Timers
A lot of students are struggling with attention deficit where they are unable to pay attention for long periods of time. When we are teaching them we may not be meeting them where they are in terms of attention especially after all of this COVID craziness. So I wanted to share with you a great tool I have used numerous times with many students over my 5 years of teaching that is a great way to start helping a student with attention deficits.
The timer!
Now there are sooooo many options of timers and I always try to have a few different ones to allow the student to choose. There is the :
Sand Timer
Virtual timer
And I’m sure so many more but these are the ones I keep a handful of to give a student choice. Don’t forget to empower them to advocate for their needs/wants when helping them grow their attention too!
Now how do I implement the timer? Simple. I will collect/observe the student for a few days/trials to see how long are they able to pay attention on average. I will use my own timer and time them for ten minutes. Every minute they aren’t paying attention they get an X and a O for when they are on task. Depending on the student you may have to have the numbers relate to different times. For example, If a student is really struggling each number is in 10s of seconds so 1=10 seconds, 2=20 seconds. Or you could do 30 second increments so 1=30 seconds, 2=1 minute. You will want to make a note of this on their sheet as well. Here is an example of one filled out:
FREEBIE on my teacherspayteachers
Once I’ve collected data over at least 3 times in 3 different scenarios. From recess, ELA, to Math, I then get the average and use that as my baseline (where the child is starting). So if my student can pay attention 40% of the time in a 10 minute interval I will start implementing the timer at 5-6 minute intervals.
I will then introduce the timer to the student and explain that sometimes we struggle with paying attention. I usually relate it to myself and then ask them if they struggle with anything similar and have a conversation about it. Then I explain that my goal for them is to be able to focus for 10 minutes! And while it isn’t going to happen overnight and may be hard sometimes I want them to use that timer to focus for 6 minutes. Once they are able to do that about 75-80% of the time I move onto 7 minutes and so on until they reach 10 minutes.
If a student is really uninterested you can have them pick a reward to have when they reach 10 minutes. I’m not going to lie, food has amazing results when it comes to helping with this and I do not shy away from a McDonalds run to reward my students, they deserve it for working hard but that’s me. You can do so many different reward systems paired with the timer and data to help a student work on their attention abilities.
I hope this gave you a more in-depth tool and idea of how to help any students you may have struggling with focusing for longer periods of time. Until next time,
Happy Teaching :)