Improving concentration

How to Improve your Child’s Concentration

By Gail Hugman If ever there was a time to help your child improve their learning skills, it is now! Even when routines are not disrupted, many young children need help developing the skills of listening and concentration required in the classroom. Here are some ways you can help your child.

Concentration

DEFINE focus and concentration – primary aged children need to feel things in their body to help their brain properly understand the meaning.

To help your child FEEL concentration, ask them to balance a book on their head! After the book has stopped falling off, the giggling has ended and you see that they are focussed, TELL them that what they were feeling whilst trying to balance the book is ‘concentration.’

EXPLAIN that concentration means using all your energy to do one thing at a time. If you get distracted you need to take control inside yourself to get back to the job. Taking control is a grownup thing to do!

Teach the Bubble Strategy (below) to use in class.

Listening

Only around 2% of the population ever have any formal training in listening and yet it’s one of the most important skills we need for learning. Help your child get off to a great start with the following steps:

The Bubble Strategy

This will help your child manage distraction in the classroom. Talk to your child about the classroom and what distracts them.

Look at the school timetable and show your child the blocks of time when they need to be listening and concentrating.

Tell them to help their brain focus in the classroom, they need to imagine they are inside a big, invisible bubble. It can be any colour they like!

Inside the bubble all they can hear is their teacher talking; all other noise is outside the bubble and in the distance.

They can shake off their bubble when they go out to play and go back into it in the next lesson.

Give them a small, pretty stone or bead for their pencil case and tell them that every time they see it, it will remind them to concentrate, listen and check that they are using the bubble when they need it.

After school, ask them how their concentration was in the lessons in which it was needed.

Talk with your child about what they think listening really means and the difference between listening and hearing. For example, hearing is something that happens automatically. Listening is something we DO which means we can get better at it with practice.

Tell them you’re going to see how well their brain is learning to listen. Say a simple sentence for them to repeat back to you exactly as it was said: e.g. “I put my coat on and went outside to play.”

Can your child repeat it word perfectly? They might need to do it several times. Suggest they repeat the sentence in their head when you say it because that will help their brain remember it. They can do this when their teacher is speaking to them at school too.

Gail Hugman is the founder of Lessons Alive. Gail has 46 years’ experience teaching and motivating children to be the best they can be in school and in life. This article contains extracts from her book 100 Things to Learn Before You’re 10, available at www.theendlessbookcase.com.

For further information, visit www.lessonsalive.com

Concentration Exercises

This plan is for ten minutes before school each morning for at least one week but can go on throughout the school year or until your child feels they manage to focus well in class. Substitute and change activities as the weeks go on but always make them timed.

2 minutes warm up each day - choose one of these Throwing ball to wall and catching - this helps to ‘get your brain going’. Throwing ball to person – or hand to hand - and catching. Hopping from foot to foot.

2 minutes learning essentials Copy out 5 words to learn spelling OR copy out and say a times table to learn.

2 minutes to release tension and develop hand control Squeeze a stress ball or equivalent (plasticine).

3 minutes to mentally prepare for the day Look at the timetable and when they will need to focus. Remind your child about bubble strategy and how to focus. Check their bag to make sure they have what they need.