Can I Have Your Attention, Please? Why Focus Matters in Dyslexia Lessons

Time is a precious commodity, especially in schools and intervention settings. For students receiving interventions, every moment is crucial, and as educators, we feel a great sense of urgency to utilize every second to provide instruction and close the learning gap. This urgency underscores the importance of our role.

We need to be intentional with our instruction, as students struggling to learn to read and write with proficiency don't have time to waste. However, often in response to this sense of urgency, we dive right into the content, determined to make the most of our time without first setting the stage for learning. Yet, for students with dyslexia, especially those who may also experience attention challenges, skipping over this crucial first step can quietly undermine everything that follows, a decision that carries significant weight.

That step? Gaining and sustaining attention.

If we want our students to master skills, build long-term memory, and truly progress, we must pause and ask: Have I secured their attention—not just at the beginning, but throughout the lesson? This responsibility is a key part of our role as educators. Without intentional focus, even the most carefully planned lesson can slip through the cracks, potentially hindering the progress of students with dyslexia. 

Engagement is the Engine

Structured Literacy thrives on active participation. Learning isn't passive. In fact, it should feel like a fast-paced game of playing catch, with ideas bouncing back and forth between teacher and student. Every exchange presents an opportunity for practice, corrective feedback, and growth. It's the active participation that keeps the learning process engaging and effective.

However, the key is that none of this works without attention. When engagement slips, the pace slows. Practice opportunities shrink. Mastery weakens. And reteaching becomes inevitable.

Using Attention As a Key to Success

Attention isn't a "nice-to-have." It's the gateway to learning for students with dyslexia. By actively calling for and sustaining attention throughout each lesson, we give students the best chance to strengthen their reading skills and build a lasting, efficient foundation of learning.

Creating an effective learning environment for students with dyslexia starts with setting the stage for active engagement. With the right tools and strategies, we can help students stay focused, on-task, and ready to learn quickly and intentionally.

Four Tips for Focusing Attention - What Does This Look Like in a Dyslexia Session?

Here are four simple yet powerful ways to enhance your instruction and bring attention to learning, all of which are interactive and engaging. These strategies are not just theoretical concepts, but practical tools that you, as an educator, can easily implement in your lessons.

#1 Secure Attention Before Teaching

Before introducing new content, ensure students are fully focused, and explicitly teach how you will gain their attention. Even in a small group or 1-1 setting, explicitly teaching cues to gain attention will help students with focus.

Determine what signal or cue you will use to gain student attention. Using signals like a call-and-response (Teacher: 1-2, Students: Eyes on you), a countdown, and a quick reference chart to note the lesson expectations is beneficial for all students and sets the stage for learning. Explicit instruction and practice with each of these routines and expectations will help to maintain high engagement by checking in and employing active participation strategies throughout the lesson.

Once I have explicitly taught lesson expectations, one of my favorite ways to have students review them is by quickly drawing images that represent the focus on the board through a chalk-and-talk approach, where I actively use concise language as I write on the board. In the picture below, on the board, you see some quick sketches at the top, which I write as the students recall the lesson expectations. Each lesson begins with a retrieval practice of these attention expectations, where I ask students to describe their role during the lesson. As they respond, I draw the corresponding pictures. (Eye = look, Ear = listen, Mouth = speak, and Lightbulb = think). 

I say something along the lines of: "In our lessons, we all have a job to do. Your job is to...(Start drawing the eye and pause for students to respond, look), Yes, look. (start drawing the ear and pause for students to respond, listen)"...continue through the expectations.

You can draw this on the board as you review, or download the lesson expectation poster from The Dyslexia Classroom Freebie Library.

#2 Quick Retrieval of Expectations for All Components of the Lesson

Securing attention isn't just a one-time cue; it requires ongoing effort and attention. Explicitly teaching and weaving the attention and active engagement expectations into every stage of a structured literacy lesson provides students with opportunities to reflect on their role in learning and sets the stage for success.

