I have a confession to make: I love school supplies. I can remember going to the store with a friend of mine when I was about 11 years old. It was the first day of summer vacation. When she found me in the school supply aisle, she couldn’t believe it. I just can’t help it – I love paper and pens and notebooks, especially notebooks.
This time of year, all the stores are having sales on school supplies. There are all kinds of folders, binders, and notebooks out there to choose from. There are even a few places online that claim to sell the perfect binder/notebook/whatever for students with Attention Deficit Disorder.
One of the absolute biggest complaints I hear from parents over and over again is all about missing assignments. Nothing seems to bring a child’s grade down faster.
And in an effort to help their children, parents often come up with elaborate, complicated systems to try and solve the problem. Let me tell you, they rarely work.
People with ADHD think differently than those who don’t have it; therefore, a system that makes sense to someone without ADHD isn’t likely to work for someone who does.
When you trying to figure out the best system for your child, the best place to start is with them. Ask about preferences – do they like binders, or do they prefer folders? What do they do with their papers when they get them? (I always stuffed mine in whatever book was closest at hand.)
I think, in the end, simple is best. My personal preference is a spiral notebook – one with 5 or 6 subjects. That way, you can use the same notebook for all of your classes – one thing to carry instead of six. And if it has folders where the dividers for each subject are, so much the better.
The other reason I like spiral notebooks is because, unless you rip a page out, they’re all going to stay right where they are, in order and all together.
A binder is a good solution, too, but I always found them too bulky. I was always all about carrying as little as possible. 
Binders do allow you to add papers in, such as from the teacher, or homework that’s been returned. And they have more expansion capabilities than a spiral notebook. The biggest drawback, in my opinion, is also the binder’s biggest plus: the rings pop open to allow you to add papers as needed, but at the same time, it opens up the possibility of losing a few.
Right now, school supplies are cheap. Stock up on some. Maybe try something you haven’t tried before. Talk to your kid and see what they say. Keep it simple and see if you can’t find a solution to your missing assignment problem.