The Framework

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires that special education evaluations be sufficiently comprehensive to make eligibility decisions and identify the student’s educational needs, whether or not commonly linked to the disability category in which the student has been classified (34 CFR 300.304). Comprehensive evaluations are conducted in a culturally and linguistically responsive manner; non-discriminatory for students of all cultural, racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and other backgrounds. When conducting special education evaluations, IEP teams must follow all procedural and substantive evaluation requirements specified in IDEA. 

The BIG Ideas

• Special education evaluations must be sufficiently comprehensive for IEP teams to determine special education eligibility or continuing eligibility and to identify the educational needs of the student, whether or not commonly linked to the student’s identified disability category(ies).
• A comprehensive evaluation is a process, not an event. IEP team participants work together to explore, problem-solve, and make decisions about eligibility for special education services. If found eligible, the IEP team uses information gathered during the evaluation to collectively develop the content of the student’s IEP.
• A comprehensive special education evaluation actively engages the family throughout the evaluation process.
• Comprehensive evaluations are first and foremost “needs focused” on identifying academic and functional skill areas affected by the student’s disability, rather than “label focused” on identifying a disability category label which may or may not, accurately infer student need.
• Developmentally and educationally relevant questions about instruction, curriculum, environment, as well as the student, guide the evaluation. Such questions are especially helpful during the review of existing data to determine what if any, additional information is needed. 
• Asking clarifying questions throughout the evaluation helps the team explore educational concerns as well as student strengths and needs such as barriers to and conditions that support student learning, and important skills the student needs to develop or improve.
• Culturally responsive problem-solving and data-based decision-making using current, valid, and reliable (i.e. accurate) assessment data and information is critical to conducting a comprehensive evaluation.
• Assessment tools and strategies used to collect additional information must be linguistically and culturally sensitive and must provide accurate and useful data about the student’s academic, developmental, and functional skills.
• Data and other information used during the evaluation process is collected through multiple means including review, interview, observation, and testing; as well as across domains of learning including instruction, curriculum, environment, and learner.
• Individuals who collect and interpret assessment data and other information during an evaluation must be appropriately skilled in test administration and other data collection methods. This includes understanding how systemic, racial, and other types of bias may influence data collection and interpretation, and how individual student characteristics may influence results.
• Assessment data and other information gathered over time and across environments help the team understand and make evaluation decisions about the nature and effects of a student’s disability on their education.
• Comprehensive evaluations must provide information relevant to making decisions about how to educate the student. A comprehensive evaluation provides the foundation for developing an IEP that promotes student access, engagement, and progress in age or grade-level general education curriculum, instruction, and other activities, and environments.

The Balcony View

Comprehensive evaluations must provide information relevant to making decisions about how to educate the student so they can access, engage, and make meaningful progress toward meeting age and grade level standards. Assessment and collection of additional information play a central role during the evaluation and subsequently in IEP development and reviewing student progress. 

A comprehensive evaluation takes into account Career Readiness, a growing awareness of the relationship between evaluation and IEP development, and the need for information about how special education evaluations and reevaluations can be made more useful for IEP development.

The 2017 US Supreme Court Endrew F. case also brought renewed attention to the importance of knowing whether a student's IEP is sufficient to enable a student with a disability to make progress “appropriate in light of their circumstances.” Finally, updated guidance, including results of statewide procedural compliance self-assessment, IDEA complaints addressing whether evaluations are sufficiently comprehensive, and continuing disproportionate disability identification, placement, and discipline in student groups who traditionally are not equitably served.

A comprehensive evaluation responds to stakeholders’ requests for more information and reinforces that every public school student graduates ready for further education, the workplace, and the community.

It seeks to ensure a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) for every student protected under IDEA. It guides IEP teams in planning and conducting special education evaluations that explicitly address state and federal requirements to conduct comprehensive evaluations that help IEP teams to determine eligibility, and thoroughly and clearly identify student needs. 

Planning and Conducting a Comprehensive Special Education Evaluation

An Individualized Education Program (IEP) is the key to addressing a student’s disability-related needs. It describes annual goals and the supports and services a student must receive so they can access, engage, and make progress in general education. 

A well-developed IEP is a vehicle to ensure that a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) is provided to students protected under IDEA. A comprehensive special education evaluation provides the foundation for effective IEP development. 

A comprehensive special education evaluation is conducted by a student’s IEP team appointed by the district. The IEP team must include the parent as a required participant and essential partner in decision-making. Special Education evaluation is a collaborative IEP team responsibility. During the evaluation process, the team collectively gathers relevant information and uses it to make accurate and individualized decisions about a student’s eligibility or continuing eligibility, effects of disability, areas of strength, and academic and functional needs.

