Executive Function: Skill-Building and Support Strategies, Grades 6-12

This tri-fold laminated reference guide by Sandra Rief provides practical strategies to support and enhance the developing executive function skills of all students in grades 6-12. It also describes the key scaffolds and accommodations that help students with ADHD and others with executive function impairments succeed in school and beyond.

Readers will learn about the various performance difficulties and academic challenges executive function weaknesses can cause in the areas of:

• Memory and forgetfulness
• Controlled attention
• Time awareness/time management 
• Organization
• Planning, prioritizing, and followthrough
• Self-control and inhibition
• Handing negative emotions
• Cognitive flexibility
• Shifting actions
• Work production
• Homework, independent classwork
• Note-taking, test-taking, study skills
• Detail orientation and accuracy
• Processing speed
• Social skills
• Reading comprehension
• Written expression
• Mathematical problem solving

The guide lists numerous specific strategies—including low and high-tech tools— to help strengthen the following executive function skills:

• Working memory
• Inhibition
• Organization 
• Time Management
• Planning
• Prioritization
• Sustaining focus and attention
• Activation and initiation
• Self-monitoring and metacognition
• Shifting and flexibility
• Goal-directed persistence
• Emotional control