You already know that when your child has ADHD, reading is hard! Perhaps, your child has ADHD, and can’t seem to sit still, and you know in your gut there may be more to this than just a few wiggles. If teaching your child to read is feeling more like a battle of wills, with true ADHD symptoms, then you are the exact mom I have in mind today while recording this episode. This is not just a generic episode of how to support and lead your child with ADHD through any learning activity, but HOW you can actually get through tomorrow’s phonics lesson with greater success than both you and your child have been experiencing so far.
My Child Has ADHD – Reading is Hard!
As a K-3 teacher, I have helped students with ADHD learn to read using core phonics skills. The same phonics lesson format that I use for all students, with a few tweaks to ensure success for both you as a mom and your child’s success as a reader. I didn’t always have these tools in my phonics teacher toolbelt. I’ve learned these strategies from fellow teaching colleagues, as well as special education teachers over 10+ years of leading students through phonics lessons at the small group reading table in my classroom.
Regardless of whether your child has mild ADHD symptoms, or more pronounced behaviours,, I’ve learned to adjust HOW I guide these students through a reading lesson using phonics skills throughout. My expectations for what students will learn is the same, but it takes a more concerted effort and a concrete plan to ensure children experiencing ADHD symptoms have success as readers too.
According to kidshealth.org, ADHD stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Boys and girls with ADHD have differences in how their brain develops and works. This may cause problems with their attention, and therefore working memory, when using blending and segmenting skills to read and spell.
Children with ADHD are often very easily distracted over irrelevant things that have nothing to do with a reading lesson, which understandable can cause you as a mom, to feel frustrated yourself. Children with ADHD may also show strong emotional reactions over minor mistakes, which you no-doubt are accustomed to supporting your child with de-escalation strategies.
I will make a disclaimer before diving deeper into ADHD and reading. What I’m sharing are my personal TIPS for supporting your son or daughter as a reader, when ADHD symptoms are present. I am formally trained in how to model phonics skills for kids, as well as leading children through a phonics scope and sequence. I do not have any formal training in managing or diagnosing ADHD. What I do have, is plenty of experience supporting students with ADHD symptoms as readers in a classroom setting.
I believe that experience serves as a great teacher, and hopefully you find the specific strategies I share today helpful. Please consult your paediatrician for any ADHD related concerns you may have.
I have had success with the following 5 strategies when leading children presenting ADHD symptoms through a small group phonics lesson.
- When met with opposition from your child who has ADHD when participating in a phonics drill, I have had success using the phrasing, “First, we read. Then you do Lego…” First, then phrasing ensures your child feels seen and heard. In the ‘then’ statement, you acknowledge their request. If it’s appropriate, you give permission for activity AFTER FIRST participating in the phonics lesson. First, we segment to spell words. Then, we… First, word chain. Then… First, decodable text. Kid-friendly Language here would be to say, “First, story. Then…” The first, then strategy allows you as a mom to give clear and concise instructions. Focus on ONE phonics skills, one part of the lesson, such as a phonemic awareness drill. Then, perhaps you offer your child a brief movement break. Again, for kid-friendly language, you’d say, ‘First, we chop sounds apart. Then we… OR First, we blend sounds to say words. Then we… You are expecting your child to participate in phonics skills, while allowing for frequent movement breaks for her mind and body. When your child has ADHD, he desperately needs the structure of B doesn’t happen until A is complete throughout your phonics lesson at home. Consistency is key. When a child has ADHD, you need to mean what you say until this structure becomes routine.
- When your child has ADHD, create a visual schedule. By this, I mean a piece of sturdy cardstock the size of a large bookmark. For each phonics drill in a lesson, write the name of that drill with an accompanying picture. For example, for phonemic awareness where your child is chopping apart sounds in words, print out a pair of hands that look like they’re chopping something apart. For the segmenting activity with letters, print a small picture of a sound box mat. For movement breaks, print out small picture of a child hopping on one foot, getting a drink of water, etc, and work in these movement breaks as you feel is best for your child. Use velcro to have these picture stick. A motivator could be to have your child move a picture once the matching phonics skill is completed to the ‘DONE’ side of the bookmark or board. Since ADHD and Dyslexia often go hand-in-hand, your child is working extra hard to focus on the simplest of phonics tasks. Having a visual schedule concretely shows your child which phonics activity is coming next, and gives them a sense of when the lesson will be complete. We also call this ‘chunking’, when we break a larger task, like a complete phonics lesson, into visually smaller chunks.
- Create short bursts of high engagement through active participation. When your child has ADHD, she needs to actively participate in the reading or phonics lesson. HOW do you accomplish this? For phonemic awareness, teach your child to use his/her chopping hands to chop (segment) sounds apart. Your child will segment words into individual phonemes by tapping, then using a whiteboard marker to write each sound on an erasable sound mat. Even the act of erasing is a form of movement that keeps your son or daughter focused on one word at a time.
- When your child has ADHD, offered manipulated choice for reading short texts. You could offer 2 decodable texts, which are a printed piece of paper. Ask your child, “Are we reading this story, or this story?” The expectation is that your child will read a story. That is non-negotiable. The positive part of manipulated choice, is that your child is still practicing the skill of reading, but they feel they’ve still had some choice in the activity. Since your child has chosen one story over another, his or her buy-in level should be higher. Of course, these decodable texts, or short phonics-based stories, must align with the phonics skills and accompanying heart words you’ve taught your son or daughter so far.
- Add relationship-building reading reinforcement activities when your child has ADHD. At the bottom of the page on my short story printables that accompany each phonics lesson, there is a place for your child to ask for 2 signatures. Ask your child, which two people are you reading with today? Could be you, mom, dad, older sibling, younger sibling (supported by you of course, a grandparent)? By the way, offering your child the option to read to a grandparent over the phone is pure gold! What child wouldn’t want to have grandma or grandpa’s undivided attention? If your child is building relationships with loved ones and experiencing success as a reader, this is definitely a win-win situation.
When your child has ADHD, put these 5 survival tips in place. These tips help ensure that ADHD doesn’t interfere with your child’s ability to read.
