Teach Interventions in the Classroom Like a Boss

Interventions in the classroom can be challenging to fit into your schedule and maintain effectiveness. However, you can have successful interventions in your classroom like a boss with these tips and tricks!

Classroom reading interventions are possible if you take a few easy steps.

In this post, I’ll introduce some common struggles that classroom teachers face while implementing interventions in the classroom, and then show you some tips to ease those struggles and make your life a little easier. For another tool that will make your life easier, check out my Key to Stress-Free Reading Intervention (hint: there’s an EPIC freebie!).

Teach classroom interventions like a boss with these tips to make life easier for you.

Classroom Teacher Struggles

These classroom teacher struggles are very common, but don’t let them get you down!

There are a lot of obstacles that make it difficult to reach every one of our students. But don’t let them stop you or overwhelm you! There is a way to overcome each one of them. Some struggles with implementing interventions in the classroom include:

• Knowing where to start
  • Not knowing where students are struggling or knowing exactly what areas to focus on with them.
• Time
  • Finding the time in your busy schedule, especially when intervention time is not automatically built into your school schedule.
• Engagement and motivation
  • Keeping students interested and engaged when they have a short attention span or struggle with discipline problems. 
• Having the materials and resources available
  • Not having an effective system or program for interventions in the classroom.
• Keeping pace and differentiating
  • Catching up struggling students while still doing on-level work with the rest of the class.

Interventions in the Classroom

Interventions in the classroom can be possible AND successful with these tips!

Even though interventions in the classroom are sometimes hard to juggle, there are definitely things you can do to make them easier and more efficient. You CAN make a difference and be a boss at interventions!

1. Follow a guide.
   • You never want to waste precious intervention time. That’s why it’s crucial to know that the work you are doing is actually what the student needs. You can download this FREE Reading Intervention Cheat Sheet to use as an easy guide to help you identify where your students need help and how to give it to them.
2. Always be aware of time you could be pulling a student back
   • Try to be aware of any slow time or downtime that is usually not accomplishing anything, Rethink how you can use that time to squeeze in an intervention session.
   • HOWEVER, don’t beat yourself up and put pressure on yourself if sometimes you just need a moment to breathe. Sometimes it’s best for everyone to just have a few chill moments.
3. Have a designated station.
   • Having a spot to pull students back to helps the efficiency of interventions in the classroom. Transitions are easier because students already know where to go and what to do.
   • A designated spot for interventions is also helpful because you have a place to keep all of your materials and supplies (like your reading intervention toolkit). You’re not wasting any time looking for things, and you already have some reading activities prepped and ready to go.
4. Have a routine.
   • Routines help save time and keep students focused. Develop a routine for calling students back so students know exactly where to go and what to do when they hear their names. Consider having an intervention routine like I talk about in this blog post.
5. Be strategic.
   • When planning for interventions in the classroom, be strategic in the skills you focus on and the activities you do. Make sure that you are hitting the most important skills where students have the biggest needs (download my FREE Reading Intervention Cheat Sheet for help there).
   • Also, make sure your activities are actually practicing those skills. Get the most bang for your buck when you only have limited time. Avoid “fluff” activities and make sure students are getting targeted practice for the skills in your objective.
6. Keep a quick pace.
   • Make sure your pullbacks are quick, brisk, and targeted. Students can get burned out from sessions that are too long, and that is when you start to see a lot of management problems.
   • You can also reach more of your students if you keep your sessions quick.
7. Have a plan.
   • Don’t let your interventions flutter and float all over the place with no real direction. Make specific goals with your students and have an action plan of how you will work to meet those goals.
   • You can use my Comprehensive Reading Assessment to make a plan for areas and skills to work on.
8. Differentiate whenever possible
   • An easy way to make sure all students get the instruction they need at the level they need is to differentiate. You can teach all of your students at once, and then give them practice at the level that’s best for them. This helps everyone get the instruction and practice they need, while still keeping the whole class on their learning track.
   • You can see examples of differentiated activities here.

Don’t forget to grab your free Reading Interventions Cheat Sheet here to help you know where to go with your struggling readers!

Intervention in reading doesn’t have to be overwhelming with this free cheat sheet.

Interventions in the classroom can be effective and successful. Just follow these tips and you can make a difference and teach like a boss!

For ideas on specific activities to use in your classroom interventions, check out my Ultimate List of Reading Intervention Activities!