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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Reading, numbers and learning differences
Do the settling first, even when it costs ten minutes of the hour. Sleep, food, movement and a calm start look like the soft part of the day and they decide how much of the hard part sticks. The same is true for the adults, who are often asked to take on several new programmes a year while the basics go unattended, and who deserve to hear that said out loud.
Do not rush to recite before the revelation is fully complete but say, Lord, increase me in knowledge (Quran 20:114). Even revelation is given at a pace, and what is offered in place of hurry is a request for more understanding.
طه
فَتَعَٰلَى ٱللَّهُ ٱلۡمَلِكُ ٱلۡحَقُّۗ وَلَا تَعۡجَلۡ بِٱلۡقُرۡءَانِ مِن قَبۡلِ أَن يُقۡضَىٰٓ إِلَيۡكَ وَحۡيُهُۥۖ وَقُل رَّبِّ زِدۡنِي عِلۡمࣰ ا
exalted be God, the one who is truly in control. [Prophet], do not rush to recite before the revelation is fully complete but say, ‘Lord, increase me in knowledge!’
Qur’an 20:114read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A systematic review of experiments that restricted adolescents' sleep found attention and other cognitive functions got worse, a clean demonstration that the state a student arrives in changes what their brain can do that day. These experiments were about sleep specifically, so they do not speak to every kind of dysregulation. They do show that readiness is not a soft idea but a measurable one.
de Bruin EJ, van Run C, Staaks J, Meijer AM. (2017). Effects of sleep manipulation on cognitive functioning of adolescents: A systematic review.. Sleep medicine reviews doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Learning only sticks in a brain that is awake and settled enough to take it in.
If a child is short of sleep most nights, that is worth solving with the family and a doctor rather than treating as a motivation problem.
If a child is behind in reading, the gap rarely closes on its own with another year of the same. Asking for a proper assessment now is kinder than hoping that maturity will do the work.
Before drilling number facts, check whether the child has any feel for how much a number is. Which pile is bigger, is eight nearer to ten or to two, give me three of those.
A child who cannot bear the noise, the lights and the scratchy jumper all day will be hard to be around by the afternoon. That child usually gets described as badly behaved rather than as overwhelmed.