How ADHD impacts reading
- Students with ADHD are more likely to show weaknesses in oral language and reading than their typically developing peers.
- Comprehension and fluency are often affected for students with ADHD due to their inattention.
- Students with ADHD often struggle with executive function skills such as task initiation, sustained attention, and working memory all of which are necessary for reading and comprehension.
References
Gist, C. (2019). From frazzled to focused: Supporting students with executive function deficits. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 51(5), 372–381.
Martinussen, R. (2015). The Overlap of ADHD, Reading Disorders, and Language Impairment. Perspectives on Language and Literacy, 41(1), 9–13.
Stewart, A. A., & Swanson, E. (2022). Supporting reading comprehension for students with inattention. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 56(5), 386–395.
Recommendations for instruction
- It is important to help students with ADHD create background knowledge and to explicitly teach vocabulary.
- The use of semantic maps and other graphic organizers is helpful and allows students with ADHD to organize their thoughts and ideas visually.
- Pose a variety of questions that require both literal and inferential questions.
- Include opportunities for partner or small group discussions to take place to discuss meaning and main idea of passages.
References
Stewart, A. A., & Swanson, E. (2022a). Supporting reading comprehension for students with inattention. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 56(5), 386–395.
Sample ADHA lesson plan
Screeners have shown that Kendra is struggling in a couple different areas. While she is able to read and decode single and multisyllabic words, she reads slowly, stumbles over words, skips punctuation, and often loses her place. Due to her ADHD, Kendra is having trouble with fluency and comprehension of texts. This is likely due to executive function deficits and inattention. It is not uncommon for students with high levels of inattention to have similar decoding skills to their peers, but have lower fluency and comprehension of the material (Stewart & Swanson, 2022). Kendra needs to learn how to be more actively engaged with the texts and classroom activities to increase her comprehension skills (Martinussen, 2015).
While I believe that the Wilson Fluency Basic lesson is a good base lesson to start with, I would make the following adjustments to the lesson plan to better match them to Kendra’s current needs.
- After completing the reevaluation Fluency with Un-Phrased Passages, I would pose a variety of questions, both literal and inferential, to Kendra about the passage read to promote discussion and facilitate comprehension (Stewart & Swanson, 2022).
- I would modify the Practice with Phrased Passage section of this lesson. Instead of giving her a copy that had the phrasing already marked for her, I would work with her to determine where the meaningful chunks of the passage were. This would allow her to be more actively engaged with the materials and the lesson to increase her comprehension, which is sometimes difficult for a person with ADHD (Martinussen, 2015).
- I would also modify the Practice Words activity for Kendra. Since children with ADHD often have trouble sitting still, I would make this activity one that encourages her to move. I would use the words from the list, but put them on individual cards that we could use to complete a red light/ green light game. When the red signal is up she would sit and think about the word I am displaying. When I display the green light she would stand up and say the word. It would allow her to move around, while possibly attending more to the task she is completing (Martinussen, 2015).
The following aspects of the Wilson Fluency Basic lesson are ones that I would continue to include because they are aspects that match Kendra’s current needs well.
- I would include the Establish Baseline section of the lesson plan because as with all students keeping current data on Kendra would be important. Since she will be learning a new skill during this intervention, having these baseline scores will be important so that it is clear if the intervention is helping Kendra or needs to be modified (Gist, 2019).
- Since Kendra is often inattentive and loses her place while reading, I would continue to include the finger tracking in both the Phrased Passage and the Un-Phrased Passage. This will help Kendra attend to the passage better and increase her fluency as well as her comprehension since students with higher inattention have lower comprehension scores (Stewart & Swanson, 2022).
With the adjustments listed above, along with the components that are remaining, I believe that this would be a good lesson for Kendra to continue to work on to improve her comprehension and fluency of reading passages.
References
Gist, C. (2019). From frazzled to focused: Supporting students with executive function deficits. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 51(5), 372–381.
Martinussen, R. (2015). The Overlap of ADHD, Reading Disorders, and Language Impairment. Perspectives on Language and Literacy, 41(1), 9–13.
Stewart, A. A., & Swanson, E. (2022a). Supporting reading comprehension for students with inattention. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 56(5), 386–395.