Data and other information used to make evaluation decisions come from a variety of sources and environments, often extending beyond the IEP team. Guided by educationally relevant questions, both existing and new information is compiled or collected, analyzed, integrated, and summarized by the IEP team to provide a comprehensive picture of the student’s educational strengths and needs.

A comprehensive special education evaluation is grounded in a culturally responsive problem-solving model in which potential systemic, racial, and other bias is addressed, and hypotheses about the nature and extent of the student’s disability are generated and explored.

Conducting a comprehensive special education evaluation requires planning. Each team has its own methods for planning and conducting comprehensive special education evaluations with guidance from the state and district.

Why RIOT/ICEL Matrix?

Have you ever sat in a meeting reviewing phonics data and someone asks if the student has mastered reading digraphs because the student doesn't demonstrate this in their small group?

Whether in an RTI meeting or just reviewing the data, this information helps plan the student's specific next steps. 

If your phonics program is like mine--it didn't come with a quick way to progress monitor a student after you have taught a sound (phonogram). And sometimes you need more than dictation and how they read in the last decodable text.

You need more than a gut check BUT you need a number to prove what the student knows.

This Progress Monitoring Tools for Phonics solves this problem. It's quick and super easy to give after you have taught a sound. You can learn if students can read the phonogram at the word level (real & nonsense), sentence level, or in a paragraph with controlled text. 

I use this Phonics Tool as a pre/post with mixed sounds. This has a very specific set of sounds such as all short, all R-controlled or all digraphs. Then I can teach the sounds in the pattern, reassess and have the data to prove if they have it or not.

The teacher's copy of the tool is colored-coded to make it super easy to score and make decisions about what to do next. This progress monitoring tool can be completed by teachers, para-professionals, or volunteers. 

Each phonogram has its own page and you can find it again on a mixed pattern page. I have made the Phonics Progress Monitoring Tool paperless as well. It can be used with Google. The link is within the product.

What is MTSS?

A Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) is a framework of team-driven data-based problem solving for improving the outcomes of every student through family, school, and community partnering and a layered continuum of evidence-based practices applied at the classroom, school, district, region, and state level. MTSS is a coherent continuum of evidence-based, system-wide practices to support a rapid response to academic and behavioral needs, with frequent data-based monitoring for instructional decision-making to empower each student to achieve high standards.MTSS models rely on data to assess student needs and help teachers understand which kinds of intervention they need within each tier.

What is Response to Intervention?

Response to Intervention, or RTI, is an educational approach designed to help all learners to succeed, through a combination of high-quality instruction, early identification of struggling students, and responsive, targeted evidence-based interventions to address specific learning needs. RTI uses ongoing progress monitoring and data collection to facilitate data-based decision-making. In addition, the implementation of RTI will assist in the correct identification of learning or other disorders.

In my building, MTSS is the umbrella and RTI falls under it. All students are active participants in MTSS but not all students will be active participants in RTI. 

How does RTI work?

It operates on a 3-tiered framework of interventions at increasing levels of intensity. The process begins with high-quality core instruction in the general education classroom. Teachers use a variety of instructional methods to maximize student engagement and learning: modeling of skills, small group instruction, guided practice, independent practice, to name a few.

Through universal screening methods, struggling learners are identified and are given more intense instruction and interventions that are more targeted to individual needs. By giving frequent assessments and analyzing data, teachers make decisions about what levels of intervention will best support student achievement.

What are the Tiers?

Tier I: This is the guaranteed and viable curriculum that all students receive each day within their general education classrooms. It is High quality, research-based core instruction in the general education classroom. All students are given universal screening assessments to ensure that they are progressing and are learning essential skills. {Sidenote: A guaranteed and viable curriculum is one that guarantees equal opportunity for learning for all students. Similarly, it guarantees adequate time for teachers to teach content and for students to learn it. A guaranteed and viable curriculum is one that guarantees that the curriculum being taught is the curriculum being assessed. It is viable when adequate time is ensured to teach all determined essential content.}

Within Tier 1, all students receive high-quality, scientifically based instruction provided by qualified personnel to ensure that their difficulties are not due to inadequate instruction. All students are screened on a periodic basis to establish an academic and behavioral baseline and to identify struggling learners who need additional support. Students identified as being “at-risk” through universal screenings and/or results on state- or district-wide tests receive supplemental instruction during the school day in the regular classroom. The length of time for this step can vary, but it generally should not exceed 8 weeks. During that time, student progress is closely monitored using a validated screening system and documentation method.

Tier II: More intensive, targeted instruction, matched to student needs, is delivered to students who are not making adequate progress in Tier I; they often receive instruction in small groups. They receive progress monitoring weekly, and teachers regularly evaluate data to assess whether students are making progress or need different or more intense intervention.

