Interventions for Off-Task Behavior
- Set time limits for completing assignments.
- Spend time getting to know the student's interests, hobbies, etc to establish a relationship of mutual respect.
- Reward the student for concentrating for a specific length of time (water break, stand up, talk with a peer)
- Provide seating that maximizes learning and limits distractions.
- Redirect to a different activity
- Provide the student with a pre-arranged signal (e.g. hand signal, verbal cue, etc) when he/she begins to display off-task behaviors.
- Ask the student to provide a written goal for his/her behavior and suggest an incentive for meeting this goal for a period of time (e.g. homework pass, headphones, etc.)
- Assign a job/responsibility to a student (hand out papers, write on the board, etc)
- Have the student chart his/her on-task vs off-task behavior and discuss results.
- Provide activities which increase the opportunities for "active participation."
- Partner with a high achiever to model behavior.
- Help the student develop attention-maintaining behaviors (e.g. maintain eye contact, take notes on the subject, ask questions related to the subject, repeat the directions back to you or another student, tell a friend three things he/she has learned, use colored highlighting tape or marks to have students focus on their work, etc.)
- Allow for movement breaks
- Encourage the student to develop a 30 second definition of his/her goal to stay on task and focused. E.g. “I will stay on task without a reminder from the teacher for at least half the period.”
- Create an area of the room where silence must be observed