Keeping Students On Task
A nice addition to my bag of tricks has been a small kitchen timer for use in getting students to pay attention to the task at hand and not waste time. I set a specific time limit on many tasks and I've noticed a great improvement in finished work. I also recently borrowed an idea from one of my colleagues. I use a class set of highlighter pens when reading something such as a Weekly Reader. I let my students highlight specific words and phrases. It really keeps them on task. This also assists some students in reading and learning vocabulary.
