Study Skills Strategies for Your Child With ADHD by Dr. Emily Levy

Students with ADHD often struggle with study and organizational skills. They may lose their belongings, forget to turn in assignments, or wait until the last minute begin working on their homework. Study skills play an increasingly important role as students progress through school. Help your child with ADHD develop stronger study skills with the ideas detailed below.

Set up a study space

Help your child set up a well-organized study space for completing their school work. This might be a desk in their room or even a spot on the kitchen or dining room table. It’s important that your child uses this same space on a regular basis for completing their school work and doesn’t wander around your home during study time, landing on different spot each day. It’s also important that this space is always fully stocked with the supplies your child needs for completing their homework, like pens, pencils, paper, highlighters, and so on. Make sure you or your child refills the supplies when they run low so they don’t lose focus when studying, searching around for more supplies. If your child studies in a communal spot, create a portable supplies bucket, which contains all the supplies they need to complete their school work and, again, be sure to refill it as the supplies run low. The key is maintaining a consistent study spot with fully stocked supplies at all times.

Build in breaks

Many students with ADHD struggle to stay focused for long stretches of time in order to complete their homework. They may be easily distracted by background noises or think about other tasks they could be doing while trying to work on their school assignments. Help your child effectively complete their school work using structured breaks with an approach like the Pomodoro Technique. To use this strategy, your child should identify which assignments they need to complete, then set a timer for 25 minutes. They should focus strictly on their school work for that 25 minute period, then take a 5 minute break. After completing that cycle three times (25 minutes of work followed by a 5 minute break per cycle), they should take a longer break, around 30 minutes. By building in these structured breaks, your child will learn to focus on the task at hand while avoiding distractions, knowing that a break will soon be coming. Feel free to adjust the time increments based on your child’s needs – some may need a 7 minute break instead of 5 minutes, for instance – but maintaining a structured approach to study time and break time is key.

Regular study time

Just like your child should have a consistent study space, they should also set a regular time for studying. Some students with ADHD like doing their school work right after school, while others prefer a snack break or some physical activity after school before beginning their work. Others like to do most of their work later in the day. Any of these options can work; the key is identifying the time that works best for your child and sticking with it. This designated time may change on certain days based on sports games or other obligations, but if that is the case, you should look at the calendar with your child before the school week begins, identify any days when they may not be able to complete their school work at their “usual” time, and help them come up with an alternate study time for those days.

Active reading strategies

For many students with ADHD, staying focused on a passage, especially a longer one, while reading, can be challenging. As a result, their comprehension of the material may be compromised. To build your child’s ability to focus on passages when reading, help them become an active, rather than a passive reader. For younger children with ADHD, when you read a book out loud to them, stop along the way and ask them questions about the plot, setting, and characters, like, “Why do you think that boy was sad?”, “Why do you think she forgot to bring her lunch to school?” or “What do you think may happen next in the story?”

Older students may benefit from a tri-colored highlighting strategy to help them become active, rather than passive readers. Teach them that when they read, there are three elements they should look for: the first is the topic, which is one, two, or three words describing the passage (like rainforests or the Civil War). They should highlight the topic in blue. Next, they should look for the main idea, which is what the author is saying about the topic.  For instance, if the topic is “rainforests”, the main idea might be “rainforests are found in many places”. They should highlight the main idea in green. Finally, they should look for important details describing the main idea found throughout the passage and highlight them in yellow. Learning to engage with the text and becoming a more active reader will help your child stay focused on the passage they are reading and ultimately improve their comprehension of the material.

ADHD Tutoring

If your child continues to struggle with their study skills or has difficulty with time management, planning, organization, task initiation, or related skills, they may benefit from ADHD tutoring. This specialized tutoring can be individualized to your child’s needs and teach them concrete strategies to help them build these key skills.

As students move through school, the workload and studying demands increase quickly. Teach your child with ADHD these study skills strategies and you can help them improve their overall school performance.

Learn more about Dr. Emily Levy and EBL Coaching at www.eblcoaching.com.

Tags: ADHD