Activities to increase preschoolers attention span in Malaysia
The breakthrough towards success at school is having an established attention span. Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder tend to miss out on many learning opportunities, and as such, fail to keep up with their peers.
Fixing concentration problems between the age of eight to nine can be a daunting prospect. Therefore, starting at a tender age can create an impact on your child’s focus because there are tons of activities you can introduce as a parent to help boost their attention span.
Q-dees, for example, is an education centre that focuses on building children’s foundation through a series of programs, such as physical and social development, mastery of languages, logic and scientific discovery, among others.
Here are some of the simple ways to help enhance your child’s attention span:
1. Focus Games
Because children learn more by playing, perhaps you should consider making their activities a little fun. One of the ways you can do this is by keeping away electronic gadgets and allowing them to play with regular toys that enhance their attention span.
Many reports have proven electronic devices to reduce attention span as well as memory capacity. So in short, they shouldn’t be used at all during children’s activities.
2. Daily Routine
The daily routine will help increase your child’s concentration. When children know what awaits them ahead, they become psychologically prepared on what they should be doing.
For example, if you have set up a playtime timetable for your children, they will take the shortest time to settle and find themselves a play activity. This will reduce the rate of fights you have with your children when trying to pull them off the television because you would have scheduled some time for TV. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
Also,at Q-dees, we offer excellent child creative programs such as art and craft, as well as music that can help boost the attention span of your child.
That said, daily routine promotes the sense of security while you also have time to schedule activities that enhance the attention span of your children.
3. Regular Exercise
Again, exercise is one of the best ways to improve your child’s concentration. Usually, it helps increase the memory power of your child as well as attention. Besides, it boosts your child’s energy while lowering their anxiety.
At Q-dees, there’s a program for children called physical and social development, which includes character building, gymflex, among others to encourage kids to get active.
Before allowing your children to participate in exercises, make sure they are active. The best way to do this is by encouraging free outdoor plays such as Wheelie Sunday @ Publika, Dataran Merdeka Heritage Guided Tour, Batu Caves Temple, among others.
4. Reading to Your Child
You may not have known this, but the truth is that your child will concentrate more if you take your time to read for him or her. This is because reading to your child will require some active listening, as well as attention.
Reading to your child is fun and straightforward. It keeps your child engaged throughout the entire process. It is one of the beneficial learning experiences you can introduce your child to when at home. And please, for chrissake, make it a routine to see results.
How to Increase Attention Span in ADHD Child in Malaysian Schools
A child with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder can indeed give his or her attention to specific activities, such as playing video games. Still, the same child will have very little concentration when it comes to school-related activities.
Researchers have found out that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder doesn’t affect a child’s attention span, but it affects what things your child pays attention to. And while it is true that medication can help a lot, these tips can also help increase your child’s attention span.
Before we dive into the ways of how to increase the attention span in ADHD children, it is essential to know that we have categorized these tips. Let’s start with the first category of how you can increase attention span in an ADHD child.
In the classroom
The first measure you should take as a parent is to keep your child away from possible distractions, such as traffic areas, windows, among others. Surround your child with ADHD with well-behaved peers. Also, as a teacher handing children with ADHD, it would help if you arrange the furniture in the room so that you can move freely within the classroom. Your movement should hold their interest and keep their attention span longer.
Whether you are a parent or teacher, you should make sure that the lessons you offer to children who have ADHD are exciting, mysterious, and funny. Also, you can leverage the power of illustrations. Illustrate different vital ideas to help children concentrate more on the topic of discussion. If possible, try as much as you can to schedule lessons around current happenings. For example, you can plan to teach topics related to holiday events, such as the Agong’s Birthday during social studies classes.
Finally, you can alternate the teaching methods, so that students don’t get bored and lose focus. Also, make sure that you don’t take much time talking, but incorporate some illustrations to keep children engaged throughout the lessons. For example, you can get the children to chant mathematics concepts, tap out to numbers and letters on the board to increase their concentration spans.
At home
One of your top priorities as a parent is to ensure that your child gets proper ADHD medication if he or she is suffering from it. Also, as a parent, you must be more watchful and ensure that your child takes the right dosage as prescribed by the doctor. The good news is that you can pair the ADHD medication with behavioural techniques to improve your child’s attention span.
Sure, we had talked about how you can improve your child’s attention span at school, but some home activities, such as homework is an extension of school work. So, it would help if you reminded your child to complete her homework. If your child is still at a lower level of education, have him underline complex words using colored pencils, or draw cartoons.
Thirdly, you can incorporate the sense of self-monitoring in your child. Let your child know of possible distractions so that he or she can avoid them. With time, your child will realize what distraction is and what it feels like and will be able to know that his or her attention is divided into other activities. Children with ADHD could benefit a ton from positive affirmations, such as “I can focus on this.” Let your child repeat such words to encourage him or her to keep grinding.
Attention-boosting games could also help with increasing your child’s attention span. Children games, mainly traditional games such as Batu Seremban, Congkak, Ceper, among others, could help boost your child’s attention span. You can also introduce some of the modern games such as Simon Says, as well as musical chairs.
Finally, spending time outdoors could also help increase the attention span of children, especially those who have ADHD as found out by recent studies. Take some time outdoors in relaxed, natural environments. During the outdoor trip, please help your child spot the beautiful nature, wild animals, and birds to improve his or her attention span.
In Conclusion
You don’t have to fret now that your child has a low attention span because of various reasons. The good news is that you can improve the attention span of your child using the hacks on this post, and even more, automate it.
The secret is to be consistent with the activities you engage your child in. Always find time to revise these activities to ensure that your child is responding well to them. In the case of disorders such as ADHD, first, ensure your child is on medication as you also incorporate these tips.