Targeted Interventions are a part of Tier 2 for students not making adequate progress in the regular classroom in Tier 1 are provided with increasingly intensive instruction matched to their needs on the basis of levels of performance and rates of progress. Intensity varies across group size, frequency and duration of intervention, and level of training of the professionals providing instruction or intervention. These services and interventions are provided in small-group settings in addition to instruction in the general curriculum. In the early grades (kindergarten through 3rd grade), interventions are usually in the areas of reading and math. A longer period of time may be required for this tier, but it should generally not exceed a grading period. Tier II interventions serve approximately 15% of the student population. Students who continue to show too little progress at this level of intervention are then considered for more intensive interventions as part of Tier 3.

Tier III: The most intensive, individualized level of intervention. Students who have not responded to Tier II intervention receive daily, small group or one-on-one instruction. Students in this level often are already receiving special education services, or are referred for further evaluation for special education.

Here students receive individualized, intensive interventions that target the students’ skill deficits. Students who do not achieve the desired level of progress in response to these targeted interventions are then referred for a comprehensive evaluation and considered for eligibility for special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA 2004). The data collected during Tiers 1, 2, and 3 are included and used to make the eligibility decision. This is typically about 5% of your student population. 

So what does all of this mean???

What that means is this. A teacher or parent identifies a student’s needs, and they try some interventions. Sounds simple enough, right? 

So what’s the problem?

I have a family member who was struggling in reading. Mom talked to the teacher. The Teacher put the child in the RTI reading program. And she made progress and caught up with her peers. 

That is the main benefit of RTI. For the right kid, with the right intervention, that’s all they need. 

It can also look like a gifted student receiving enrichment in an area of strength like math. 

The downside to RTI, it can feel like the school or district is stalling to identify special education needs. Remember, students are general education students first. 

RTI is a general education progress. It's open to all students who fall below a benchmark. In Colorado, we look at iReady cut scores. Interventions need to be evidenced-based (which doesn’t always happen). This means teachers have to progress monitor students to ensure they are making progress within the selected intervention and if they are not bring them to the building RTI team. 

Every building works this process differently. In my building, we ask all teachers who have concerns about students to bring them to the RTI team. This ensures that teachers feel supported, the correct interventions are in place and should the student need to move forward with a special education evaluation the data the team needs is there. We also encourage parents to join the meetings. There is always a follow-up meeting scheduled 6 to 8 weeks out.

IDEA specifically addresses RTI and evaluations.

The 2004 reauthorization of IDEA makes mention of RTI as a method of part of the process of identifying SLD:

• In diagnosing learning disabilities, schools are no longer required to use the discrepancy model. The act states that “a local educational agency shall not be required to take into consideration whether a child has a severe discrepancy between achievement and intellectual ability[…]”
• Response to intervention is specifically mentioned in the regulations in conjunction with the identification of a specific learning disability. IDEA 2004 states, “a local educational agency may use a process that determines if the child responds to scientific, research-based intervention as a part of the evaluation procedures.”
• Early Intervening Services (EIS) are prominently mentioned in IDEA for the first time. These services are directed at interventions for students prior to referral in an attempt to avoid inappropriate classification, which proponents claim an RTI model does. IDEA now authorizes the use of up to 15% of IDEA allocated funds for EIS.

So this is the part where I expect to get pushback. But RTI has been overused and abused. Used to delay Special Education Evaluations and Services. Often.

So much so that the OSEP has put out multiple guidance letters about this.

If your child is in RTI and is doing well, great! I mean it! I am always happy to see a child’s needs being met. However, just have it on your radar that RTI is sometimes used to delay evaluations or IEPs. The old “Let’s try RTI and ‘wait and see.‘ ” Go with your gut. If you believe your child needs an IEP, request IEP evaluations.

Bonus tip: Your child can be going through the IEP evaluation process and receive RTI interventions at the same time!

Parents, how do you know if their children are making progress?

An essential element of RTI is ongoing communication between teachers and parents. As parents, you are kept involved and informed of the process every step of the way, beginning with notification that your child has been identified as struggling in one or more areas and will receive more intensive intervention. If your child receives more targeted instruction in Tier II or Tier III, he or she will be progress monitored frequently. Teachers will share progress monitoring data with you regularly through meetings, phone calls, or emails, as well as progress reports sent home showing assessment data. 

When in doubt, ask the teacher for the data. 

This is one way the process can look. The big piece for RTI to work is having the process monitoring data so decisions can be made timely. 

This year as my building redoes their RTI process, they put WHY at the forefront of the process.

Why?

