Article summary and analysis

Teaching Strategies for Students With ADHD

The article by authors Kiuhara, O'Neill, Hawken, & Graham discuss ways to improve persuasive writing in high school students. They stress the importance of persuasive writing because students with ADHD had difficulty planning and drafting text. Any teaching strategy that dealt with these weaknesses could improve the writing ability of a student with ADHD. "Intervention studies with younger, middle school students with disabilities shows that their persuasive writing can be improved by teaching them strategies for planning and drafting such text" (Kiuhara, O'Neill, Hawken, & Graham, 2012, p. 337).

The authors found a modified version, developed by De La Paz and Graham geared towards the education of younger middle school students, can be upgraded so that it would be more relevant to high school aged students (Kiuhara, O'Neill, Hawken, & Graham, 2012). The De La Paz and Graham approach addressed two sets of intellectual processes condensed in the mnemonics STOP and DARE. STOP focused mainly on the planning development and prompted students to (a) Interrupt any kind of judgment by cataloguing causes for each side of a point before electing a premise, (b) Take a side after assessing the listed concepts, (c) Organize concepts from strongest to weakest or most significant to least significant, and (d) Design, outline, and write more while beginning and continuing the essay.

"DARE served to remind students about basic elements they needed to include in their paper: (a) Develop a topic sentence, (b) Add supporting ideas, (c) Reject possible arguments for the other side, and (d) End with a conclusion" (Kiuhara, O'Neill, Hawken, & Graham, 2012, p. 336). In advancing this approach, the authors developed a third mnemonic, AIMS, that was positioned between STOP and DARE. It was intended to aid the student create an outline and more importantly an introduction, that would generate interest in the reader. Aims permits the writer to contextualize material covering the subject for the audience. With this newly modified strategy in place, six 10th grade high school students, of which four were boys, were able to learn how to write persuasively utilizing the Self-Regulated Strategy Development model. An assessment was done to check the effectiveness of such a model and thanks to the STOP, AIMS, and DARE approach, they were able to not only write longer essays but also, qualitatively better essays. Students reported feeling positive after going through this kind of educational strategy.

Reflection

The article did a great job of highlighting a suitable teaching method for a wide range of ages. The STOP and DARE method can be utilized by educators to teach children from grades elementary to middle school. Adding the AIMS helps deal with students with ADHD who are high school aged. Furthermore, using tried and tested methods and modifying them provides for a lesson on how to use already established teaching methods by simply improving upon them or adapting them to any specific use.

Many times students who have ADHD have difficulty planning things. This may happen due to several reasons. Some of which could include simply feeling anxiety about performing a certain task. The important thing to derive from such an article as the one written by Kiuhara, O'Neill, Hawken, & Graham, is to understand and teach to students the important of drafting and planning. Planning is an essential part to any kind of learning. This is especially true for students with ADHD.

Students with ADHD often times feel anxious because they cannot get all of their thoughts onto paper and feel left behind when they see other students progressing with their work. Although on average, students with ADHD have the same level of intelligence as students without ADHD, they still worry more about their performance and abilities. To focus on a strategy that helps them continuously plan, this will help them through multiple academic endeavors in the long run. Additionally, educators who allow students to ready themselves by mapping out what they will do, will permit greater focus on interest in students.