Taking Responsibility for ADHD Readers
By Kassandra Montes
Students with ADHD are not being taught effectively
Kassandra Montes a student at the University of Texas Pan-American created an interesting game to help children with ADHD become better readers. Kassandra conducted a research study in which she observed and interviewed a 10 year old boy with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). She was looking at how he has difficulties while reading and understanding the content given. What she found was that he had no idea when he was initially getting distracted. He also better understood the text after reading it out loud rather than reading it to himself. She claims teachers are not taking responsibility when it comes to teaching students with ADHD because they don't know how to teach students with ADHD effective reading strategies.
She conducted this research study because she wanted to know how children with ADHD deal with their reading difficulties. She began her research by finding a reading for her brother to read to himself. While he was reading it to himself she noticed he didn’t understand some words so he would repeat them a couple of times and ask questions. She allowed him ask questions about anything in the reading he was completing. The second time he read the reading to himself and while he was reading she was took notes of his moments of distraction, his movement, the questions he asked and his understanding of the paper. She then interviewed him to understand how he thought and acted.
Teachers’ do not understand how to teach students with ADHD and often deal with it in the wrong way. The difficulties Kassandra’s brother has had in his class tend to arise from teachers inability to get and keep his attention, which is why he doesn’t understand what to do. Kassandra believes that teacher should have access to different types of tools that can help them teach students with ADHD effectively.
To help provide teachers with an effective tool for teaching students with ADHA to read, Kassandra developed a board game. She hopes that it can help students learn while being maintaining their attention. The board game is very colorful and has cards with questions about the particular paper or article the student is reading in class. The questions can be easily changed to meet the teachers’ needs depending on the reading. Kassandra hopes to create an online version of the game in an effort to make it accessible to more teachers and students.
Kassandra Montes is an Undergraduate at the University of Texas Pan-American.
