How to make your 3 year old Concentrate

[Mazad]

Hi Guys,

Wondering if anyone has experienced dealing with 3 year olds? My son is about 3.5 and he is very active.
I have worked with him on alphabets and letters and Im quite sure that he knows his numbers and alphabets but when I test him and ask him, he
purposely (I believed) tell me the wrong answer or he just keep quiet and waiting for me to tell him the answer. At times when you are not testing him, then there are
situations when he shouts out the number or alphabet when he sees it somewhere....so that is how I know that he is learning but really hates it to be tested...Is this normal..?

At 3.5 years old, I think he has a good command of the English language, very talkative and he can speak very clearly. He also knows how to reason things and its amazing some of the reasoning that he gives...I try to make my lessons with him very interesting but sometimes his attention span is very limited? What is the normal attention spell for a 3.5 year old?

Im looking at ways for him to increase his level of attention...Anyone with good suggestions? Also what is the best method to deal with kids this age as their mind is very active and they are always thinking of something...

Thanks in advance for all your thoughts and suggestions. Very much appreciate it.

Happy Holidays to all.

[mom2bee]

First: Did you like being tested when you were in school? Did your classmates? What was the normal attitude toward tests by the students in your school. Probably a negative one. It is Exceedingly Normal for children to NOT cooperate with Tests! Stop testing him, like YESTERDAY!!!

also, I don't know your kid, so your milage may vary with these tips:


As far as I know, 3.5 yos dont "concentrate" much without having been trained to do so for 1 reason or another. I was such a 3.5 year old, my younger brothers were not. Dont expect him to wake up with the ability to concentrate tomorrow if you haven't been teaching him to concentrate or be still etc.

If you want to build/work on this ability, begin today. It is great to have your mobil child no about "still and quiet time" or when Mama says "Hooold it!" its important. There was a blog post by one mom who said she taught her son to drop what he was doing, come to her, hands on his side, and stand straight, smile at her and wait attentively for her instructions when she calls "AAAtttention!" military style.

She gradually built this up from about 10-30 seconds to 3 minutes or something like that. Its important that children learn to come when (seriously) called, quickly and with a good spirit and be prepared to cooperate with mom and dad, so thats a great skill to teach your kids, but start gently and with short sessions and build your way up.

On to "academia" type thinger-ma-bobs.

If you allow TV viewing, look into the Leap Frog DVD's I like how they teach an Alphabet song that actually TEACHES something. (Teaching the kids to Chant the names of the alphabet has always baffled me, as you dont really need their names for anything useful if you can read, and the
names and sounds are different). On LeapFrog they teach kids to sing "the A says' "ah", the A says "ah"--everybody all together the A says..."a"!"

So, it might be worth investing in if it seems like a viable option for your family.

For "formal" lesson:
1) Do micro lessons. 30 seconds at a time.
2) Prepare materials ahead of time. Be 110% prepped with all the materials you need.
3) Give the lesson quickly
4) Get the materails out of the little kids way within 33 seconds.

Or, you could get creative and present "formal" stuff in different ways.
There are a lot of printable alphabet games and ever more ideas on how to make your own. I suggest doing 5-10 letters a week, playing once or twice a day.

You could, for example, make up interactive stories for him. If you have or can make large cut out letters for him to use during the stories.
For Example:
The Mama K is looking for her baby k, where, where could he be? When she cant find him in the kitchen, flying a kite or kicking back with his friend, Kangaroo, she stands on top of the K-house (convieniently filled with /k/ items) and calls to her baby with the special /k/ sound. Have him sift through a box or bag of items to find the baby k and bring it running back to mama.

Make Alphabet Books together, one a day.
Begin playing sound games.


Question: What, exactly are you hoping to teach him besides his alphabet and numbers?

The lesson really has to take a viable form for the content of the lesson. There are books out there on learning games. I liked How to Get Your Child Off the Refrigerator and On To Learning, the woman wrote a book on practical homeschooling methods for a child with ADHD, to teach them "rote" material, like the states and capitals.
Reading, Math, Science etc by playing games, she also teaches the parent-teacher to adjust their thinking. (Teach the boy while he's in motion! Because he cant sit still for ever...or 3 minutes.) etc.

Please be more specific and I think I could help you better.

[Mazad]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. I have read and you also re-iterated that kids should not be tested and if so, how can we gauge the progress that they make? Do we just leave it and keep feeding him with information?

Im not just trying to teach him alphabets or letters but Im reading to him books on animals, science, body parts and simple things with lots of pictures..Im trying to get him to understand things around him...and I think if he is able to read on his own fast, then there are more things that he can learn..

cheers.

[Jaava]

In my opinion youngsters who have been taught to read will read so long as it's of their own choosing.  They will prefer a book or certain subject or even a single page within a book.  I can't imagine trying to force them to read things which don't interest them.  If you get a feel for what they are interested in and read about that, letting them choose when to participate then it'll be fun !  Of course reading takes up only a few minutes here and there as most of their time is spent playing.

[TeachingMyToddlers]

All children learn everyday and all children are capable of learning. The question of whether or not your child is responding to the *specific "academic" things* you want him to learn is entirely a differant story. It's okay to want to teach him those things, as long as he wants to learn it too. It you try and "force" it, it's pointless because 1) it's probably not going to work very effectively and 2) it's going to be torture for one or both of you.

What if your child was thinking...."Mom....why do you keep shoving these things at me and asking me again and again? This sucks." I'm not saying that he *is*....but there's a possibility.

