A new intervention program to identify strengths and weaknesses of individual students is producing solid academic improvements at Village School. The system has been put into effect in schools throughout the district.
The Response to Intervention (RtI) process began in earnest last year. RtI uses testing, data analysis, and creative solutions to improve the skills of students who need help and to provide educational enrichment for those who don’t.
“We have kids that were in intervention last year that are not in intervention this year, so we’re making gains,” said Village Principal Wendy Moore. “We had probably 10- to 12-point gains in our reading.”
Village had a reading strategist to work with students and now also has a part-time instructional coach to work with teachers on presenting lessons in different ways to individual students.
Teachers use several types of testing to identify needs and to monitor progress or point out where other approaches may be necessary to improve skills.
The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) assessment and the Measures of Academic Performance (MAP) assessment results set benchmarks for each student.
DIBELS is administered to all Emporia schoolchildren from kindergarten through grade four; MAP encompasses kindergarten through grade 12.
The data that results helps educators “identify kids who may need additional support or qualify for enrichment,” Moore said.
The DIBELS tests used at Village break students into several groups. The first division determines which students meet the benchmark for their grade levels and those who are below the benchmark.
“We’re using our data and we’re sorting out,” Moore said.
Meeting the benchmark, however, does not mean the students have no further needs to hone skills.
Students in that category also must be able to pronounce the sounds of words correctly and read with 95 percent accuracy.
“Then we know that we’ve got some digging to do,” Moore said. “We start analyzing errors, looking for clues as to why they’re making the errors.”
Some youngsters who have achieved the reading-accuracy benchmark, however, may not be reading up to speed or understanding what they have read.
“Some kids that are at benchmark, they read accurately but they’re slow,” Moore said. “They’re meticulous. ... They get so meticulous that they lose the meaning because they are reading so slowly they can’t hold onto the meaning. ... Sometimes we find a hole here or there. It is still an issue with the phonics skills sometimes.”
Those youngsters below 95 percent accuracy are encouraged to read with expression, joining thoughts and conveying the meaning and subsequently improving their reading rates and comprehension.
Teachers have means available to identify deficiencies and begin to correct them.
Kindergarten and first-graders can take the Phonological Awareness Skills Test (PAST); second, third and fourth-graders take the Quick Phonics Screener (QPS).
“Both have subtests, based on different continuum of skills kids need to have in place,” she said. “You have to have the first skill in place before you can go to the next skill. These assessments really help us to pinpoint what they need.”
Sometimes students need to polish up on phonics or other related need. Once those skills are mastered, the student moves on to the next challenge.
“Just because they don’t have these needs in the phonics area doesn’t mean they’re sitting around waiting for the teacher to come back and teach,” she said. “Those kids get comprehension next.”
On the below-benchmark side of the DIBELS chart, the youngsters also are tested for their reading accuracy, and similar testing and targeted teaching are used to bring about improvements.
Times are set aside regularly for students to gather individually or in small groups to work with teachers on shared problem areas. As they make progress, they advance to other teaching groups.
“These groups are fluid groups,” she said. “Sometimes we have to look at a different strategy.”
Teachers have become especially good at working with each other to improve students’ skills. If one teacher has a particularly successful lesson for teaching a certain skill, for example, he or she will volunteer to take all of the students experiencing difficulty with that aspect of learning, Moore said. It no longer matters whether the teacher is working outside his or her own classroom of students.
The teachers were trained by a consulting group that came to Village to show them how to obtain the data, how to analyze it and how to respond with effective teaching techniques. Village teachers used real data as they learned the techniques.
“They brought their own kids’ data, so it was meaningful to them,” Moore said of the workshops. “When they came back, they knew what their kids needed.”
The consultants returned twice more that year and spent two full days working with teachers, watching them teach, and making suggestions.
“That was valuable to them — little changes they could make, their approach to helping (students) perform better, changes in materials,” Moore said, enumerating ways the consultants assisted local educators.
Teachers have been collaborating regularly, breaking down data on their students, analyzing it, then determining solutions for the problems.
They use the early dismissal time each Wednesday to get together in groups to study individual student needs and decide how to remedy them. Without that collaboration time, Moore said, the RtI could not be accomplished.
“It’s a cyclical process,” she said, describing the routine:
• analyze the data
• work together to ensure lessons are aligned to curriculum and state standards
• provide targeted, explicit instruction to the students
• continue to monitor progress
• refine intervention instruction
The teachers have created an assessment questionnaire to make sure their solutions are producing results:
• What do we want our students to know, to understand, and to be able to do?
• How will we know if our students have learned the information? Develop communication, assess, test.
• How will we respond when they have already learned it, when students show mastery and meet criteria?
• What are we going to do to enrich them and make sure they continue to move forward in their skills?
Classroom aides also are involved in the process.
“The aides, they’re all in this mix of providing interventions,” Moore said.
Classroom teachers work with students who have critical needs, and the aides work with students on enrichment activities, like literary circles, guided reaching groups, and research projects.
A similar program has been instituted for mathematics, Moore said, though it has been difficult to find the quality of resources that have been available for the reading RtI.
For now, though, Moore is pleased with the results Village has been able to achieve.
“Our job is to provide good, solid instruction so our kids can move ahead,” she said. “We’re on the right track with this.”
kseyetie (anonymous) says...
Great program; we need more of this diagnosis and actually teaching to students' strengths.
October 7, 2008 at 11:30 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
missesu (anonymous) says...
Curious as to why the entire article covers only Village when Riverside, Timmerman, Logan, Walnut, & WAW are all doing RTI.
October 8, 2008 at 1:05 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )