Teacher Assistant Success Strategies

Discussed in this Episode:

✅   Signal System for Secondary Students: Dean’s TA would sit at the back of the room with a signal system where he’d scratch his head or tap, and she would come check on him, but would stop at other kids on the way, making support less obvious.

✅   Facilitating Peer Connections: When a child asked the TA how to do a math equation, she would say “Dean knows how to do it. Dean will show you”, creating positive social connections between students.

✅   Building Visual Context: Dean taught a student to tie shoelaces on green carpet in the classroom, but the student couldn’t do it at home on tiles – teach skills in multiple settings.

✅   Red Pen Signal: Put a red pen out on the table as a signal for when help is needed in secondary classrooms.

✅   Strategic Withdrawal Timing: Never take children out of classes they thrive in; withdraw them from lessons that cause distress instead.

✅   Empowering Student Choice: At age 14, Dean chose to have two hours weekly of withdrawal time with his TA for check-ins rather than in-class support.

✅   Team Knowledge Sharing: All teacher aides knew Dean, so if his regular TA wasn’t in, someone familiar could provide support.

✅   Contextualizing Skills: When teaching table manners at home versus grandma’s house: “This is how we did it at home and this is how we do it at Nona’s place”.

✅   Visual Teaching Methods: Use bubble writing where children write within lines rather than dot-to-dot methods for handwriting instruction.

✅   Creative Learning Approaches: A TA built Verona out of Lego with a student struggling with Shakespeare, enabling the student to then write four pages about Romeo and Juliet.

You Will Learn:   

✅ Top 10 Tips to Stay on Task

✅ 12 Key Strategies for Success

✅ 7 Considerations for Supporting Students

✅ Top Tips to Support Social Skills

✅ 10 Tips to Remember when Teaching Social Skills

✅ 10 Ways to Use Cooking to Teach

✅ Tips for Supporting Students Who Are Not Focusing or Following Directions

✅ Behaviour

✅ 11 Key Strategies for Understanding Behaviour

GREAT RESOURCES FOR TEACHER ASSISTANTS

Check out my other Podcast on Why Schedules can Help Establish Routines:

Episode 157: How to Create Independence for students on the Autism Spectrum using 3 Key Ingredients

Discussed in this Episode:

✅ Time is the Number one Accommodation and Adjustment every classroom needs to puts in place

✅ 4 Types of Schedules 

✅ Why you need a range of Schedules

✅ Why knowing how long is so important

✅ Range of Visuals to Use

✅ Timer + Visual + Schedule = Independence