How to Teach Reading Intervention With Fidelity When Kids Can’t Sit Still

Help! My students can’t sit still. How can I offer effective reading intervention for fidgety students?

School is back in session, and many of us are meeting new groups of students. Every year, we’ll have a range of behaviors and attention spans in our classes. When you have a group that requires you to expand your tool box, it can be hard to find suggestions that work specifically in the context of a reading intervention lesson, or ideas that don’t require you to spend your own money on materials and prizes. And while games are a good option once in a while, we can’t regularly replace our lessons with games and still expect effective progress to be made.

This post is your guide to reading intervention for fidgety students. It’ll help you get the most out of their instruction, while taking minimal planning time and little to no money from your wallet. You’ll still teach your lesson, but you’ll vary the materials, the setting, or the roles each person plays.

You won’t be using all of these ideas and you likely won’t be using more than one within the same class period, but keep these ideas in your back pocket for when you need them.

How to Keep it Free or Cheap

Don’t have a suggested item? Join local Facebook groups with names like “Buy Nothing” or “[Your town] Giving.” These are groups where people are giving away free items, and they’re often from parents who are cleaning out as their kids get older, which is good news for teachers. You may also be able to post a request. A teacher requesting an unused wobbly stool has a pretty good chance of being gifted a wobbly stool! Before you spend your money, it’s worth taking a look.

You can also get creative with items you already own. As my own children get older, I like to find ways to repurpose toys they’ve outgrown. Over the years, I’ve used various stuffed animals, fidgets, stress balls, and magnets from home to keep my wiggly students focused.

If your budget is small and you have no way to source new materials, then start with one of the free ideas. That being said, there are some Amazon Affiliate links in this post. That means that if you make a purchase through one of my links, I may earn a small commission at no cost to you. Your support helps me continue sharing posts like this!

Establishing Expectations with Riskier Strategies

When I say risky, I mean that you might end up with kids rolling on the floor or playing catch with the fidgets. It’s not the worst that could happen, but we want to prevent interruptions like this from occurring. We can accomplish that by making the expectations clear from the start, allowing the students to help come up with the expectations, and having firm, reasonable consequences when the expectations are not met. This initial process might take up some of your intervention time, but the hope is that once your students are focused (thanks to your new strategies), you get back that learning time, and then some.

1. Introduce the strategy.
2. Explain that the strategy is a privilege that must be earned, and can be taken away.
3. Ask your students to brainstorm some rules to follow while using the strategy.
4. Try out the strategy.
5. At the end of the session, prompt students to reflect on how it went.

Strategy #1 for Fidgety Students: Fidgets!

A fidget could be any small item that a student holds in their hands while they work. Some common options are marble mesh toys, spinner rings or spiky rings, stress balls, and magnets. When my own children outgrew their Teeny TYs (stackable Beanie Babies), they became fidgets in my classroom. Sometimes, a regular classroom supply like a rubber band, two Unifix cubes, or an eraser does the trick!

I have a complicated relationship with fidgets. Even when I establish expectations, there are some students or some groups that fidgets just don’t work for. On the other hand, there are some students who really lock in their focus when they have the right object in their hands. For some folks, we really need to be doing something with our hands in order to listen. When I attend professional development, I’m a doodler. When I’m teaching, I often appreciate a marble mesh fidget and will take one for myself when I hand them out to my students.

My suggestions for using fidgets during reading intervention:

• Offer quiet fidgets (think marble mesh or silicone squishies, not pop tubes!).
• Establish the expectations before offering the fidgets.
• Be firm about removing the privilege of using a fidget if the expectations are not met.

Strategy #2 for Fidgety Students: Change Up Your Seating

Change Settings Throughout the Lesson

Most reading intervention lessons will follow a predictable routine. To add movement without changing the lesson plan, have different portions of your lesson occur in different parts of your classroom. If we’re thinking of a UFLI lesson, the drills and review work could be done while seated upright on the rug, the new concept work can be done at their seats, dictation can be done on their bellies on the rug with a clipboard, and so on.

Again, the introduction to the routine might take up some of your intervention time, but you’re planning to get back that learning time. If you choose your locations and stick with them, your students will learn the routine and move like clockwork after a few repetitions. Here are some expectations you can set:

• Head directly to the next space. No wandering on the way there or back.
• No time to chat while you move to the next space.
• When sitting on the floor, make students aware of how they are allowed to sit (e.g. sit upright facing the teacher, lay on your belly but keep your head up).

If students are asked to complete independent work, offer the opportunity to sit in various places around the room, maybe even under a table.

Under a table?!

