Even if children have trouble focusing, they are even more prone to give up before making an effort when faced with a subject they find difficult or challenging.
Here are some strategies you may use to help build students concentration in class if you see that they are frequently becoming distracted by difficult assignments.
Add Physical Activity
Children who struggle with attention often do better if they are given brief breaks for active play. Taking a break to bounce on an exercise ball, breaking up learning into chunks, and outdoor play times, or providing a quick stretching or jumping jacks break in the classroom, can all help the attention-challenged student stay focused. Starting with 15 minutes of active play before a challenging task can also help a child stay more engaged, as well as students concentration.
Make Time Adjustments
If you discover that your students are unable to stay focused in class no matter what you try, it might be time to divide the material into shorter chunks. Recall that students can focus on a single task for two to five minutes for every year of age. For instance, in a classroom with six-year-olds, your pupils should receive 12 to 30 minutes of attention.
Make the necessary timetable adjustments for all or part of your students. Have the student who is having trouble focusing to present their work after a brief interval of time, using timers. This helps the child to continue working without feeling totally overwhelmed by breaking up the task.
Also, be cautious about lengthy lectures with kids with short attention spans. These children need to be kept involved with the material, so ask for responses regularly on the subject matter you are discussing. Even a simple question, asking for a raise of hands, can be what is necessary to keep students on task.
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Minimize Visual Diversions
Clutter on a desk or in the classroom can interfere with a child’s ability to focus when they are having trouble with a task. Take out visual stimuli and extraneous clutter from the workspace. This reduces the child’s list of reasons for not concentrating on the current job.
Engage In Memory Games.
Although memory isn’t really a muscle, it can aid with concentration. Children can practice focus in a pleasant way by playing memory games, which helps them be able to focus when faced with a difficult task.
Have regular times in the normal school day where the class plays memory games, or work with the attention-challenged students outside of normal class time to play concentration games. Add memory games to classroom electronics to encourage this type of play during free time.
Memory matching cards or the game concentration can also be used to increase attention.
Divide Up the Tasks
Examine the task at hand if none of these tactics prove effective. Could you cut it into more manageable pieces? Allow the child to concentrate long enough to complete a portion of the assignment, then give them a break and return to the project to finish it. Using this method, children who struggle with attention might actually complete the requested activity more quickly than if they just attempted to finish it all in one sitting.
A greater number of children than others will have trouble paying attention. There are steps you may do as a teacher to help the students in your classroom pay more attention. You only need to put in a little more effort and thinking to make a big difference in your students’ lives.