How else are you going to figure out what the student’s needs really are!

The Root Cause is so much more than just the test scores or the informal assessment scores you get. Getting to the bottom or root cause of why a student struggles takes a team, an open mind, and time. It's hard finding the one or two things that if you provide interventions or strategies for the student takes off.

My team most works on IEP goals. With the way building schedules have come together, it is all the time we have to work on. We work as a team to find the root cause behind their struggles. This is the process we use to find a student's Root Cause. When we work through a Root Cause Analysis we follow the same steps--make sure you bring an open mind and your data.


Scenario
Problem Statement: The student struggles with decoding.

Formal Reading Assessment

• Alphabet: 63%ile
• Meaning: 2nd%ile
• Reading Quotient: 16th%ile

Based on formal testing the student doesn’t have any decoding concerns but his Reading Comprehension score is significantly below the 12th%ile.

WHY?

I need more information.

DIBLES Scores for a 2nd grader

• Nonsense Word Fluency: 32 sounds; Benchmark 54 sounds in a minute; Gap 1.68
• Phoneme Segmentation Fluency: 47 sounds; Benchmark 40 sounds in a minute; Gap .85
• Oral Reading Fluency: 11 words; Benchmark 52 words in a minute; Gap 4.7

DIBELS shows the student knows their sounds and letters but there is something up with the oral reading fluency. There is a significant gap greater than 2.0.

WHY?

Complete:

• Error Analysis of ORF passage
• Assess sight words
• Does Phonological Processing need to be assessed?

Oral Reading Fluency error analysis shows 68% accuracy with 16 words read.
Assessing sight words show they know 41 of the first 100.
The decision was made based on what looks like a decoding weakness Phonological Processing was assessed--scores were in the average range.

What do I know now?
The student has a decoding weakness. He would benefit from a phonics highly structured phonics program.

Why??

This time I only needed three WHYS to figure out what the true problem is for the student. Sometimes you need more. On average it tends to run closer to five.


This process was completed with my team not during RTI. The decision to target phonics could have been reached without the formal testing and just with DIBELS and Sight Words.

My team uses this approach to help each other when we get stuck and need to take a step back and need more voices to look at the data.

As a special education team, we target only IEP goals and scaffold the student's skills up to access the grade-level curriculum. So the more specific we can be the better--we don’t want to waste time messing around with large messy goals that don’t end up helping the student close achievement gaps.

Go back to RTI.

How could this process be used during an RTI meeting?

Questions and dialogue are key concepts here. Talk about what the numbers tell you. Start with strengths and needs. Just the facts! Don’t interpret anything.  Work through the data dialogue process as I outlined in the E-workbook: RTI Data Clarity freebie. I also included several worksheets to help teams work towards finding a student’s root cause.

Working to find the root cause of why a student is struggling is hard work. The dialogue with your team is a great way to bring in more voices. This in turns brings in more ideas that may help the student. Make sure you bring the Data Clarity e-workbook to help.

Do you similar to help your team find a student’s root cause? Feel free to brag about your success in the comments!

Are you wondering how you can use this idea with your team? Check out my free E-Workbook: RTI Data Clarity.

Chat soon,

I’m not a Speech/Language Teacher. BUT I have many students how NEED way more language support than just a one-shot deal. Finding ways to embed extra language support without it taking up tons of extra that I just don’t have in groups is hard. This week I have collected a few ideas that I have helped me build more vocabulary and language support in my small groups.

WHAT DOESN'T WORK?

The key weakness in all of these practices is the limited or rote interaction students have with the new word/concept. Here is a short list of these less effective approaches.

1) Look them up. Certainly, dictionaries have their place, especially during writing, but the act of looking up a word and copying a definition is not likely to result in vocabulary learning (especially if there are long lists of unrelated words to look up and for which to copy the definitions).
2) Use them in a sentence. Writing sentences with new vocabulary AFTER some understanding of the word is helpful; however to assign this task before the study of word meaning is of little value.
3) Use context. There is little research to suggest that context is a very reliable source of learning word meanings.
4) Memorize definitions. Rote learning of word meanings is likely to results, at best, in the ability to parrot back what is not clearly understood.

All of these less effective approaches is the lack of active student involvement in connecting the new concept/meaning to their existing knowledge base. Vocabulary learning must include active engagement in constructing understanding and not simply on passive learning of information from a text.

WHAT DOES WORK?

Reviewing the research literature on vocabulary instruction leads to the conclusion that there is no single best strategy to teach word meanings but that all effective strategies require students to go beyond the definitional and make connections between the new and the known. The research on effective vocabulary teaching as coming down to three critical notions:

Integration—connecting new vocabulary to prior knowledge
Repetition—encountering/using the word/concept many times
Meaningful use—multiple opportunities to use new words in reading, writing and soon discussion.

