Behavior Hints
Postpone conversations for the walk back to the classroom.
- “I’d love to hear about ______. How about if you tell me all about it when we walk back to class?”
Use seating arrangements to help reduce distractions.
Use student’s name.
Have students follow along with their bookmarks while listening to the student reading.
Focus kids by giving them a job.
- “Your job is to listen…”
- “Our goal is to read pages xx to xx fluently.”
Practice being focused.
- “Let me show you what it looks like to be focused.”
○ Model good posture and focus on reading materials. - “Your turn: Show me what it looks like to be focused.”
○ Student demonstrates good posture and focus on reading materials. - “Great! Now let’s be focused.”
Get wiggles out.
- “Let’s get our wiggles out so we can focus on reading.”
- “Wiggles get in the way of ‘weading’!”
○ Wiggle body on the walk over to the reading room.
○ Wiggle hands and feet at the table for a short period of time.
Supporting student’s Social and Emotional Learning will help them to stay focused on the tutoring session in addition to providing skills that will support them in challenging times.
- Information on Social and Emotional Learning, Mindfulness, and Growth Mindset can be found in additional resources.
Put thoughts away.
- “I really need you to focus. Let’s get all those distractions out of your head and put them on the table/in your pocket. We’ll put them back when we are done.”
- “Let’s get them out.”
○ Demonstrate getting ideas out of head with hands up by head. - “Now let’s put them here.”
○ Model putting the ideas from head to table/pocket. - “Great! Now we can focus!”
○ After reading, remember to scoop up the ideas and put them back!
Calm focus reminder.
- Calmly touch the student’s book to refocus him/her as you say:
○ “Let’s focus on ___________.”
Useful Hints: Encouraging Students