By Martha Gabler MA, TAGteach Faculty

TAGteach is so Versatile

Not only does TAGteach help with behavior, you can also use it to help kids overcome learning obstacles.

Here are two examples of how people used TAGteach to help kids who were unhappy about completing their spelling and writing assignments. These were quick, spur-of-the-moment interventions, but they created great outcomes.

TAGteach and Spelling

Rosie Gaw, a parent from the UK, has a lovely daughter who needed to practice her spelling. Rose explains, “Sophie really didn’t want to practice her spelling [word]s and we were on the verge of a major tantrum but I tagged each letter of each word and we got through it calmly.”

Example:  Spell “crisis.”  The tag point is: “Say letter.”

Great job Rosie and Sophie! The non emotional ‘mark’ of each correct letter told Sophie she was right! She experienced continuous success and she evolved from anger to calm.

TAGteach and Writing

A friend was working with a young girl with a developmental disability, who balked at writing four long sentences on a worksheet. The tutor calmly pulled out a tagger and tagged the student for every letter of every word she wrote in the workbook.

The tag point was: “Write letter.” For each letter written the tutor tagged the girl. After every ten tags she earned a ticket to trade in for treats or trinkets. The girl’s writing pace actually picked up and settled into a smooth, cheerful rhythm. Outcome: workbook exercises completed calmly and on time.

Conclusion

These two simple interventions show how TAGteach can quickly change a stressful situation into a calm situation. In each of these cases, the student was unhappy, upset or apprehensive about doing the work. With continuous support, success and a nice reinforcer at the end, both girls completed their assignments accurately and happily.