Increase the Amount of Independent Reading

The largest influence on students' vocabulary is the sheer volume of reading they do, especially wide reading that includes a rich variety of texts. The following strategies can help motivate reluctant readers:

• Matching text difficulty to student reading level and personal interests (e.g. using the Lexile system)
• Reading incentive programs that include taking quizzes on books read (e.g., Accelerated Reader, Reading Counts)
• Regular discussion, such as literature circles, book clubs, quick reviews, of what students are reading
• Setting weekly/individual goals for reading volume
• Adding more structure to Sustained Silent Reading by including a 5-minute quick-write at the end of the reading period, then randomly selecting three or four papers to read/grade to increase student accountability.
• Select the Most Important Words to Teach
• Students with weak reading skills are likely to view all new words as equally challenging and important, so it is imperative for the teacher to point out those words that are truly important to a student's academic vocabulary base. (THINK--picture walk) 
• Teaching vocabulary is teaching new labels or finer descriptions for familiar concepts. In contrast, teaching concepts involves introducing students to new ideas/notions/theories and so on that require significantly more instruction to build real understanding. 

Teachers can get more out of direct vocabulary work by selecting words carefully. More time-consuming and complex strategies are best saved for conceptually challenging words, while relatively expedient strategies can assist students in learning new labels or drawing finer-grained distinctions around known concepts. Making wise choices about which words to teach directly, how much time to take, and when enough is enough is essential to vocabulary building.

• Distinguish between words that simply label concepts students know and new words that represent new concepts.
• Ask yourself, "Is this concept/word generative? Will knowing it lead to important learning in other lessons/texts/units?"
• Be cautious to not "accessorize" vocabulary (e.g., spend too much time going over many clever adjectives that are very story specific and not likely to occur frequently). Rather, focus attention on critical academic vocabulary that is essential to understanding the big ideas in a text (e.g., prejudicial: As students learn the meanings of pre- and judge, they can connect to other concepts they know, such as "unfair.")
• Using State and Common Core Standards to see what is taught
• Use Tiered Vocabulary
• Tier 1 Academic Vocabulary: Basic words that commonly appear in the spoken language. Because they are heard frequently in numerous contexts and with nonverbal communication, Tier 1 words rarely require explicit instruction.Examples of Tier 1 words are clock, baby, happy and walk.

I set out to unravel and get to the heart of Response to Intervention (RTI) like I’ve done before with close reading.  I was surprised to read on the RTI Network’s website that, “there is no single, thoroughly researched and widely practiced ‘model’ of the RTI process.”  Of course, that would be too easy, ha!

I started looking at the triangle tier diagram wondering if I could improve on it only to discover that if you’ve seen one triangle diagram, you’ve seen one triangle diagram. There are a lot of differences from one to the other.  Some show that tier 3 is special education services, some show that special ed is the next step after the triangle.  Some indicate that tier 1 includes all students. The RTI Network says that tier 1 is low-level interventions in the classroom that not all students would need.  They state that when these tier 1 interventions are successful, students are “returned to the regular classroom program.” So that would mean that students who never need interventions are actually not a part of tier 1.

Here’s what I concluded: each school/district is going to choose what RTI means to them and how it is implemented in their jurisdiction.  One thing stays the same: teachers need a way to document interventions and create interventions regardless of how their schools define tiers. For example in my building special education is not on the pyramid and the only tier 3 support my building currently has is Reading Recovery for K-1. Classroom teachers have to create all interventions using what they have access to in their classrooms. This is the first year where I have been in a position to provide direct tier 2 support. (Even as a special education teacher, I do not have access to tier 3 interventions.)
My job this year is to help classroom teachers create successful, purposeful, data drive interventions that lead students either through the special education identification process or help them go
back to core instruction.

Big Picture
I help teachers take these data, guide them in creating an intervention, create a SMART goal, and determine how they will collect the data. I love this. It works no matter the size of the group. Here's a snapshot of how I do that.

For this example, if these guys are identified with learning disabilities and also receive tier 2 interventions from the classroom teacher in addition to the core reading instructions she provides.
As a result, the classroom teacher has a smart goal (Read plan & SLO). I have also created a smart goal for this group.

Goal #1: When given daily small group reading, Polar Bears will increase their guided reading level from 3/C to F/10 by March 1.

Goal #2: When given daily small group targeted reading, Polar Bears will decrease the number of errors on a DRA 4/C from 51% accuracy to 90% on running records by January 31 to demonstrate independence on a DRA 4.

The second goal was added once we saw they were not reading what was written in the book and felt they needed a separate goal to work on this particular skill with me in a group but this was layered with the 1st.

