Focus on Attention

 Charlotte Mason on Cultivating the Habit of Attention:

The Habit of Attention to be Cultivated in the Infant.—

The help, then, is not in the will of the child but in the habit of attention, a habit to be cultivated even in the infant. A baby, notwithstanding his wonderful powers of observation, has no power of attention; in a minute, the coveted plaything drops from listless little fingers, and the wandering glance lights upon some new joy. But even at this stage the habit of attention may be trained: the discarded plaything is picked up, and, with ' Pretty!' and dumb show, the mother keeps the infant's eyes fixed for fully a couple of minutes—and this is his first lesson in attention. Later, as we have seen, the child is eager to see and handle every object that comes in his way. But watch him at his investigations: he flits from thing to thing with less purpose than a butterfly amongst the flowers, staying at nothing long enough to get the good out of it. It is the mother's part to supplement the child's quick observing faculty with the habit of attention. She must see to it that he does not flit from this to that, but looks long enough at one thing to get a real acquaintance with it.

Time-table; Definite Work in a Given Time. —

I shall have opportunities to enter into some of these points later; meantime, let us look in at a home schoolroom managed upon sound principles. In the first place, there is a time-table, written out fairly, so that the child knows what he has to do and how long each lesson is to last. This idea of definite work to be finished in a given time is valuable to the child, not only as training him in habits of order, but in diligence; he learns that one time is not 'as good as another'; that there is no right time left for what is not done in its own time; and this knowledge alone does a great deal to secure the child's attention to his work. Again, the lessons are short, seldom more than twenty minutes in length for children under eight; and this, for two or three reasons. The sense that there is not much time for his sums or his reading, keeps the child's wits on the alert and helps to fix his attention; he has time to learn just so much of any one subject as it is good for him to take in at once: and if the lessons be judiciously alternated— sums first, say, while the brain is quite fresh; then writing, or reading—some more or less mechanical exercise, by way of a rest; and so on, the programme varying a little from day to day, but the same principle throughout—a ' thinking' lesson first, and a 'painstaking' lesson to follow,—the child gets through his morning lessons without any sign of weariness.

Even with regular lessons and short lessons, a further stimulus may be occasionally necessary to secure the attention of the child. His desire of approbation may ask the stimulus, not only of a word of praise, but of something in the shape of a reward to secure his utmost efforts. Now, rewards should be dealt out to the child upon principle: they should be the natural consequences of his good conduct.

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There are many good "Charlotte Mason" blogs out there, but today I stumbled across Living Charlotte Mason in California. In her article on The Habit of Attention, she gives some practical tips in regards to helping children develop the all-important habit of attention:

Some things we can do to help the child develop the habit of attention are:

*Make him aware of his ability to will himself to pay attention. Let him know that like a muscle, the more he exercises his will to pay attention, the stronger it gets and the more he will be able to pay attention.
 

*Use living books in their curriculum, not dead lifeless books.
 

*Set the expectation that the reading will happen only once and they are to give it full attention.
 

*Keep lessons short (10-15 min. to start) and focused, you can gradually increase the time as their attention improves.
 

*Give a very brief intro to the reading for context and write any difficult names up on the board so they are aware of them before the reading and not taken off track by them during the reading.
 

*Let them know they will be asked to tell back (narrate) what they heard.
 

NOTE: I particularly like this next suggestion:

*Let them know the reason why they narrate - so they can remember. Not so you can check what they remember. By telling back, they cement things in their own minds and that's why we are asking them to narrate. That takes you out of the picture and helps them realize they are educating themselves, not spewing back information for the sake of the teacher.
 

*Don't interrupt or correct them during narrations - make brief corrections only after they are finished - and then focus on the ideas, not the facts.
 

*Don't re-read! (unless they genuinely missed something or wanted clarification out of interest; which is very different from not paying attention)
 

*Stop right at a cliff hanger so they look forward to the next reading. (think Pinnochio)  

Read the Rest of The Habit of Attention