Special education tips to decrease latency: the amount of time it takes between hearing a direction and following through with it.
The Problem
“Caleb! Caleb! What are you supposed to be doing right now?”
“Reading.”
“That’s right.”
Five seconds later…
“Caleb! it doesn’t look like you’re reading. “
Two of my students were so distractible and it was really hard to get them to focus and continue their work. Additionally, I had them scheduled together in a “small group” but they were on different levels, so I really could not work with them both at the same time.
I needed them to be able to do something independently while I worked with the other one. What I needed was to decrease latency: the amount of time it takes between hearing a direction and following through with it. I came with something very simple but it has been effective for the last several weeks.
The Reasoning
First of all, just to be clear, why do I need to decrease latency?
- It maximizes instructional time in the resource room.
- We’ve all seen it happen: one student gets distracted and before you know it, so is everyone else. The Domino effect.
Additionally, remember that we have to know the function of a behavior before we can address it. I knew that these two students were not trying to avoid work. They were just easily distractible. So I just needed to provide an environmental support for them.
The Action Plan to Decrease Latency
So here’s what I did. I set my HIIT Interval Timer app to ding every one minute. I told the students that whenever the timer dinged I was going to check if they were on task. Then I would set up one student with an independent task and begin teaching and working with the other student.
Then, here’s what it sounded like wherever the timer dinged.
Me: “Caleb is on task. He’s reading his book. Sam, are you on task?”
Sam: *quickly looks away from the window and back at his paper and starts acting busy*
I also had printed out a table with 12 columns on a landscape page. At the beginning of our session I would put each of the students’ names in a box on the left hand side. It looked like this:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Total | |
| Caleb | |||||||||||
| Sam |
Every minute, after commenting on whether the student was on task, I would put a checkmark, star or smiley face if they were on task and a dash if they were not on task. At the end, I add up how many of the 10 time slots they were on task and if it was 7 or more, they would get free choice time for 3-5 minutes.
Other tips:
- Set the timer to ding every 2 or 3 minutes if you know they can work for 20 or 30 minutes before getting a break. Even a minute and a half would give you 15 minutes of work.
- These were fourth graders so they know what it means to be on task. Younger students might need more specific and brief directions like “eyes on your book” or “pencil writing,” etc.
- After the students get used to the idea, change the standard to 8 or more boxes with a star/smiley/check.
A brief & slightly humorous story
I will say that the first time that I used a new timer, one of my students asked every single time, “What’s that sound?” And every single time, I told him, “It’s a timer to remind me to check if you’re on task.”
After being asked again 5 more times, I showed him the timer and said more explicitly, “Whenever it dings I’m going to check if you’re on task.” Then he was satisfied. Then I thought, “That’s all I had to do? Show you the timer?” I don’t think he even cared what it was for. 🙄
Conclusion
For your easily distractible students, or any student that you need to be working independently, this can be a great tool to decrease latency and help your students stay on task and be more independent.
Let me know if you want me to do a tutorial on how to set up a HIIT app to use in your classroom!