When tasked with working with your student one-on-one sometimes it can be difficult to get him or her to practice specific/"dull" skills that will help them excel. It often doesn't help when the skill needs to practice multiple times, over multiple days. I've put together some idea's that will hopefully help. I would encourage to provide lots of praise and positive feedback to your child as you work with them. I would also like to encourage you to use reinforcement (reward comes after the work), instead of bribery (reward given before the work) whenever possible. Also, interventions can be difficult to provide enough of a challenge were they'll learn (and won't rely on you to provide them the answer), but not too much where they can get frustrated and give up. There are a variety of prompts that can used and faded. As always please don't hesitate to reach out to me with any specific concerns and/or questions you may have when working with your student.
Disclaimer: A quick google search on such topics as prompting, prompt hierarchy, & prompt fading will give you many ideas on this concept. After searching for such topics you'll probably come across Special Education, Autism, therapy, etc... I've even included some of those sources below. If I encourage you to use prompts with your student, I in NO WAY want to imply that your student needs Special Ed, therapy and/or has Autism. In my experience I have found that the correct use of prompts can greatly help ALL students learn new skills.
What Is Prompting?
"What is prompting? When teaching children new skills, therapists and teachers provide instruction and prompts to complete the skill. Many times different prompts are used together to help a child learn a new skill or complete a targeted response." (yourtherapysource.com)
Prompting Hierarchy & Fading
" There are a wide variety of prompts and some are more invasive than others. We ultimately want to work towards increasing independence in our students. To do that we need to closely analyze what our prompts look like to make sure we strive to use less and less invasive prompts. " (asktransitionservices.com) Typically in the general education setting will be be using following prompts: I-do/We-do/You-do, Imitation prompts, Verbal prompts, and Action/Hand prompts. One simply example of fading prompts could be when a teacher wanted her student to sharpen a pencil. "The first day, Ms. Thompson gave Sadie a dull pencil. When Sadie did not do anything, Ms. Thompson said, "go sharpen your pencil." When Sadie did not respond, Ms. Thompson pushed the pencil sharpener closer to her. When Sadie did not respond, Ms. Thompson put the pencil in her hand closer to the sharpener. Sadie pushed the pencil in and sharpened the pencil. Ms. Thompson gave Sadie lots of praise and a piece of candy. The next day, Ms. Thompson did everything the same way but this time, Sadie sharpened the pencil when Ms. Thompson pushed the sharpener closer to her. The following day with everything the same, Sadie now responded correctly when Ms. Thompson gave her a verbal prompt. Soon, Sadie sharpens her pencil right when gets a dull pencil." (theautismhelper.com)
Sources
https://www.yourtherapysource.com/blog1/2019/07/25/what-is-prompting/
https://asktransitionservices.com/2019/04/22/prompting-hierarchy/
https://theautismhelper.com/procedures-prompt-fading/
https://www.mrsdscorner.com/prompt-hierarchy/
As explained in the Intro section, there is a deference between bribery and reinforcement. Sometimes reinforcement may require a one-to-one correlation (every correct response = reward). Just as with prompting I would encourage you to fade that reward over time if possible (ex. one-to-one reward with verbal praise, one-to-five reward with verbal praise, varied reward (similar to a slot machine) with verbal praise, just verbal praise).
It's important to note that YOU (parent/guardian/caregiver) know your child the best. Reinforcements are different for every individual. I would be happy to assist with selecting reinforcements and fading prompts but would highly encourage your involvement as well. Even though I don't want to discourage play, please keep the goal/skill in mind when using reinforcement for educational purposes (sometimes it's very easy to get distracted). I would also encourage you to "play" with your student and not against them. For example, instead of having two board pieces, maybe you could only have one piece to see how quickly you can get to the end together!
Below are some ways you can reinforce your students positive behavior or correct answer. Some these items do cost money and we may extra's that we may be able to lend to you. Please don't feel that you have to purchase or use all the items listed. I just wanted to provide you with idea's. Also the items listed are NOT sponsored or endorsed by myself or the District. Please reach out if there is anything I can do help.
