While students with ADHD often have above average intelligence, teachers often find it a challenge to keep them on task during classroom activities. David Wodrich, Director of Psychology at Phoenix Children's Hospital in Arizona and author of "ADHD: What Every Parent Wants to Know," offers the following suggestions for teachers. For strategies on how you can help children with ADHD achieve success in your classroom, read on!

Use activities that have a quick pace and don't require a lot of time to complete or a lot of handwriting. For example, a flash card activity would be preferable to a math worksheet.

Make sure students with ADHD are not sitting near any obvious distractions, such as a window or pencil sharpener. An ideal place would be one that allows maximum eye contact between the student and teacher.

To keep students with ADHD on task, a quick prompt usually is effective to remind the student of class rules. "Kids with ADHD don't do a good job keeping track of rules. Teachers can be the prompters and motivators," notes Dr. Wodrich.

Praise and small incentives are a good idea to ensure work completion. Teachers can offer checks, stickers, stars, or points, which the student can trade for larger rewards, to reward good work and behavior.

When bad behavior occurs, teachers should use mild reprimands. If those are ineffective, small penalties, such as a loss of reward points or privileges, can come next. Dr. Wodrich cautions teachers that "time out" doesn't work well with students with ADHD, because most don't mind being away from the class. Most important, says Dr. Wodrich, is that disciplinary measures are enacted immediately and begin at a low level. "Most [disciplinary] measures fail because we don't use penalties and rewards often enough, and when we do, we usually give or take away too much."

A daily tracking system between parents and teachers is recommended to ensure that parents are aware of their child's assignments and that homework is completed. Parents can also offer incentives to their children for completing homework, but Dr. Wodrich advises that rewards be limited to what is available in the home. An example would be video game time.

Parents and teachers should communicate to make sure that it doesn't become too convenient for a student to do work at home. If parents offer large incentives or provide too much assistance, a student may prefer to save schoolwork for home rather than complete class assignments. Regular communication between school and home can prevent this.

For older students, long-term projects should be broken up into smaller tasks. For example, a research paper could be divided into steps for an outline, first draft, etc. Each step would have its own due date so that teachers can check student progress and encourage consistent, regular work.

Click here for information on "ADHD: What Every Parent Wants to Know," a reader-friendly resource on ADHD for parents and educators.

Copyright (c) 2002 by Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.