From their data, which we used their mid-year DRAs to set the baseline for the intervention. Then the SMART goal. So what did this intervention look like? We talked about not changing anything in their guided reading as we could see they weren't reading what was written, we theorized adding a reward for reading correctly was going to be our first stop. Hence, the short time frame for the goal.
The Plan: keep doing targeted guided reading in Level DRA 4s and add a reward for reading each word correctly. The other change--keep the same book for the week to really focus on decoding first and spend the last day on comprehension.

The Problem: Progress monitoring. The DRA was going to be the pre and post-intervention data. They needed to be Independent 4 in a month.  I decided to pre/post each guided reading book. To not take group time on Tuesday, I’d pull them Monday for a cold read to create the pretest data. The post running record would be Friday. 4 days to work the text.

The Reward: My school psychologist always suggests using something that is highly motivating for the student. (I used beads to keep track of words read correctly.) With both of the boys: 1 word---candy. Yes, candy. (I know!) To help not let them walk off with 100 pieces apiece; I set up an exchange. I would also change that exchange each day as they got better. For example: first read--15 correct words equals 1 piece.  Second read--20 pieces equals 1 piece. And so on. I also keep track of the beads they were earning. This would help me gauge what changes I needed to make to keep them moving. Remember the end goal.

If these two boys didn’t already have an IEP, this change could be added to their RTI data showing a change in intervention. For myself and the classroom teacher, the goal is larger--we want them to grow as readers and not move into 3rd grade as nonreaders.

They still have a couple of weeks to go before I know if this work. I'll update you on their progress. The thing is that even if it doesn't work--it's made them better decoders and we’ll have new information to use to go forward with, to change the intervention and make it even more tailored to them and more specific to help them become independent fours.

I hope this idea gives you an idea on how to change things up and help get very specific about what students need to move. Make sure to grab a copy of the workbook to help guide you in making small data-driven decisions to move students within the RTI framework.



Until Next Time,

It's finally Summer Vacation. As my mind starts to unfreeze, I have begun to think about "how" I move students this year. Let me backtrack. I'm an Elementary Special Education teacher. A K-3 Special Education teacher who works with Students with Learning Disabilities, ADHD, Autism and Cognitive delays who moves students. I move then more than a year. Yes, you heard me--more than a year. As strange as it is, to hear a special education teacher tell you that--I do.

Let me tell you when I first started, it was hard. I mean really hard to move them. To motivate them. To use the data that came from progress monitoring. We teachers are sitting on TONS of data. It's that data. It's that data I use to engage, motivate and most importantly MOVE students. This was not something I was taught in "teacher school" or in my first teaching position. It came and being part of conversations with classroom teachers, the many RTI trainings and figuring out how to get students to show what they know on the state assessments. (This last one was the hardest.)

Moving students is HARD. But it can be done. These days we have Student Learning Objectives (SLO) and in my world, I also have IEP goals with an exception students should make more than a year's growth regardless of what I wrote in the IEP.  (Trust me--my classroom teachers are always going "Yeah right, that's going to happen??") I'm one of those teachers who has high expectations for herself and her students. That's my first rule in moving students. Set your bar high and they will reach it.  More on this another day. Back to data.


When you ask someone about data--this is not what you get told. Data is hard. It's ugly. It tells a story. It is your friend. Filter in RTI and you get a story too. Sometimes good. Sometimes not so good. It also brings labels. Because of RTI data is not so scary and as a special education teacher, I need it. I live it. You as a special education need it too. Yes, you too classroom teachers.

I start with Strength and Needs T-Chart. I find completing this at the end of the year best but I also on the fly looking at formal assessment data. All I need it all the data from the year (making sure to have the students end of the year assessments). I look at the data for data sake. I make factual statements about it and the progress made. I let the data do the talking--no reading into it!

Once I have been through all the data--sometimes I need additional information and make that note for the fall. But I develop one or two problem statements or common threads that surface. This can be sight words, fluency, decoding concerns that look more as a need for phonics instruction. This information leads to ideas of intervention needs, lightbulbs moments, thoughts to think on and talk out with other service providers.



I'm not sure what I love more about adding this to my Everything Binder - the fact that it works on helping me reflect on my students or that it helps me plan for next year. I'm pretty obsessed.

Strengths/Needs T-Chart would make an awesome addition to your Everything Binder or you RTI Planning.

Grab your free copy HERE!


Until Next Time,

Response to Intervention-Tier 2 Interventions are classroom based and a challenge to do consistently. I have depending on my case load, helped with Tier 2 interventions. Students who join me are either those the RTI team is wanting to move forward with formal testing and need more data or they are students who only need a quick push to get back to core instruction. But it all moves around the data and how classroom-based interventions are pulled together. This is not easy!