Treats/Candy
Simple board/dice games. (snakes and ladders, candy land, matching, dollar tree games, etc...)
Simple mystery-type games (hiding things in Easter-eggs, hiding under cards, color switchers markers)
Stickers / Sticker charts
Part-Part-Whole (working on get whole - Play-doh, puzzles, etc...)
Magnetic Wand and Chips
Whiteboard, Doodleboard, LCD/Boogie writing board
iPad Apps (Robot Lab, MoreCookies!, Hair Salon, Toca Band)
"Concrete-Representational-Abstract (CRA) is an approach to teaching mathematics. Almost all topics in mathematics can be taught using CRA...With CRA, students work with hands-on materials that represent mathematics problems (concrete), pictorial representations of mathematics problems (representational), and mathematics problems with numbers and symbols (abstract). The teacher explicitly bridges the connection between the concrete, representational, and abstract representations of the mathematics problems." (ebi.missouri.edu)
Below I have included two links that talk more about the Concrete-Representational-Abstract Strategy. Even though they both differ on whether or not you can teach each of the 3 simultaneously, I would still highly encourage you to check them out and think of how you could apply it to help your student who may be struggling. If your student is struggling with for an addition equation think how you could represent it with a drawing or maybe even individual objects. As always please reach out to me with any specific concept or questions you may have.
https://makingeducationfun.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/concrete-representational-abstract-cra/
Sometimes when I ask parents if their student knows the alphabet, I get the response that "yes, they know their alphabet and can sing the abc song." Even though knowing and learning the abc song can helpful, I am usually referring and asking them if their students have some pre-reading skills. The ability to quickly name the letters (and sounds) out of order (like that appear in any text) is one assessments the District and State use in Kindergarten and 1st Grade. Below is one way you can practice the letter names and sounds with you student. It is NOT sponsored or endorsed by myself or the District but builds upon LeapFrog Letter Factory.
Letter song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ID9ucqKtsE
Videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuOE48X3-MM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq0svfvGg_g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8SnUaBaRBg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWLxjDpXyQ0
Cards
http://projectsbyjess.blogspot.com/2010/09/leap-frog-letter-factory-flash-cards.html
Letter Sound Movements
(based upon Tara West/Little Minds At Work – KinderPhonics)
While practicing the letter sounds (and names) say each sound while doing the following…
A = Place hand up like you’re scared
B= Pretend to be music conductor by leading (pretend) music
C= Cross arms around chest and shiver
D= Pretend to play drum by patting lap
E= Place hand up to ear like it’s hard to hear
F= Put arms out and pretend to fly
G=Place arms up and pretend to pump weights
H= Swipes hand across forehead like you’re hot
I= Place arm on top of head and lift up like there is icky stuff on head
J= Jump or pretend to jump by placing arm up quickly
K= Safe/small kick
L= Pretend to hold sucker in hand and pretend to lick it
M= Rubs tummy like something is yummy
N= One finger up like someone is saying “no.”
O= Pointing to mouth wide open like we are at the dentist
P=Make fist and let fingers out quickly like it’s a popcorn kernel popping
Q= Make a duck beak with fingers and place up to face
R= Pretend to hold steering wheel like you’re racing
S= Use hand/fingers to slither like a snake
T= Tap foot on the on the floor
U= Two fingers moving upwards
V= Place two fingers in V shape and vibrate in front of face
W= Two hands up like a DJ Singer
X= Make a X with hands (and feet if possible)
Y= Place both hands up and shake like you have pom-pom and are cheerleader
Z= Place both hands next to check like you’re pretending to sleeping
Online we are currently using the following programs: Edgenuity, i-Ready, & Lexia. These programs also have many activities and ideas that can be used as intervention. Because of licensing restrictions, I'm not able to post the resources here. However if you would like to reach out to me I would be glad to provide you with some of their resources through a different method.