What have you found the most helpful strategies for helping kids gain more independence in academic work at school? This is especially for a 6 year old in kindergarten with an aide (verbal but not yet fully conversational). He loves task analyses. I am going to share the token system.
Answer:
Thank you for your question! A token system would be my #1 answer for sure. If he has never used a token board before I would start with 5 tokens and as he gets the hang of it work his way up to 10 tokens. Make sure in the beginning he is getting one token per correct response or appropriate behavior (ex. I love how nicely you're working all by yourself!). If he does something amazing or independently you can also give him two tokens to show it's extra special when he does things all by himself. To gain more independence you can also have him eventually giving himself tokens. In the beginning the aide should definitely give them, but as he gets more comfortable the aide can say, "Wow good job, give yourself a token!" And lots of positive attention and reinforcement for working independently throughout the day to show him how valuable it is! Good luck!
Thank you for your question! A token system would be my #1 answer for sure. If he has never used a token board before I would start with 5 tokens and as he gets the hang of it work his way up to 10 tokens. Make sure in the beginning he is getting one token per correct response or appropriate behavior (ex. I love how nicely you’re working all by yourself!). If he does something amazing or independently you can also give him two tokens to show it’s extra special when he does things all by himself. To gain more independence you can also have him eventually giving himself tokens. In the beginning the aide should definitely give them, but as he gets more comfortable the aide can say, “Wow good job, give yourself a token!” And lots of positive attention and reinforcement for working independently throughout the day to show him how valuable it is! Good luck!
Wonderful. Thank you.