• Post a general class schedule that indicates what students should be expected to do as they enter your classroom, when homework is collected, etc.
• Before your students enter class, write on the board what will happen during that specific class period and how long each activity will take.
• Develop and maintain an active schedule with evenly intermixed direction instruction, individual seatwork, and cooperative learning activities.
• To prevent student frustration, intersperse more challenging, acquisition-oriented learning activities with review / maintenance-enhancing activities.
• Provide time for the student to catch up on missed work or to review concepts that they are struggling with.
• If the student enters your classroom just after lunch or physical education, it may be necessary to first engage them in a lively class discussion to appropriately “channel” excess distractibility or hyperactivity.
• Use self-monitoring checklists that the student can use to check off activities as completed.
• Break assignments into “chunks” to avoid overwhelming the student.
• Seat student in close proximity to teacher, towards front of the room.
• Provide additional review.
• Teach self-monitoring for attention.
• Use separate setting and/or extended time for exams and tests if needed.
• Explicitly teach test-taking strategies.
• Explicitly teach organizational skills (use of planners, notebooks, folders, checklists).
• Ask previous teachers about techniques that were effective with the student in the past.
• Anticipate classroom situations where the student's emotional state may be vulnerable.
• Be aware of how the student communicates.
• Keep instructions simple and very structured.
• Provide opportunities for group participation.
• Keep classroom organized.
• Serve as a model for the students.
• Provide structure in classroom with regard to physical features of the room, scheduling, routines, and rules of conduct.
• Clearly distinguish time, place, and expectations during unstructured activities.
• Let students know your expectations.
• Provide students with clearly stated learning objectives.
• Use visual supports to supplement verbally delivered instructions and information.
• Seek input from student about his / her strengths and weaknesses.
• Modify classroom activities to meet the learning needs of the student, while maintaining the same learning objectives.
• Be sensitive when pairing students together.
• Keep activity instructions simple but structured.
• Acknowledge contributions of student.
• Be aware of student's socialization skills when asking for participation.
• Make a plan with student to replace inappropriate responses with appropriate responses.
• Work gradually toward group activities.
• Target and teach behaviors such as taking turns, working with partners, and following directions.
• Demonstrate and reward appropriate reading.
• Review and discuss with the student all of the steps involved in activity.
• Give clear examples of what the student should expect with an activity or project.
• Prepare alternative activities that the student can work on independently.
• Collect a portfolio of work samples from the student.
• Teach student how to attribute successes to effective strategy use and effort.
• Monitor student progress through informal assessment.
• Self-monitoring techniques can be used in the school setting. Self-monitoring of attention involves signals to the student to determine how much attention is being paid to a task. This can be done using a signal such as a random beep, timer, or cue provided by the teacher. The student then records on or off task behavior on a recording sheet. Self-monitoring techniques can be tied to rewards and accuracy checks.