Dyslexia intervention and therapy lessons encompass a significant amount of learning within a single lesson. Each part of the lesson deserves a moment of explicit focus, where the teacher draws attention to the task's purpose and the expectations for the student's active engagement.

Reflect on the various components of your lesson and consider how they impact student attention. Are there opportunities or a need for directing attention to specific learning outcomes or active engagement? 

For example, in the photo, note the visual "chalk-and-talk" expectations for spelling dictation, bringing student attention to their role in the spelling task. Students are expected to:

1. Listen (visual image of Ear)
2. Echo the word (image of microphone/echo)
3. Segment each sound (dots)
4. Spell and write (pencil)

Setting the stage for the activity with simple images and a retrieval of expectations reminds students of their role in the learning task in an interactive way.

#3 Visual Schedules

A structured, predictable routine helps students feel more secure and ready to learn. The use of simple charts and visuals to teach and reinforce classroom routines, behavioral expectations, and learning objectives can help students stay on track and foster independence. Displaying a visual schedule shows the sequence of activities, making transitions smoother and reducing anxiety about what's coming next. You may wish to display a visual schedule of the lesson on a large chart, or you may find that tailoring it to the student on a small chart they can color in works best in gaining and keeping attention on the lesson tasks. 

#4 On-Task Games

Make learning interactive! The lesson itself should be highly engaging, and this includes bringing attention to the student's monitoring of these expectations. Engaging students with quick, structured games related to the lesson's expectations keeps them actively involved and reinforces key concepts in a fun and engaging way.

In this photo, to the top right side, you see the simple game of "Beat the Teacher." This is my go-to game for drawing attention and engagement from students. In the picture, you see the letter m (for me, the teacher) and a face without a smile (for the students). The purpose of this is to, as a group, earn points for meeting the on-task expectations of the lesson. Give a tally mark for on-task behaviors/expectations met to the students when they are actively engaged in the task. If not, the teacher gets the point. If the students win, they earn a smile on their group's face for their points. *Simple and effective!

Keeping attention at the forefront of the lessons keeps students actively engaged. By integrating these small yet impactful strategies, you have the power to create a structured and engaging learning environment that enables students to thrive. The impact of these strategies is significant, and you can be the catalyst for this positive change.

If this resonates with you, I invite you to explore these ideas further. Tune in to the Together in Literacy Podcast (see Season 4, Episode 14) for a discussion on attention and engagement in dyslexia instruction. And explore my newest book, Teaching Beyond the Diagnosis: Empowering Students with Dyslexia, where I share an integrated framework for understanding and supporting students with dyslexia in all its complexity.

A huge THANK YOU for your incredible support of Teaching Beyond the Diagnosis: Empowering Students with Dyslexia. If you haven't grabbed yours yet, it will also be available at Amazon, Target, Barnes & Noble, BAM, Bookshop, and other bookstores, as well as in e-book format.

References

Baddeley, A., Lewis, V., Eldridge, M., Thomson, N. (1984). Attention and retrieval from long-term memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113(4), 518–540.

Craik, F. I. M., Govoni, R., Naveh-Benjamin, M., Anderson, N. D. (1996). The Effects of Divided Attention on Encoding and Retrieval Processes in Human Memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 125(2), 159–180.

Harrison, C. Teaching Beyond the Diagnosis: Empowering Students with Dyslexia. Jossey-Bass, 2025.

McGrath, L.M., Stoodley, C.J. Are there shared neural correlates between dyslexia and ADHD? A meta-analysis of voxel-based morphometry studies. J Neurodevelop Disord 11, 31 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s11689-019-9287-8.

Muzzio, I. A., Kentros, C., Kandel, E. (2009). What is remembered? Role of attention on the encoding and retrieval of hippocampal representations. Journal of Physiology, 587(Pt 12), 2837–2854.