You may be thinking, “Under a table? This woman is nuts!” However, I have taught lessons from underneath tables. When you have a kid who doesn’t feel safe in most environments, sitting under the table with him might be exactly what he needs. However, teaching from under a table really only works in the 1:1 setting. In a group setting, my students may earn the privilege to sit under a table while they complete independent work. Besides the obvious stipulation that they must be safe and they must be on task, I require that they must be in view.

Perhaps on the table!

Conversely, there may be students who love the opportunity to sit on their desks or a table. Years ago, I had a group of third graders who felt so utterly cool when they were allowed to sit on my tables. Besides the obvious stipulation that they must be safe and they must be on task, they were not allowed to put their shoes on the table. They’d sit there with their legs swinging, paying attention to every aspect of the lesson. They appreciated the privilege so much that they weren’t going to lose it by making a bad choice. And if sitting on a table wasn’t cool enough, sometimes they got to use clipboards, too. Something about sitting on the table and writing on a clipboard felt mature to them. I had their complete buy-in, so we all got what we wanted out of the deal.

Independent Work Done Around the Room

If your students are asked to silently read a passage or even a few sentences, this may be a good opportunity to let them spread out around the room. They can sit in various areas around the classroom while they read, and then return to a common area when they’re done. Many children appreciate the chance to practice reading in a quiet corner before they read aloud in front of peers.

Offer Alternative Seating

Some students prefer to stand while they work. It’s a simple accommodation to allow students to stand at their desk or table. Depending on their height, you may need to make a different surface available to them, like a classroom counter. You can also attach their work to a wall or the board. Purchasing a standing desk may also be an option.

If you have access to any of the following or you have funds available to purchase them, consider these alternative seating options:

• Exercise ball, with or without a base (the size of the ball will depend on the height of your students)
• Wobble stools
• Carpet squares
• Seat cushions
• Standing desk

Strategy #3 for Fidgety Students: Use Student Leaders

Offering leadership roles can prompt an instigator to become a role model. Maybe Max has a tendency to try to make his peers laugh when he’s unsure what to do with this school work. If Max has the opportunity to lead the Three Part Drill, you might be surprised to see his serious side come out! We can use leadership roles to channel our students’ energy into positive actions, rather than actions that have a negative impact on learning.

Roles for Student Leaders During Literacy Lessons

Let’s look at some portions of an intervention lesson and consider opportunities for student leaders. Remember that you won’t be using all of these in the same lesson.

• Letter Sound Drill: a leader holds up or points to each grapheme card
• Three Part Drill with Sand Trays: a leader is responsible for taking out the sand trays and returning them when the drill is over. My students took this job very seriously, aiming to outdo each other in terms of how little sand they spilled.
• High Frequency Word Review: a leader flashes the cards for the group, chooses an activity from a list of options, or they run an activity
• Word Card Review (e.g. the “fat stack” in a Wilson lesson): a leader flashes the cards for the group, chooses an activity from a list of options, or they run an activity
• Word Work (e.g. the word chains in a UFLI lesson): a leader completes the word chain on the board while the class completes their own at their seat
• Sentence Reading: a leader chooses who will read each sentence aloud. In a Wilson group lesson, the leader can direct students to scoop a sentence or mark specific concepts.
• Word or Sentence Dictation: a leader can assist you in dictating some words and sentences. Although it removes the dictation practice for the leader, it does offer them additional decoding practice when they read the word or sentence to their peers. A leader can also run the proofreading routine, whether it’s the Wilson-specific procedure or checking for “COPS” (Capitals, Overall Appearance, Punctuation, Spelling).

As a group, your students can help come up with a “work schedule.” Let’s say you have 5 students in your group, but you only meet with them four days per week. Let your students determine a fair way to assign jobs.

Strategy #4 for Fidgety Students: Provide Opportunities for Larger Physical Movements

The first three strategies offer smaller ways to get moving during a lesson, but reading intervention for fidgety students sometimes calls for bigger, gross motor actions. Some of our students truly cannot be confined to a desk-sized workspace. They need to move while they learn. The following ideas offer opportunities for larger movements, and some may even get your students’ hearts pumping!

I understand that offering gross motor activities to a group of students can go terribly wrong. Remember to establish the expectations before you begin, and take your students’ unique personalities into consideration when offering gross motor activities during your intervention lessons. That being said, I have used all of the following strategies successfully in the 1:1 setting, where I don’t have to worry about kids catching silly vibes from their peers and spiraling out of control.

