Should I RTI?

My life has been crazy this month. I bought a new town home and moving in the school year has been challenging.  All my stuff is hiding in the garage and I have no clue where anything is. It's tons of fun. Though since the beginning of the month, my Special Education team has been working on referrals from Tier 2 interventions. We have been working with a group of fabulous Reading Recovery teachers who provide many of the Tier 2 interventions. Its been a learning process for everyone.

Why should I do it:


  • RTI is an academic based intervention addressing primarily academics rather than behavior
  • Many kids act out and exhibit emotional and coping problems in school due to being behind academically and not understanding the work and concepts
  • RTI addresses these academic deficits that lead to acting out
  • Reduces behavior problems and increases coping skills
  • Improves grades and achievement
  • Boosts student confidence, work completion, and willingness to work
  • Improves student’s self concept
  • Increases student’s independent working and responsibility
  • When should I do it:
  • When student’s act out due to being unable to do the work
  • When it appears a student is avoiding work
  • When a student seems to act out or behave as the class clown in correlation to having to begin and work on academic tasks
  • When a student displays work refusal, withdraws from group and pairs work, and seems to make excuses for not doing academic tasks and it is known the student has low scores or low ability in the academic area or an area related to the ability to do the task

How do I do it:


In a nutshell, RTI is a 3 tiered system where each tier of intervention targets more specific academic deficits and more individual students, such that tier 1 interventions target a whole class, tier 2 small groups or pairs, and tier 3 individual students

The basic idea is:

  • Determine the academic deficit areas
  • Test these areas to get a baseline
  • Implement an academic intervention targeting the specific academic deficit area
  • Test the student again after delivering the intervention
  • If there is progress, continue this intervention
  • If there is not progress, try the intervention again or a different one and then test
  • If you try the same intervention again and it does not work, try a different one and then test
  • Continue this process until you find an intervention the student responds to;.
  • How can I design effective Tier 2 interventions?

Tier 2 evidence-based interventions use systematic, explicit methods to change student performance and/or behavior. In systematic methods, skills and concepts begin with the most simple, moving to the most complex. Student objectives are clear, concise, and driven by ongoing assessment results.
Additionally, students are provided with appropriate practice opportunities which directly reflect systematic instruction. Explicit methods typically include teacher modeling, student guided practice, and student independent practice, sometimes referred to as “I do, We do, You do.”

Tier 2 Intervention Design Example:

I do
1.Teacher models and explains

We do
2.Students practice (with teacher’s guidance) what the teacher modeled
3.Teacher provides prompts/feedback
4.Students apply skill as teacher scaffolds instruction

You do
5.Students practice independently (either in-class or as homework)
6.Teacher provides feedback

As you design interventions that are systematic and explicit, make sure you spend plenty of time on the “We do” stage. That is your best opportunity to catch mistakes and clarify misconceptions.
How can I differentiate targeted interventions to meet the needs of each of my Tier 2 students?
To design effective differentiated interventions, you must understand your students’ learning modalities and multiple intelligences. As you no doubt remember from your college classes, the modalities are how we take information into the brain.

Are your students visual, auditory, or tactile/kinesthetic? Many Tier 2 learners are primarily visual and tactile/kinesthetic. They need concrete examples such as pictures and graphic organizers, as well as hands-on experiences.

Students who are poor readers typically exhibit strengths in the visual/spatial intelligence. They “think in pictures” rather than in words. Because these students are often able to put details into their pictures that others may not discern, encourage them to sketch what they are reading or hearing. Next, guide them as they first explain and then write about their pictures.

Have a great week!

What are the Six Syllable Types?

I do running records at least every other day and get to at least two students. I use the running records as a formative assessment. I'm wanting to know if my work attack lessons are sticking with my readers. One of the most powerful thing I teach my readers is the 6 syllable types and which ones I target depend on the needs of my readers. 

Why teach syllables?