Mom2Bee is entirely on the right path. If he is not responding to the "lessons"....it's not the KID that's the problem, his brain is not incapable of learning. It's the LESSONS, change the lessons.

Change your entire approach. Make it BIG, make it DIRTY, make it MESSY, make it FUN, hide words in homemade fortune cookies if you have to.

Write words in sidewalk chalk and run around the block and find them. Cut/arrange his food in letter/number shapes if that's what you want to teach and count out each and every single item as you place it on his plate at every meal. Don't ask him to do it, just count out the carrots, or fractions of sandwiches, he will get it.  Get a giant map and use laminate contact paper to stick it to the playroom floor, let him run his cars all over it and take a trip across the US or the world. Learn the oceans and lakes by boat. If you're an adventurous type of parent, get some non-toxic markers and an alphabet chart. Let him pick the letters and location and draw letters on his arms and legs....he'll think it's a riot and being covered in marker until it completely washes off in the bath in a day or so won't kill him. (explain this is a special game he can only do with mommy.) Get a giant piece of wax butcher paper or finger paint paper and some finger paint or a big bowl of chocolate pudding or whipped cream. Use it to draw and erase letters and numbers on the wax paper with his fingertip. Get a bucket and practice throwing balls from a line on the floor and see how many baskets he can make in, then add them up to work on addition. Take a a few away from the pile to reinforce/introduce subtraction. Start researching like a mad woman on ways to teach a wild young boy who has ants in his pants. The possibilities are endless.

*edited to add:  I just finished playing play dough with my 25 month old DD. We flattened the play dough and I grabbed the magnetic leapfrog fridge phonics letters that were symmetric off the fridge. We pressed them into the dough to make letters and words (mix, vat, hit, hat, hot, and so forth). It was limited to mostly capital symmetrical letters so they didn't imprint backwards but she found the new approach to be super fun and interested. I had to call the activity quits while she was still having fun, figured I'd share that here in case your son might like it too. I'm sure alphabet stamps would work better because you could use all of the letters without the backwards imprint problem, but we had fun with what we had on hand.


As Einstein said, you can't expect to do the same thing again and again and get different results. It's time to change your approach!

You can train him a *certain* degree to "pay attention", but expect a young boy to be a young boy. I am fully expecting to deal with this in 6 months to a year and contemplating ways now of how I will change my approach with my son. A tiger will not change his stripes! Learn to love his stripes and speak tiger!!



 

[DadDude]

"How to make your 3 year old concentrate"?!  Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! 

Well, my 3-year-old couldn't concentrate much at all, except on Legos.  He hasn't changed that much in that regard, now that he's four, but actually he is improving, I guess.  We've been setting aside time every other day after breakfast to practice handwriting, and he's definitely made progress in his handwriting.  Once we get going -- getting started is the hard part -- then we can sit and do it for a half hour, though I try to stop it before it goes that long.

I totally agree with the comments above that if your child doesn't want to do what you've put in front of him, try something else.  Give him lots of choices.  By "concentration" I think we really mean "the ability to stay on a task they'll learn from."  Well, the best way to increase the amount of time a child will stay on an educational task is to do tasks that are very attractive to that child.

[Tanikit]

My daughter is almost 3.5 years old and is also highly active. Firstly boys and girls are quite different - their interests differ and the way they show concentration also differs. I'd like to see my daughter spend the same amount of time swinging from jungle gyms that typical boys do or playing with cars and recognising the signs that go with them. Try varying what you are doing with him. Another way to test boys is to do it on the run - I used a similar thing with my DD when I wanted to know if she knew something - basically I stuck two cards of words she should have known on opposite walls and then had her run to the one I called - it wore off some energy and I found she knew the words - you could even do this in the swimming pool if he can swim - get him to fetch floating letters or numbers. Just keep him moving - boys seem to learn better when in motion.

As far as increasing concentration I would go with reading to him longer and longer stories as you see he can handle them BUT the ability to handle a story is not based on how long your child can it still and listen - my daughter will losten to chapter books and can answer questions on them ONLY if I read them to her while she is moving or bathing or playing with lego or doing something else - it is a style of learning - she is more kinaesthetic than children who can sit and listen well and her comprehension is often much higher than those who do sit still. If you child is active then teach him something while he is doing something else - even some boys can multi task and do so very successfully.

Also evaluate how long he is able to concentrate on something he enjoys - how long does he play with lego, how long can he sit and watch a movie for, how long will he stay with you and help you cook, how long will he stay with Daddy while he fixes the car or looks at its engine, how long will he spend pulling apart a radio or other toy, how long will he listen to a tape recording, how long will he draw a picture for, how long will he collect leaves for in teh garden, how long will he stare at a picture that interests him for - each of these point to diffenrent ways of learning so it is important you evaluate each one and see which types of activities he likes best - hands on, looking or listening. He should be able to do each one at increasing levels, but he may be better at one of them.

[ShenLi]

In Brain Rules and Nurture Shock, they talk about a program called "Tools of the Mind" which was used in certain kindergartens. The program helped children develop their "executive function" which helps them stay focused on a task. Executive function is a good thing to help your child develop because it is a good predictor for future success. Children who went through the "Tools of the Mind" program were not only better academically, but they were also better behaved.

Sorry, I'm only touching on the topic very briefly because I'm in a bit of a hurry. I've attached a PDF about it if you want to read more...

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