rather than expecting training to enlarge the child.
Cortese S, Ferrin M, Brandeis D, Buitelaar J, Daley D, Dittmann RW, Holtmann M, Santosh P, Stevenson J, Stringaris A, Zuddas A, Sonuga-Barke EJ, European ADHD Guidelines Group (EAGG). (2015). Cognitive training for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: meta-analysis of clinical and neuropsychological outcomes from randomized controlled trials.. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry doi
Klingberg T, Fernell E, Olesen PJ, Johnson M, Gustafsson P, Dahlström K, Gillberg CG, Forssberg H, Westerberg H. (2005). Computerized training of working memory in children with ADHD--a randomized, controlled trial.. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Work that fits inside what a child can hold gets learned, and work that overflows gets lost.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Ask someone to repeat a made up word and memory cannot rescue them. That is exactly why this small task keeps finding difficulties a clever, well practised person hides everywhere else.
Build numbers and break them up again. Seven is five and two, and also six and one, and a child who can see that has the thing mental arithmetic is made of.
You do not need to become a reading specialist to be useful in a school meeting. A few hours with the current material on how reading is learned will put you ahead of most of the room, and you can carry it in kindly rather than as a challenge.