How to Get Moving During Any Drill Involving Letter Cards or Word Cards

• Jump the Line: Spread the cards out on the floor in a long column or row. Students can walk or jump to each card, reading it when they land on or next to it.
• Hop to It: Spread the cards out across a larger area, in an array or just a scatter. Students can jump to each card as they read it, or you can call out a card for them to jump to.
• Play Catch: You or the student leader will hold up the drill cards. Toss a ball or stuffed animal to a student. When they catch it, they read the card that you or the leader are holding up. The ball is tossed to the next student, who reads the next card. Your students will need to split their attention between where the ball is going and the card deck, which may be too much for some students but might be just the right amount of engagement for others.
• Special Delivery (Pictured above): Mark two areas on the floor or a table. (Consider laying two hula hoops on the floor to mark the areas.) Label them with two different options, depending on your current concept. You may choose vowel/consonant, digraph/no digraph, one syllable/two syllables, or any other distinction that makes sense for the students participating. Direct students to line up a few feet away from the hula hoops. On their turn, each student will read their card and then quickly walk (no running!) to the hula hoops to place it in the correct grouping.
• Sky Writing: Students write letters and words in the air with large arm movements.

How to Get Moving During a Phonemic Awareness Drill or Dictation

Students can segment sounds within words by stomping, jumping, or clapping for each sound.

How to Get Moving During Sentence or Passage Reading

Allow a student to pace as they read silently and then return to you when they are done reading. I typically only use this in the 1:1 setting so we don’t have to worry about anyone crashing into each other. A couple of my Wilson students always pace the room while they read their passages during Part 9!

How to Get Moving During Dictation

This option may be a change of setting, or it can be more of an opportunity for gross motor. Attach your students’ paper to the wall or the board so they can stand while they write. You can consider getting a pad of big sticky notes for this purpose. Depending on your students’ energy level, standing while they write may be enough movement. Other students may jump in place while they work. In some scenarios, you may even be okay with students who pace the room but return to their paper on the wall to write.

A final option for getting movement in during dictation is to allow students to work on the floor, laying on their belly and holding themselves upright on their elbows. In this scenario, you’ll likely need a clipboard or a whiteboard under their dictation page, or they can write with a marker on a whiteboard instead of using a dictation page.

Strategy #5 for Fidgety Students: Switch Up Materials

Sometimes a novel texture can re-engage a wiggly student. I had stopped using my IMSE Orton Gillingham sand trays when I transitioned to using Wilson, but I discovered that occasionally pulling out the sand trays was a big motivator for my groups. Besides sand trays, there are numerous ways to incorporate textures into your drills. With all of the following, students will write letters or words on the object with their finger.

• Shaving Cream on a desk or table: But perhaps only if you’re lucky enough to have a sink in your room!
• Glitter Gel Bag: Squeeze dollar store hair gel and some glitter or food coloring into a gallon-sized zipper bag, seal it shut, and then use clear packing tape to cover the seal. It takes a little experimenting to figure out how much gel to use in order for your writing to be visible, but it’s easy enough to check before sealing the bag with packing tape.
• Sandpaper: Students write on the sandpaper with their finger.
• Fabric Squares: If you have some extra fabric around the house, cut it into squares about the size of a piece of paper. Velvet, corduroy, and fleece make for an engaging sensory experience.
• Rainbow Tablets: This is another toy that my own children outgrew, and it became a favorite in my classroom.
• Make Your Own Sand Trays: Fill plastic food storage containers or lunch trays with a thin layer of art sand or salt. When you’re shopping in person, make sure the food storage containers have a flat bottom.

Final Thoughts on Reading Intervention for Fidgety Students

At the end of the day, none of these strategies mean you’re throwing out your lesson plan or lowering your expectations. You’re still teaching every part of your intervention lesson with the same rigor and fidelity your students need. You’re just finding creative ways to help their bodies cooperate with their brains.

Remember that you won’t use all five strategies with every group, and you definitely don’t need to try them all in the same week. Pick one that feels manageable, set your expectations clearly before you dive in, and see how your students respond. Some groups will surprise you. I’ve had kids beg to go back to sitting on the floor with clipboards because it finally felt like something was working for them.

And if a strategy doesn’t land the first time, that’s okay too. Adjust the expectations, try it again, or shelve it for a different group down the road. The goal isn’t a perfectly quiet room. It’s a room where your fidgety kids are actually able to access the instruction they need.

You may also be interested in: Routine Without the Rut: How to Keep Structured Literacy Lessons Engaging

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This post is an independent product and is not affiliated with, nor has it been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Wilson Language Training Corporation. WILSON®, Wilson Reading System®, Fundations®, Just Words®, and Wilson Fluency® are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of the Wilson Language Training Corporation.