National Handwriting Day on January 23rd

National Handwriting Day is coming! Check out Handwriting Without Tears for more information.

John Hancock was the first person to sign the Declaration of Independence, and his birthday is January 23rd.

Check your favorite search engine for many links to National Handwriting Day ideas.

S.O.A.P. Stuff #5: Attention

Social, Organization, Attention, and Processing Stuff

In this article, Untangling the Myths About Attention Disorder, Dr. Perri Klass writes that ADHD shouldn’t be considered a metaphor for all the over-stimulation facing modern society.  Scientists know that it is a brain-based disorder, involving the frontal lobe.  They know that there are some genetic factors involved.

ADHD is not a metaphor, it is not a myth.  It is real. But treating the reality of ADHD is not simple!

In their book,  Teaching Students with Dyslexia and Dysgraphia (2009) Virginia W. Berninger and Beverly J. Wolf write the following:

“Attention has three components

1)      Focusing on the relevant and ignoring the irrelevant

2)      Staying on task

3)      Switching between tasks

“Engagement is presence of mind or mindfulness as opposed to detachment from what is happening. …  Maintaining attention to and engagement in instruction is often very difficult for students with impaired executive functions.

“When a student habituates, which is common in students with impaired executive functions, the student fails to pay attention to or respond to the task at hand after continual exposure to the same stimuli or task.  To overcome habituation within a lesson, tasks should be of brief duration and vary frequently; however, within each lesson, the variation should occur in a predictable routine for the order and nature of activities. Collectively, short duration, constant change that introduces novelty, and predictable routine across lessons can help students attend, engage, and self-regulate their learning.

“The transition from other (teacher) to self-regulation of learning is fundamentally the most important for students with impaired executive functions.” (p. 28-29)