organizational ideas and rubrics of LD/ADHD students

I like a book called Educational Care by Mel Levine. I’m not sure if it speaks specifically to your question but it has many suggestions in it for working with children with learning differences.

Another book with excellent ideas is Sandra Rief’s “The ADD/ADHD Checklist”. I’ve used this with my ADHD-inattentive son and given a copy of the book to his teacher.

As an educational consultant, I work with many students and their teachers around the issues of organizational skills and helping students to be independent learners. Many of these students have a weakness in executive function. This means they have trouble setting goals, planning, getting things done, keeping track of time and materials and of course writing down their assignments and doing their homework. After reading the research I put together a program called You’re in Charge, Helping Students to be Organized and Independent Learners.

I’m not sure you’re going to have much success helping younger children (the ones you mentioned were in grades 1 through 4) to record assignments until they can quickly find their assignment sheets, write fast enough, copy accurately from the board, etc.) It may take a few years of direct instruction before some students can independently perform these tasks! Have you considered having them do what they can but providing them with a completed copy of the assignment sheet? You want students to keep trying but you don’t want to penalize them either. Perhaps someone can fill out an assignment sheet and make several copies.

Let me know what the specifics of your situation are and perhaps I can give you additional ideas.

This program you have written is it available to the general public? Is there a way I can get a copy? My oldest son is in 8th grade maybe we would be able to use some of those strategies. He is ADHD, inattentive type and is highly disorganized. Thank you.

Lisa,
You’re in Charge is primarily a teacher training program. I work with schools in the New England area. Although it is available to purchase without the training, I think that it really helps to participate with others. You can find information at the website www.e-learningstyles.com.

Much of the program is based on Russell Barkley’s theory of ADHD. You might want to read his book, ADHD and the Nature of Self-control. Although Barkley doesn’t say much about strategies for remediation of executive function deficits in this book, I think he has an exceptional understanding of the problem. He says it’s one of difficulty with behavioral inhibition and working memory. He recommends medication for help with the behavioral inhibition but the ADHD students may also have to learn strategies for the areas related to working memory.

Although there is no magic answer, we can certainly improve the situation if adults learn two things. They need to learn how to structure the school environment so the student has a chance to achieve success and they need to learn to teach the student the strategies that are missing.

Students with ADHD and others who are disorganized need to directly learn some of the strategies we take for granted. For example, students with ADHD often have difficulty with self-talk, visualizing, and time. People get organized by stopping what they want to do and doing what they need to do! They use strategies such as talking to themselves or picturing to themselves what they need to do and keeping track of where they are in time and space. Students who don’t acquire these strategies naturally, can be successful if they can learn them.