Length of lesson times and attention

It was recently reported by the popular Turkish newspaper, The Hürriyet, that the Ministry of Education had decided that the length of school lessons would be decreased while the break times would be increased.At present primary school lessons are 40 mins and high school lessons 45 mins.

The Ministry of Education referred to the fact that Turkey was one of the countries with the longest lessons !!!

In the report it stated that the an average students attention span was 16-20 mins, but this of course would vary from person to person.Naturally younger students would have shorter attention spans , as well as those with learning disabilities.

Of course reducing lesson time and increasing break time is good news for all students, but it is particularly important for students with learning disabilities. Students with dyslexia and other learning disabilities often have problems regarding concentration and attention.

It must be pointed out that only cutting lesson time is not just sufficient.Teachers in Turkey should to be made aware that they also need to provide interesting and varied activities within the lesson in order to maximize students attention levels .

The other problem the Minsitry of Education needs to address is not only reducing lesson time but in reducing the syllabus and lightening the workload of students. Most students after normal school has finished attend cramming schools, in order compete in the hard exams which students have to sit in order to get a place at a high school and or university.

At the other end of the scale Turkish schools have very long holidays of over 3 months. It would be much better if students had more regular breaks and worked more evenly throughout the year.

Alphabet Arc : Dictionary Skills

Here in this Dyslexia Blog article is a useful strategy if your child has trouble looking words up in dictionaries and other reference books that are arranged in alphabetical order.

Make an alphabet arc using a protractor.

First draw an arc onto a piece of card.Divide the arc into 4 roughly equal sections..

Write the alphabet in the four quarters :
A- F
G- M
N- S
T- Z

You could cut the arc out and fold it along the lines into quarters if you want.

They can carry it with them in their school bag.

It makes looking things up quicker and more accurate, and your child won’t have to start from the beginning of the alphabet for each word.

You could make up a mnemonic to remember the first 4 letters in each section eg : All gorillas need tomatoes

Play some games with them to test their skills.- eg they have to find a word within a certain time.

This can even be used with older students.

Still Blogger is playing up - spent 3 hours just adding one blog article.. Its driving me crazy!! So bear with me ....

APOLOGIES !!

Apologies to anyone reading Dyslexia Blog as I haven't been able to write much lately.As I explained previously we are having some problems in Turkey with Blogger due to a blanket ban on blogs . The blog ban has supposedly been lifted but I tried to post something today but it wasn't working properly .Its annoying to say the least . I feel demoralised.