As a classroom teacher, you are using a variety of differentiated instructional and assessment strategies. Universal screening and progress monitoring tools are in place. You are using the resulting data to guide your instruction and to determine which students need Tier 2 interventions. You know that in order to be effective, those interventions must not be “more of the same,” since the strategies you used in your Tier 1 classroom did not work for these students. Your challenge is to meet the needs of each Tier 2 student while maintaining the instructional integrity of your general education classroom.

To do this, consider the following two questions:

*How can I design effective Tier 2 interventions?
*How can I differentiate targeted interventions to meet the needs of each of my Tier 2 students?

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 know what your students' needs are. Consistent data collection is key for both moving on to Tier 3 and Special Education and moving students back to the core curriculum. (If you have not checked out my Plug & Play Data Collection Spreadsheets--you can here). 

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.

Tier 2 Intervention Example

In my school, one 4th grade teacher during a unit in the core reading program devoted to poetry had students learning how to write haikus, something not included in the core reading program but clearly aligned to the reading standards for that grade. Another 2nd grade teacher chose to use reader's theater, a well-known intervention program in which students "rehearse" the presentation of reading material to their classmates in a play or dialogue format, to increase the development of fluency.

By dividing the entire grade into tiered instruction, the model provides to students who are already achieving at benchmark levels opportunities for enrichment that go beyond the core instructional program. Our school schedule built in a time each week to collect the progress-monitoring data would be collected on students in Tiers 2 and 3.

Suggested Timeline for RTI Implementation

Phase 1            

• Establish a Professional Learning Community
• Differentiate instruction in Tier 1
• Conduct professional development on RTI
• Begin an Action Plan
• Set up RTI teams
• Select an RTI model
• Choose or design universal screening and begin using

 Phase 2

• Hold discussions on decision rules, fidelity of implementation, and documentation procedures
• In Tier 1, regularly use data from assessments to make instructional decisions
• Make decisions about when and how Tiers 2 & 3 interventions will be conducted
• Choose or design progress monitoring and begin using
• Begin differentiating interventions in Tiers 2 and 3
• Finish Action Plan

Phase 3

• In all tiers, use data to make most instruction and intervention decisions
• Differentiate instruction and interventions consistently
• Evaluate practicality and usefulness of  universal screening and progress monitoring

It's that time of year when I'm going crazy! Yes, you know that time of year--where you have IEPs, parent/teacher conferences, transition meetings, PLUS all you own end of the year teacher evaluation stuff you HAVE to do.  This is the second year I have had to do SLO (Student Learning Objectives). Yeah!! I can use my IEP data--no hoop jumping here. But even without having to do this, I would have kept track to show myself and the world (if they cared) my students made a year's growth.

The key--the DATA!. I know you have been told this all the time but it's true--if you look at it and DO something about it then you get something for your hard work.

One if my favorite things is to make pictures with the numbers to show off to parents at IEP meetings or teachers when I meet with them. This makes it so much easier to talk about what the student is and is not doing and make it REAL. When you put numbers to student performance and have a picture to go with it--conversations change. Teachers jump on board. Parents see what you're talking about.

I'm going to share my secret weapon with you (& it's FREE). It's a Plug & Play 20 Excel for Class Progress Monitoring. Yes, you heard me right. Just put in your data and goal line and the graph is created for you.




Like all data graphs, you might need to change the Y-axis depending on the data and add a trendline (if that's your thing). But that is all you need to do.

These graphs are perfect for RTI Intervention Monitoring, easy for anyone to put the data in, and great for SLO!

Oh--did I mention it was free.  You can find the 20 Progress Monitoring Graphs in my Free Resource Library. If you have not signed up yet, get yours here!

I'd love to hear what your favorite ways are to show off student data and keep track for your SLO data.

Have a great Early Spring Weekend!
Until next Time-

The Colorado Department of Education’s (CDE) definition of Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) provides a basis for understanding how Colorado educators can work together to ensure equitable access and opportunity for all students to achieve the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). MTSS includes Response to Instruction and Intervention (RtI2) as well as additional, distinct philosophies and concepts. Colorado is not the only state moving towards this model.

Within Colorado, there are six Essential Components in the Multi-Tiered System of Supports framework.

