Why can't Annie

listen and finish

her work?

CORINA KROPP
About Annie

Annie (about herself): I am good at Gym because I run fast. I

do my best work when it is quiet. I need to improve in math. I
like to read.

(teacher’s impression) Annie doesn’t listen and needs to have

instructions repeated. Annie fidgets, interrupts, and bosses
other students. Annie has a hard time calming down after an
engaging class activity.

(what her mom knows) Annie has a lot of similar traits to her
older brother Mason who has ADD. His Grade 3 report card
looked very similar. Annie will only fall more behind if she is
not given the extra help she needs now.
Teacher and Parent Perspectives
Ms. Way (Annie’s teacher): Is in her first year of teaching and has not had
experience in dealing with parent and student dynamics. She is tentative to go
speak to her principal about Annie for fear of looking inept. She thinks that more
boys than girls have ADD and therefore assumes that Annie just needs to work
harder to pay attention to succeed in school. She also has two other students
whom she feels have greater needs than Annie and the thought of this is
overwhelming for her. She has a lot on her plate and doesn’t know what to do.

Marge (Annie’s mom): Is very intuitive when it comes to Annie’s needs. She has
walked this road before with Annie’s older brother Mason. Mason’s Grade 3
report card included many of the same off task comments and results that
Annie’s does. Mason’s teacher put support in place so that Mason could keep up
with the class and work in small groups. Mason is a confidant learner now that
he is in Grade 6 because of the early intervention that was put in place for him.
 How to help Annie manage better in class:

1. Please understand that there are a variety of different needs in her class and that ADD can often look like
a child is being disrespectful when they are off task. Recognize that ADD/ADHD is a real biological disorder.

2. Create a structured environment for Annie where she has clear expectations and has permission to take
brain and body breaks when she needs to self regulate.

3. Offer instructions in smaller chunks so that Annie can feel successful one step at a time.

4. Praise Annie for her strengths.

5. Focus on the positive.

6. Remember: “It is hard to separate LDs and ADD, because symptoms overlap. Both manifest as the
circumstantial inability to keep up, comprehend, remember, sustain attention, organize, persist, and complete
work consistently, successfully, and within the time expected.” (Hamilton-Newman, Totally ADD).
 Math Strategies for Annie

First things first, Ms. Way needs to know exactly where Annie is at Math and start with the basics.
These ideas here come from LD@school Website:

1. Finger Counting Strategies: Students first display both addends/numbers with their fingers; this
is the most immature strategy.

2. Verbal Counting Strategies: Next, students begin to develop basic adding skills and typically go
through three phases.
· Sum: counting both addends/numbers starting from 1, this is a beginning math counting skill;
· Max: counting from the smaller number; and finally
· Min: counting from the larger number (most efficient strategy).

3. Decomposition (Splitting) Strategies: Students learn that a whole can be decomposed into parts
in different ways, a good problem-solving strategy for unknown math facts.

4. Automatic Retrieval from Long-Term Memory: Students become faster and more efficient at
pairing problems they see with correct answers stored in long-term memory (as is the case with
sight word reading), no computation is required (Kubas & Hale, [n. d.])
Next Steps:
Helpful strategies to use with Annie, along
with the other two students who are striving in
similar ways, would be the following ideas also
taken from Kubas & Hale’s article from
LD@school:
1. Strategic Number Counting
2. Drill and Practice
3. Cover-Copy-Compare
4. Detect-Practice-Repair
5. Reciprocal Peer Tutoring
 Remember:
Parents are the experts on their
children-we need to seek their wisdom!
Resources:
Hamilton-Newman, Renee. Dyscalculia an ADHD. [n. d] Totally ADD [website]
Retrieved from: https://totallyadd.com/dyscalculia-and-adhd/

Kubas, H. and Hale, J. LDs in Mathematics: Evidence-Based Interventions,

Strategies, and Resources. [n.d] LD @school [website] Retrieved from:
https://www.ldatschool.ca/evidence-based-interventions-for-math/

Understood Team. Understanding ADHD in Your Child. [n. d] Understood

[website] Retrieved from https://www.understood.org/en/learning-thinking-
differences/child-learning-disabilities/add-adhd/adhd-in-children