3 Things

I have a handful of students with special needs in my classes this year.  It is challenging to meet their needs while also meeting the needs of others at the same time.  You can't let some children take up all of your attention, nor can you let some children take over the attention of the entire class. I recently discovered a new strategy for individual students that has been working for me.  

I decided to target one student at a time to see how well this would work.  I chose a student who has difficulty paying attention and staying at his/her desk. On a sticky note, I have been listing three things I am looking for the student to do. I already allow the student to sit in his/her seat or push the chair in and stand behind the chair.  So, on the sticky note I wrote (1) Stay at your seat. (2) Participate in the lesson. (3) Keep your hands to yourself.  If the student did these 3 things during my lesson, the reward was being able to erase the board for me at the end of the lesson.  Later, during another lesson in a different subject, the 3 requirements were the same, but the reward was being line leader on the way to the computer lab.  I learned this strategy from a specialist who visited my classroom and tried a similar strategy with a different student.  I was able to adapt this strategy to fit my own needs. 

Another adaptation of this strategy that I tried was to do this based on a strategy from Amie Dean called the "yes card."  I divided a sticky note into six sections.   I wrote YES in each one.  I looked for the student to do the 3 things I was looking for during 6 specific pre-determined times during the day (read aloud time, writing time, math, science, social studies, Kite-ll time).  After each part of the day, I put a smiley face over one YES on the card.  If the card was completed by the end of the day, the student earned a reward for the CLASS.  The class chose to have 4 minutes of talking/chatter time.  Now, why would I want to give the entire class time to talk?  Well, I figured that I gained at least 10-15 minutes of teching time by having the one student on task, so giving up 4 minutes for everyone to talk was not as big a deal as it might seem.  In fact, the next day, we did the YES card again, and the reward the class wanted was completely different...more time for math games!  So, I added 5 extra minutes to math game time, which actually allowed me to sit with a small group and guide them through a game (so I got to squeeze in small group time anyway!). That was a win-win for the class and for me. 

I hope you try some of these strategies for your challenging students.  If you know of any others, or have questions, please post!