For children with the common ADD or ADHD diagnosis, school is a gauntlet of challenges. Even the most earnest and well-behaved ADHD child struggles to hold still through an entire lesson. Children with ADD are often social and love their school friends, but are often told that their natural energy is a classroom distraction.
As a parent, you’ve heard your child’s side of the story. It’s hard to stay still. They get distracted and have to wiggle or it’ll burst out of them. They can’t focus on a long lesson, even when they want to pay attention and take notes. As a parent, you know that your child loves to learn. You may have a little scientist, a storyteller, or a historian who somehow dislikes the classes they should love most. It’s not because they don’t want to learn, but that their learning environment isn’t attuned to the focus patterns of an ADD or ADHD growing mind.
Here at The Tenney School, we’ve found that one-on-one classrooms are the best way to personalize learning and find a speed that your energetic child can embrace.
One-on-One Teaching and the Love of Learning
All children love to learn. They mimic adults, ask infinite questions, and try tasks for themselves. A good teacher can bring out that love of learning in any student and find the right curriculum. Your child might be a question-asker and dive deeply into the lesson when they can fully occupy the teacher’s ability to sate their instant curiosity. Your child may dive in deeply when they can run an experiment, or when they physically represent the concepts with models.
A one-on-one teacher can help a child embrace learning through the learning styles that most activate their minds. This individual focus takes away all the usual restrictions of working with an entire classroom and trying to teach in the most generalized style possible.
No Classroom to Distract
In one-on-one learning, every child can be themselves. They can tap their pencil if it helps them think or wiggle. They can stand up and sit down while working out math problems. Students can even jump between English and Geography lessons alternately if that helps them focus. Especially for energetic kids with ADD and ADHD, having no classmates to distract is a great benefit.
Teachers don’t have to quash their energy or physical thought process, because your child’s learning is the single priority. Other children’s focus and learning styles can be addressed in their own individual classes so that no child accidentally suppresses another through generalization.
Physical and Interactive Learning
With ADD and ADHD children, we have found the answer often lies in physical and interactive learning. Letting children wiggle, make noise, and ask questions is a great starting place, but a physical lesson goes beyond this.
A teacher might designate spots on the floor that represent topics or groups of facts. The child then moves around the room to get their body and mind involved in the lesson. A teacher may rearrange the desks for each subject-change so that lessons don’t feel like the same long lecture. A child may put together mnemonic phrases, hand-jives, songs, or dances to help them learn.
Many learning methods that would become too chaotic in a 30-child classroom or even a 10-child classroom are the ideal solutions in a one-on-one environment with your student.
Finding Your ADD or ADHD Child’s Best Learning Practices
Teachers work from a combination of proven methods and professional problem-solving. Every child is unique, and learning styles even differ between children with a similar diagnosis. Some children with ADD need to guide their own lessons to stay involved. Others need wiggle breaks. Some need to build each lesson into a project.
Whatever your child cannot get in the normal classroom, a one-on-one teacher can identify and craft lessons around this need-based learning style. Eventually, teachers and your student will work together to build a personal learning and coping system.
Learn How One-on-One Teachers Help Children With ADD or ADHD
The Tenney School is dedicated to bringing personalized and inspiring one-on-one teaching to all children. Our method of individualized learning is tuned to create the best experience for each child, including those with unique learning styles like children with ADD and ADHD. If you would like to talk about how we build one-on-one lessons or consult on the learning needs of your child, please contact us today.