As students with ADHD progress through school, they often struggle with the rising organizational demands. Help your ADHD child build stronger organizational skills with these ideas.
3-TIER ORGANIZATIONAL SYSTEM
Teach your ADHD child this 3-Tier Organizational System to build stronger paper-management skills:
- Tier 1 is a working notebook or a binder that he carries with him on a daily basis containing only necessary papers.
- Tier 2 is an accordion file that he leaves at home, containing homework, notes, and tests/quizzes section for each class.
- Tier 3 is a long-term filing cabinet used for filing papers.
One day per week should be designated as a “clean out my working notebook day” for transferring non-necessary papers from the working notebook to the accordion file.
ASSIGNMENT BOOK
Your child should write down all assignments in an assignment book, and when she sits down to start her homework, she should first decide on the order she wants to complete the assignments (she should generally do the more complex ones first). Once each assignment is done and put in the right place to be turned in, she should cross it off the list.
TIME MANAGEMENT
To build more effective time management skills, teach your child to estimate how long he thinks each task will take (and write the ET or estimated time), then compare it to the AT or the actual time it takes. The more he practices this strategy, the more realistic he will become with his time.
Emily Levy, Ed. D, Founder & Director EBL Coaching eblcoaching.com.
