I. The concept of attention
Attention is the direction and concentration of psychological activities or conscious activities on an object. Directivity means that due to the limitation of sensory organ capacity, psychological activities can't point to all objects at the same time, so we can only choose some objects and give up others. Concentration means that psychological activities can be concentrated on the selected object, which is manifested in the tension and intensity of psychological activities.
Attention can make the selected object at the center of psychological or conscious activities and keep it, so that it can be effectively processed. This shows that attention is not passive, but has positive significance, which is a necessary condition for people to carry out psychological activities. For primary school students, attention is the ability to concentrate on something or a test question without interference from external stimuli.
Second, the characteristics of attention
(A) students' intentional attention began to develop, while unintentional attention still plays an important role.
Unintentional attention is the attention that can be maintained without predetermined purpose and effort, also called unintentional attention. While you were listening to the class, the door of the classroom was suddenly opened and the door slammed. You can't help but take a look. It's unintentional attention. This is because their internal inhibition of nervous system activities has not yet developed. Primary school students in lower grades, unintentional attention still plays a great role. Their excitation inhibition is relatively rapid, and the inhibition of the second signal system is weak. They are easily attracted by strong, contrasting, sudden, changing movements and novel stimuli, thus easily distracting. For example, the attention of junior students in primary and secondary schools often depends on teaching intuition, such as novel, bright and changeable images, interesting plots or teachers' vivid language. They often pay attention to the learning process of reading, writing and calculating and the teachers themselves, rather than knowledge. With the growth of age, the brain gradually matures, and teachers put forward various requirements for students, especially the increase of learning tasks. Learning activities cannot be completed by unintentional attention alone, so primary school students are forced to develop from unintentional attention to intentional attention. Middle and senior pupils can organize and control their attention to some extent. As far as the whole primary school stage is concerned, unintentional attention still plays an important role.
(2) Students' attention to abstract materials is gradually developing, while concrete and intuitive things still play an important role in attracting students' attention.
Primary school students, especially those in the lower grades, have limited knowledge and speech level, abstract thinking is developing, and concrete thinking still occupies the main position. Therefore, some intuitive and concrete things are easier to attract students' attention, so teachers use some teaching molds to attract students' attention in class. However, some abstract concepts or truths are not easy to attract children's attention. In other words, primary school students are not good at focusing on the essence of things, but tend to focus on some minor and non-essential things, and unimportant details often distract students' attention. With the development of students' learning activities and knowledge level, and with the development of abstract logical thinking ability, students' attention to materials with a certain degree of abstraction has gradually developed.
(3) Students' attention range is small and underdeveloped.
The attention range is influenced by many factors, such as the characteristics of stimulation and the difficulty of tasks. Because primary school students' brains are not fully developed, their knowledge is limited and their attention range is small. Generally speaking, students aged 7~ 10 can concentrate continuously for 20 minutes, students aged 10~ 12 can concentrate continuously for 25 minutes, and students over 12 can concentrate continuously for about 30 minutes. Primary school students in lower grades have poor attention transfer and poor ability to immediately transfer from one activity to another. Often an activity has been going on for a long time, and the attention still stays on the previous activity. The ability of distribution and transfer is weak, and there is often a phenomenon of paying attention to one thing and losing the other. For example, a primary school student who has just learned to write, let him take notes while listening, and he will forget to take notes when listening; If he wants to write, he will forget to listen. Only when writing is handy can you take notes while listening. With the increase of age, the attention distribution and transfer of primary school students will gradually develop.
Inattention and instability.
Primary school students, especially junior students, have poor control over what they are interested in. Vivid, concrete and novel foods are more likely to attract their interest and attention, but they are right.
Some abstract formulas, definitions and monotonous objects are easy to distract attention. With the growth of age, in the middle and senior grades of primary school, the attention to abstract things will be more stable and concentrated. The stability and concentration of primary school students' attention are related to age, interest, health, mood and understanding of schoolwork.
(5) In the whole primary school stage, students' attention is often emotional.
Pupils are easily excited by some new stimuli because the internal inhibition ability of the brain and nervous system has not been fully developed, and facial expressions, hands, feet and even the whole body will cooperate with activities, so pay attention to showing obvious emotional color. Experienced teachers know that if the story told by the teacher is very vivid, the emotional reaction in the child's attention is particularly obvious. Experienced teachers also have this experience: the external performance of primary school children's attention is particularly easy to show, and teachers can grasp the students' reactions and dynamics in teaching in time to judge whether students listen carefully and really understand the teaching content.
