Improving concentration in a 5 yr old.

[PavlovtheCat]

Dd has had her school report, yr1. Overall excellent report. She is not struggling, is excellent at reading, PE and art, has lots of friends, sociable she is a bright child, whatever that means at 5!

However recurring theme, stressed at the end of the report is she is very easily distracted and gets bored easily and this is affecting the quality of work, in for example writing and maths. Report said that should she be able to manage h concentration she will develop those areas as strengths but currently teacher is not seeing her true potential/capability.

My initial thoughts were that She is still only 5! And most important to us are her social skills. But her concentration is not good at home either.

So, how normal is poor concentration at this age (6 in july) and what we we do to help her increase her concentration, not get distracted so easily? And, does it matter at this age or am I stressing unecessarily as she will grow out of it?

I am of course going to talk to teacher about it, but can't do that til teacher drop on next week.

I am not sure there is a lot you can do to improve concentration. Maybe sport or music might help if she enjoys that sort of thing.

I think its one of those things were she just has to get older and learn for herself.

My initial thoughts are also, she is only 5. I cannot see what you can do to improve concentration when they are so little.

Maybe practise focused activities at home? Nothing too academic, but board games, word searches, colouring? Set aside a half hour and sit together. If she gets distracted, guide her back to it. Then, after a few goes, leave her to it, whilst you potter around nearby.

Just a thought, but it's what I do with my boys.

Where's Wally books are good for concentration. They make me feel sick though!

really she concentrates hardest when doing something physical, so I am not sure that will help her sitting and focussing.

brandy I guess what bothers me, is that they mentioned her absentminded ness last year and said it should improve as she grows, nothing to wory about at the time. But this report stresses it, several times throughout the subject sections, and then again in the summary, sort of indicated to me it was more problematic that DH and I realised. My instincts say it is her age and will improve, but I wonder why they are making such a big deal of it if it's a common thing with age.

Oh she likes where's Wally.

I talked to her about maths and writing etc. she said 'it's boring'. I guess we will have to try to make it more fun. Areas that her concentration is excellent...reading. She can read endlessly. She can read quite long books and if she is not reading, she will flick through for ages. She will also play with dolls and bears and make up stories for hours.

So, what I am saying is she can concentrate on some things, so I can try to supported to channel this to other areas?

Model it with and for her. Do things with her that require concentration, and make an environment that minimises distractions to do them in - make sure there's no background radio or telly, stop multitasking for the time you're working together, and focus on the project and what the two of you are up to. It won't happen straight away or all the time, but it'll make the space for it to happen more often.

Our son had the attention span of a gnat. He is top of the year but has always had a very short attention span. It is getting better. Slowly!

frontpaw how old is he? ohbuggerandarse yes we need to do that, it is very easy to do other things at the same time. I also need to set up a quiet area for her to do writing and such things without her brother annoying her or wanting to be involved ( he is two). I have extremely low concentration for most things, apart from, for some reason, 20 page risk assessments that take hours to do! But even then, I need to get up and make coffee a million times. I can't watch many tv programmes as I just get too figity, Dh does not like watching films with me as a digit. Dd figity in her sleep. She is never ever still. Like me.

He is seven now. I am the same - it runs in the family!

is your dd actually my ds in disguise? He is year 1 too and apparently will only concentrate on things he is interested in. If he isn't interested then school can't get more than 10 mins work out of him and that is through threats (no playtime) or support (TA sitting with him and encouraging him throughout).
I was really worried but I started to think a) he can concentrate brilliantly when he is reading and will read on his own for as long as he is allowed b) most of what he is taught in school is mind numbingly boring and c) he is only 5.

I think if ds' teacher tried a bit harder to make lessons interesting he would be more focused. For example she was moaning the other day that he wouldn't concentrate when she was talking about Florence Nightingale and wanted to talk about Blackbeard instead - I'm not surprised he finds one so much more interesting and exciting than the other.

shopping that is so funny! Dd wanted to talk about queens and princesses not florence! One of the criticisms was that she won't work along using her own iniative on Mathis projects, won't work without guidance. But surely that means, rather than lacking in concentration she is not doing so well and needs that guidance, that she does not have the confidence to do that bit of work? That is probably mine and dhs fault as we have lots of books, have read to her since she was born, and have really encouraged this, but have spent much much less time with maths, as 1, it is boring and b, we are oth a bit rubbish at it. This will change as I don't want this to pass down to dd if she has potential to be good at maths if she tries.

How normal is is poor concentration at this age? Very normal! She is only 5 and young in year. I expect the children who are 6 and a half can concentrate better. I don't see there is much you can do at home that will make a difference because the circumstances are totally different. Don't stress. DS didn't really improve till P4 after which he was a model pupil.

cecily funny you should talk about older children concentrating more. I am thinking maybe it has been highlighted because, DD is in fact in a mixed class with yr2 children. Maybe the teacher is comparing her to some, who are in effect potentially almost 2 years older than her? The report did say she manages mixed age and ability groups well. She just gets distracted by things going on around her (she wants to play with the others when they are trying to get her to write things!)

cecily you talked about 6.5yr olds...how did you know that?

Interesting point re mixed classes. Ds is in a yr1/2 mix too. From what I hear the teacher focuses much more on the yr 2's and various TA's teach the yr 1's

Hi
We had a comment like this about our DD when she was in Yr3. After the parents' evening she had a chat with the SENCO which DD loved; the upshot of this was that DD had to monitor her daydreaming herself. For our part we started giving her a daily dose of cod liver oil (much to dd's disgust). Fast forward to parents' evening this year and her teacher said that she didn't have DD as a daydreamer at all! So who knows what helped. Perhaps DD found yr3 particularly difficult, perhaps it was the fish oil, perhaps it was the extra attention given to her by SENCO.
HTH

This is exactly what happened with my little boy who will be 6 at the end of June. I was informed by my son's headmaster that his "lack of attention is beginning to interfere with his learning". She completely terrified me and started asking me things like if there had been any complications when he was born and if he was premature ("no" to both). I panicked for about 3 months and implemented a regime of concentration exercises and "learning time"... but now I look at my bright and brilliant son, listen to compliments about his wonderful manners, his excellent vocabulary, his socialable nature and his wicked sense of fun and wish I'd told that stuffy old headmaster to try some positive reinforcement with my child. My son is 5, and he's awesome. We still work on his listening skills and give him "chores" around the house, but we are more relaxed about his learning. Have confidence in your child - no one knows her better than you and if you think she is flourishing, my guess is that she probably is..

dina you are so right. I never look at her and think 'what should I be doing differently?' apart from when her bedroom looks like it has been burgled i look at her and say 'wow, she is growing up fantastically' i marvel at her every day, and even today when she talked nonstop in the car going to the beach, she had zero concentration or patience, so when we stopped listening, she carried on her conversation at a million miles an hour to her 2yo brother who looked at her in awe and clearly listened to all she said!

I have written a note in her contact book for the teacher saying that should there be any concerns that need addressing re her concentration I would like to see her immediately to discuss what we need to be doing. Its difficult to get time with the teachers, and I will try personally to make contact to, but if we get zero feedback I shall accept that as she is great in all other areas, lack of concentration is not an issue for now.

Incidently, my DH took her to a birthday party where another dad was there, he has 4 children, 2 of which are at the same school and 2 are in secondary school now. He said that, as I think others have, that the school reports aged 5 are pretty meaningless as they are not really working towards curriculum, or able to fully assess how they are doing. I personally shall add to that the fact that her teacher has been suffering from serious sickness in her pregnancy, about to go on ML and cannot give her complete attention to 32 children!