10 Quick & Easy Accommodations for ADD & LD Within the Classroom

Suggested General Accommodations That Can Be Made Within the School System or at Home When Homeschooling.

1. Keep the walls of the classroom simple (Visually stimulating material can be distracting.) If the walls are simple and the visual material brought out for the lesson, the ADD & LD student is more apt to attend to the visual material connected with the lesson.

2. Preferential seating for the ADD & LD student. This is usually near where the teacher spends most of their time. Some teachers do most of their instruction from the front of the classroom. Others may have a “U” shaped arrangement of desks and spend their time in a different place. Other teachers do a lot of instruction using an overhead projector, where they stand or are seated next to it. So, depending on the practice of the teacher, your ADD student should have his desk space in close proximity to the teacher. At home you may need to sit with your child rather than working in the kitchen or laundry while your child is doing schoolwork.

3. Surround the ADD & LD student with “good role models.”

4. Adjust time for completion of projects.

5. Allow frequent breaks and vary the activities often.

6. Pause after asking a question and look at different students before calling on anyone to answer.

7. If the teacher sees the ADD & LD student’s attention wandering, instead of calling out his name where everyone realizes he isn’t attending, have a signal set up where the teacher might just walk by the ADD student’s desk and tap the desk or tap them on the shoulder.

8. Let the student get up and walk around the classroom. Studies have shown that when teachers allow ADD & LD kids to move around more freely, it helps them learn.

9. Have students record the time they started their work on the top of the page and the time they completed it at the bottom. This helps to keep the ADD & LD student on task because they are being held accountable as well as learning a self-monitoring technique.

10. Increase class participation in lectures. At home, be proactive about asking questions and expect participation rather than you telling your child all of the content.

More accomodations to come…

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

Board Certified Educational Therapist

https://www.bonnieterrylearning.com

For more information regarding Learning Disabilities, you may want to check out:

http://www.ldonline.org/