Simple Token Boards for Special Education

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There are two kinds of motivation: intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Many of our students are intrinsically motivated. This means that they feel rewarded by their accomplishments. This is where token boards for special education can come into play and help! When they do something well, they feel a sense of accomplishment and pride with what they have done. Other students are extrinsically motivated. This means they need external rewards, like prizes.

These students learn differently, and feeling rewarded by their accomplishments isn’t a motivating factor for them. Thus, we have a responsibility to help these students feel motivated. Yes, I totally understand that we want our students to be intrinsically motivated, but this simply isn’t the reality for some students…..enter token boards.

Understanding Token Boards

You might have heard the term “Token Economy” thrown around the education circle before. A token economy is when a teacher uses a class money system, or something similar to class money, to reward students for their behavior or work. For instance, a teacher might give out classroom money to students for various activities they did well, such as following instructions, going above and beyond expectations, or exhibiting role-model behavior. Students can then cash in their class money for prizes at the end of the week or whenever the teacher deems a good time.

A token board is similar to this, except it is individualized to a specific child. It’s a reward system where students receive tokens for their behavior, work, or whatever you are trying to motivate them to accomplish. The student can take these tokens and exchange them for something they desire.

Making Token Boards

A simple way to make a token board is by using a clipboard or a laminated piece of cardstock, some velcro dots and some tokens. I like to use pennies or bingo chips because I always seem to have those floating around, but you could use anything you want. Attach the tokens at the bottom of the clipboard using the velcro. Then put some additional velcro at the top of the clipboard. The velcro at the bottom is where you store the tokens and the velcro at the top is where the tokens get placed when they have been earned.

There are other ways to make token boards for special education as well. You could just use paper and draw smiley faces on it. You could even draw the ‘tokens’ on the students desk using a whiteboard marker – Fun fact, whiteboard markers easily wipe off of most school desks at the end of the day, so test this before you write all over the desks.

Not looking to make one yourself?! I have this freebie available in my Free Resource Library and it’s perfect! Click this image to head to the library and get access to this freebie and many other freebies!

How to Use a Token Board

So how could you use a token boards for special education? I’m glad you asked! There are lots of ways to use it, but here’s how I most commonly use it. If a child needs a little extra motivation, I’ll pull them aside and explain what the token board is. Then we can decide on a reward together – I like getting students involved in this process because this helps them to become more engaged in the whole system. I usually start out with less tokens and then move to more tokens. This helps students to get an idea of how the token board works and feel more immediate reward. As the child gets used to the token board, I add more tokens. This helps students to learn some more delayed gratification as well.

OK, so the nitty gritty. Let’s say a student has trouble starting their work independently without a teacher sitting right beside them. I would give a child a token any time I see them working independently. At first, I might only have three tokens at the bottom of the board. When I’ve moved all three tokens to the top of the board, then the child will get a prize from my prize box. Eventually, I’ll add more tokens so the child might need to earn 6 or 10 before getting a prize.

Or another example, a child refuses to clean up their work materials and their desk area is always messy. Give the student a token every time they clean up, even if they didn’t do a perfect job.

There are so many ways to use a token boards for special education. Can you think of a student in your class who might benefit from a token board?

Freebies and Products with Token Boards