Third, the reasons for inattention
Family education
Many children's inattention is mainly related to the learning environment created by their families. Families care too much about their children. Parents do everything for their children, and over time, the children gradually become a lazy person. Moreover, lazy people have no willpower and it is difficult to cultivate lasting attention. As an authoritative person said: "Some children procrastinate because they don't develop good study habits, and more because their parents pay too much attention to their homework and even write ghost letters." Most experts in children's education disapprove of parents accompanying their children to study, because parents can't help urging their children not to do this but to do that. These intermittent language stimuli are more likely to distract children. At the same time, it will make children have a strong dependence on their parents. Parents should not always disturb and distract their children in the name of care: peel an apple and send it there, and then send a cup of boiled water or drink; Pay attention to keeping a distance to protect your eyes, and remind you to wear more clothes to guard against colds; Criticize the child for one minute what he did wrong, and then praise the child for doing well now, which not only distracts the child's attention, but also makes the child upset. Where can he concentrate on his studies?
Another situation is that parents' expectations are too high. With the increase of grade and the deepening of learning content, mistakes in the learning process have also increased. When children see mistakes in their homework, they start to blame, punish and criticize, which is why children are resistant to learning and unwilling to concentrate when studying.
(B) students themselves
Due to the age characteristics of primary school students, they don't know enough about the purpose and significance of learning, and they don't have the initiative and responsibility to learn, which affects students' efforts to overcome some environmental factors and concentrate on their studies. Learning is really not an easy task for most students, except that they don't feel the importance of learning, and there are also problems of students' will quality, such as fear of hardship and seeking comfort. Because of this, some students listen to what they are interested in, feel disgusted with what they are not interested in or what is difficult and boring, and start to wander, doze off, make small moves and so on.
Fourth, how to improve the attention of primary school students
(A) from the perspective of teachers.
1, stimulate interest and cultivate students' attention
Teachers must pay attention to the first three minutes of class. Students who have just entered primary school have a characteristic: lively and active, poor self-control, inattention and short duration. It is easy to have staged brain fatigue. If a single teaching and listening process is adopted, the classroom will be quiet, students' attention will be distracted and their interest will be reduced. Fatigue is a protective inhibition of cerebral cortex. In classroom teaching, we can start with vivid examples, use multimedia teaching equipment, fully attract students' attention to classroom teaching content through images and sounds, tell vividly and enlighteningly, introduce new lessons in interesting and ingenious ways, attract students' attention, and then stimulate their interest and cultivate their attention. All these require teachers to make full preparations for classroom teaching and adopt some novel teaching methods, such as competitions, games, stories, etc., to stimulate students' interest in learning, clarify the purpose of learning and keep students' attention. In games and competitions, students are highly focused, have high interest, accept knowledge quickly, and are in an active learning state.
2, from unintentional to intentional attention, cultivate students' attention.
Although it is difficult for primary school students to develop their intentional attention, teachers should strive to develop their intentional attention as much as possible, so that they can get rid of mental bondage and pressure, feel the charm of learning, stimulate their interest in learning and cultivate their attention.
In classroom teaching, teachers tell students the key points, difficulties and emphases of learning in advance, so that students can clearly understand the purpose of learning, deepen their understanding of learning tasks and stimulate their consciousness of learning activities. The characteristic of students' intentional attention in learning activities is that the clearer and deeper they understand the meaning of activities and tasks, the stronger their desire to complete learning tasks, and the more they can attract intentional attention.
In the classroom, teachers' control ability and management ability are the guarantee for the smooth progress of a class and the important conditions for promoting students' progress. Note that activities can be combined with actual operations. The more complicated the actual operation, the higher the requirement for intentional attention. Teachers and managers pay attention to science, and only by effectively attracting students' intentional attention can the quality of classroom teaching be guaranteed.
The setting of classroom teaching links should take into account the age characteristics of students. Proper setting of teaching links is conducive to promoting students' concentration, improving students' enthusiasm and cultivating students' interest in learning, thus improving classroom teaching efficiency.
3. Enhance self-control ability and cultivate students' lasting attention.
People with strong self-control ability are good at consciously adjusting their attitudes and actively diverting their attention in time; People with poor self-control are often influenced by their own interests and emotions and cannot take the initiative to divert their attention. The learning process is a hard mental labor process, and it is not always interesting. To maintain long-term attention, in addition to interest, you need to have some self-control and willpower. Let students gradually define their learning objectives, learn to manage themselves and enhance their self-control. When we encounter difficulties in learning, or encounter various factors that interfere with learning in the environment, we keep our attention on what we want to learn through self-control. The greater the difficulty, the more we need strong will.
In teaching, we should pay special attention to cultivating students' discipline and good study habits. Organized discipline and routine requirements can cultivate students' self-control ability. Students should be educated at ordinary times, no matter what they do, they should stick to it, finish what they started and never give up halfway. Persistence is the key to the problem.
(2) From the perspective of parents.
1, reducing children's dependence on their parents.
Parents can't always pick up their children, and over time they will become dependent. For example, when a child is doing homework, parents should not care too much and urge the child to help with cooking. In fact, at this time, children should understand that they have done their own things, thus cultivating their willpower.
2. Adjust parents' cognition
Let parents know about their children's age characteristics and learning characteristics, and help parents correctly face the problems in their children's growth. For example, let parents realize the influence of their emotions and attitudes on their children's emotions in the process of tutoring their children, and urge them to make up their minds to change their educational concepts and methods.