Children's Reaction to Classroom Decor

Our daughter's fourth-grade teacher scarcely has a free space on her walls. She has hung up all kinds of charts, pictures and examples of the children's work. The doors and even the blinds have stuff on them. Is so much on the walls visual overload? Does it affect students' ability to concentrate? -- Curious
Answer: Teachers are usually encouraged to have bright, colorful displays on their classroom walls. When a classroom takes on the appearance of a supermarket, some educators now believe that it can make it difficult for children to concentrate. They believe that when teachers are presenting a lesson, students need to pay close attention to the teacher rather than look at all the things on the walls.
On the other hand, more educators think this is a ridiculous view and that students need to be stimulated. There is no solid research on this subject. Why don't you ask your daughter if she finds that all the things on the wall bother her concentration? If so, you might ask the teacher to evaluate how other students regard the classroom walls.
One area in which some research has been done is on papers (worksheets, handouts and tests) that are crowded. Students will look at a math test with 10 problems and think that they can handle it. Seeing 50 problems on a page can completely overwhelm and discourage them -- making them believe the task is impossible to accomplish. This is a situation of visual overload. Teachers should be aware that too-small print size and little spacing between letters do slow down the students' reading rate. This is especially true for those with dyslexia.