Without a strategy for chunking longer words into manageable parts, students may look at a longer word and simply resort to guessing what it is — or altogether skipping it. Familiarity with syllable-spelling conventions helps readers know whether a vowel is long, short, a diphthong, r-controlled, or whether endings have been added. Familiarity with syllable patterns helps students to read longer words accurately and fluently and to solve spelling problems — although knowledge of syllables alone is not sufficient for being a good speller
.
Spoken syllables are organized around a vowel sound. Each word above has two syllables. The jaw drops open when a vowel in a syllable is spoken. 

Closed syllables

The closed syllable is the most common spelling unit in English; it accounts for just under 50 percent of the syllables in running text. When the vowel of a syllable is short, the syllable will be closed off by one or more consonants. Therefore, if a closed syllable is connected to another syllable that begins with a consonant, two consonant letters will come between the syllables (com-mon, but-ter).
Two or more consonant letters often follow short vowels in closed syllables (dodge, stretch, back, stuff, doll, mess, jazz). This is a spelling convention; the extra letters do not represent extra sounds. Each of these example words has only one consonant phoneme at the end of the word. 

Vowel-Consonant-e (VCe) syllables

Also known as "magic e" syllable patterns, VCe syllables contain long vowels spelled with a single letter, followed by a single consonant, and a silent e. Examples of VCe syllables are found in wake, whale, while, yoke, yore, rude, and hare. Every long vowel can be spelled with a VCe pattern, although spelling "long e" with VCe is unusual.

Open syllables

If a syllable is open, it will end with a long vowel sound spelled with one vowel letter; there will be no consonant to close it and protect the vowel (to-tal, ri-val, bi-ble, mo-tor). Therefore, when syllables are combined, there will be no doubled consonant between an open syllable and one that follows.

Vowel team syllables

A vowel team may be two, three, or four letters; thus, the term vowel digraph is not used. A vowel team can represent a long, short, or diphthong vowel sound. Vowel teams occur most often in old Anglo-Saxon words whose pronunciations have changed over hundreds of years. They must be learned gradually through word sorting and systematic practice. Examples of vowel teams are found in thief, boil, hay, suit, boat, and straw.

Sometimes, consonant letters are used in vowel teams. The letter y is found in ey, ay, oy, and uy, and the letter w is found in ew, aw, and ow. It is not accurate to say that "w can be a vowel," because the letter is working as part of a vowel team to represent a single vowel sound. Other vowel teams that use consonant letters are -augh, -ough, -igh, and the silent -al spelling for /aw/, as in walk.

Vowel-r syllables

We have chosen the term "vowel-r" over "r-controlled" because the sequence of letters in this type of syllable is a vowel followed by r (er, ir, ur, ar, or). Vowel-r syllables are numerous, variable, and difficult for students to master; they require continuous review. The /r/ phoneme is elusive for students whose phonological awareness is underdeveloped. Examples of vowel-r syllables are found in perform, ardor, mirror, further, worth, and wart.

Consonant-le (C-le) syllables

Also known as the stable final syllable, C-le combinations are found only at the ends of words. If a C-le syllable is combined with an open syllable — as in cable, bugle, or title — there is no doubled consonant. If one is combined with a closed syllable — as in dabble, topple, or little — a double consonant results.


Have a gerat week!

October Pinterest Linky Party

The last couple of months have been crazy. One thing that teachers have been hitting me up for is Sound and Letter Identification ideas. A couple of activities that my small group students love are below.



 
This is great for large groups. I love to open with this song before working on sound and letter cards.   I have used this song two different way using the first letter in names and using an order that matches my reading problem. Either way they learn the letter names.  



This one is designed for fall but in my world seasons don't really mater if the task matches the needs of my students. This be expanded beyond letters in a name to match a reading program or even targeted to specific letter name needs.




I love this pin because she thinks outside the box and has ideas that are not used every day in a classroom. This is great for a teacher that has tried everything and needs new ideas.

Have a great weekend!







About Me

Welcome to my all thing special education blog. I empower busy elementary special education teachers to use best practice strategies to achieve a data and evidence driven classroom community by sharing easy to use, engaging, unique approaches to small group reading and math. Thanks for Hopping By.
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