Developing Critical Thinking Skills in Students With ADHD
I am going to begin a series of blogs on teaching and tutoring students with ADHD and the useful strategies that will help develop their critical thinking skills. I will be pulling from multiple sources as well as my own experience as a teacher/and tutor.
I want to start with some things I’ve learned from my students. First, they cannot be described, grouped or categorized as being one way. Every child is different and unique in their own way, and this includes how ADHD is expressed. There are some similarities across students, but how they respond to different instructional strategies and stimulus in their environment will vary. One size does not fit all.
Second, students with the very active form of ADHD tend to have minds that move very fast. This may lead to learning quickly or making many mistakes because they react before filtering and examining what they produce. This can look like guessing, counting errors, computation errors, wrong letter sounds, mispronouncing a word or even forgetting what was just practiced or read. It is usually something that they know, but they are moving too fast when responding and they make the simple mistakes. It can also happen when they are learning and integrating new knowledge, because they seem to focus their attention on the new material and forget the skills they already mastered.
Third, the need to move during instruction varies. I worked with some students who needed the option of standing while learning. One student liked laying on the ground. Some students can sit at a desk or table for a period of time and sustain their attention on the activity. Some students need frequent breaks from sitting and learning. It really just depends on the child and what they need to be successful.
Fourth, students with the inattentive type of ADHD are not ignoring you. They are observing and absorbing everything in their environment. These students get easily distracted and can become overwhelmed when overstimulated. How that is expressed varies. It could show up as a headache, a stomach ache, avoidance behaviors or even dysregulation. They need to learn strategies to help them process and manage outside stimulation in addition to strategies to help them maintain focus while learning.
Fifth, the instructional strategies that I will be reviewing are also appropriate for students with other disabilities that impact their learning. Students with learning disabilities, visual processing disorders, Autism and other disabilities that impact learning can benefit from these strategies as well. You may find that you need to adapt strategies, but these different instructional and learning strategies are really just inclusive teaching strategies that benefit all students.
Finally, I need to say that even though ADHD is considered a disability and students who have ADHD can qualify for accommodations under a 504 Plan or for an IEP with special education services, teachers and tutors need to see the students and not the disability. When the focus is on the disability, only the disability is seen. When a strategy is implemented and it doesn’t work, the student gets blamed. This is not done directly, but students pick up on the subtle cues and they overhear conversations. They internalize these messages and start thinking that they are the problem, which is not true. If educators focus on the individual, the student as a human being, then when a strategy doesn’t work, it’s understood that the strategy wasn’t a good fit for the student. My goal with this blog series is to reframe the focus onto the student.
There is a large number of resources available on instructional and learning strategies for students with ADHD. I will only be focusing on a few resources and my personal experience. I welcome any comments, stories, and references to other resources from my readers. This blog series is meant to start a conversation about focusing on students as human beings when we teach, not as a body at a desk or a disability. Those are limiting beliefs that limit our ability to reach and teach our students.
We need to remember that a child is just a child.
© 2025 Linda Patrell-Kim
