Paragraph Reminder Form - Behavior Plan
This behavior plan is used when the student is more resistant to working on behavioral, organizational, or social changes needed for his success. The plan is meant to be used when clear boundaries of behavior need to be established.
Procedures for setting up the plan
- The counselor and teacher meet to discuss concerns.
- In this case, a parent conference is also scheduled to inform the parent of the issues. Together an agreement is established as to what are the major behaviors that need to be addressed. In most cases this plan is implemented after other strategies have been tried, but not always.
- The student is informed by teacher, counselor and parent of the plan and has several practice sessions to insure he/she knows what the goal will look like, sound like etc.
- The plan goes into effect with weekly reflection sessions with either the parent, counselor or teacher.
The Paragraph/Reminder Behavior Plan
1. Teacher gives silent reminder to the student. This is usually in the form of a small two sided card. One side is green, the other red. When the student is demonstrating desired behavior the teacher will flash the green side of the card, discretely for the student to see. Often the teacher has this small card on the backside of her ID Badge. If the student is showing undesired behavior the red side is shown.
2. When the red side is flashed it is a silent reminder to the student to regroup and stop the undesired behavior (this has been identified in our meetings). The object of this step is that the student regroups and all is good.
3. If the teacher finds that the student chooses not to comply with the reminder or if the teacher finds that she is having to give too many "red" signals then the student moves into the next level of the behavior plan.
4. The next level of the plan varies based on the age of the student or degree of misbehavior. Some examples would be: Student has structured recess, removed to new location, fills out Think Sheet (school wide program), etc.
5. The next level is the writing of the paragraph as a formal reminder. This paragraph has been pre-written and shown to the student in our meeting. The paragraph is written in a similar format of the social stories but often with stronger language. Not that different from the write 100 times I must not ...sentences from the 1950's, this paragraph is meant to be unpleasant. The student must complete the paragraph when it is given, and in some cases the student is removed from the classroom and is sent to the office to write it. The paragraph is sent home and signed by the parent. In many cases the parents have designed a follow up consequence at home (such as losing screen time)
6. Once the paragraph is written things go back to normal.
In most cases once the student has written the paragraph things move into a more positive direction. The key is in creating a powerful paragraph that gets to the core of the issue. Many may view this behavior plan as extreme however, it is effective because of the relationship developed between student, counselor, parents and teacher. In most cases the student has already had the other behavior plans in the past.
View the presentation below for samples of the letters. I prepare several copies of this paragraph on lined paper with a spot for signatures at the end for the teachers so all they have to do is hand it over to the student.
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