• Shared Leadership
• Data-Based Problem Solving and Decision Making
• Layered Continuum of Supports
• Evidence Based Instruction, Intervention, and Assessment Practices
• Universal Screening and Progress Monitoring
• Family, School, and Community Partnering (FSCP)

CDE’s Definition of MTSS

In Colorado, MTSS is an integrated, comprehensive framework that focuses on CCSS, core instruction, differentiated learning, student-centered learning, individualized student needs, and the alignment of systems necessary for all students’ academic, behavioral, and social success. Colorado has a long history of providing numerous systems of support. These include the interventions within the RtI2 processes, supports including Special Education, Second Language Learners and gifted and talented programs. MTSS offers the potential to create needed systematic change through intentional design and redesign of services and supports that quickly identify and match the needs of all students.

Comparing MTSS to RtI2

CDE’s RtI2 processes focus on students who are struggling and provide a vehicle for teamwork and data-based decision making to strengthen their performances before and after educational and behavioral problems increase in intensity.

MTSS Differences with RtI2

MTSS has a broader scope than does RtI2. MTSS also includes:

• Focusing on aligning the entire system of initiatives, supports, and resources.
• Promoting district participation in identifying and supporting systems for alignment of resources, as well as site and grade level.
• Systematically addressing support for all students, including gifted and high achievers.
• Enabling a paradigm shift for providing support and setting higher expectations for all students through intentional design and redesign of integrated services and supports, rather than selection of a few components of RtI and intensive interventions.
• Endorsing Universal Design for Learning instructional strategies so all students have opportunities for learning through differentiated content, processes, and product.
• Integrating instructional and intervention support so that systemic changes are sustainable and based on CCSS-aligned classroom instruction.
• Challenging all school staff to change the way in which they have traditionally worked across all school settings.

MTSS is not designed for consideration in special education placement decisions, such as specific learning disabilities. MTSS focuses on all students in education contexts.

MTSS Similarities to RtI2

MTSS incorporates many of the same components of RtI2, such as

• Supporting high-quality standards and research-based, culturally and linguistically relevant instruction with the belief that every student can learn including students of poverty, students with disabilities, English learners, and students from all ethnicities evident in the school and district cultures.
• Integrating a data collection and assessment system, including universal screening, diagnostics and progress monitoring, to inform decisions appropriate for each tier of service delivery.
• Relying on a problem-solving systems process and method to identify problems, develop interventions and, evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention in a multi-tiered system of service delivery.
• Seeking and implementing appropriate research-based interventions for improving student learning.
• Using school-wide and classroom research-based positive behavioral supports for achieving important social and learning outcomes.
• Implementing a collaborative approach to analyze student data and working together in the intervention process.

MTSS and RtI2

The similarities and differences between Colorado’s MTSS and RtI2 processes. Both rely on RtI2’s data gathering through universal screening, data-driven decision making, problem-solving teams, and are focused on the CCSS. However, the MTSS process has a broader approach, addressing the needs of all students by aligning the entire system of initiatives, supports, and resources, and by implementing continuous improvement processes at all levels of the system.

My take away from this shift is that MTSS was created to provide enrichment and support for ALL learners. Whereas with RTI it was just those students who were not there closing achievement gaps.

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!

One task that I find students struggle with is seeing the trees in the forest--breaking apart numbers to small ones. This skill is the beginning of place value in the kindergarten and first grade but becomes a powerful addition and multiplication strategy later on. Common Core Standard 2.NTB.B.5 moves students to using the break apart strategy on an Open Number Line to add and subtract.

When talking about computational fluency, many of the current articles use the terms composing and decomposing numbers. These are terms that may not be familiar to most parents. They are really not anything new. These terms refer to the idea that numbers can be put together or broken apart to make other numbers.

For instance, the number ten can be broken up (decomposed) in many ways.
10 = 5 + 5
10 = 4 + 6
10 = 3 + 3 + 2 + 2

This may seem like a simple idea, but to a child just learning about numbers it is not simple at all. We want to foster this understanding because it is a critical understanding in terms of becoming computational fluency.

When solving the problem 28 + 45 a student decomposed 28 into 20 + 5 + 3.
Can you see how that would make this problem easier to solve?
28 + 45 = 20 + 5 + 3 + 45 = (45 + 5) + 20 + 3 = 73

This skill can even be helpful when learning basic facts. For instance, when doing 7 + 8, a student might decompose the 7 or the 8 to make ten and extras.
7 + 8 = 5 + (2 + 8) = 5 + 10 = 15

Students have developed a firm understanding of place value of two-digit numbers and to subtract multiples of ten, and are ready to add and subtract within 100 (including the case of adding or subtracting a two-digit number and a one-digit number, and two two-digit numbers). First students are given problems where regrouping is not necessary, and later, problems where regrouping is necessary. Further, students understand that in addition and subtraction, digits in the ones place are added and subtracted; digits in the tens place are added and subtracted; and sometimes regrouping is necessary. In addition, sometimes we must regroup ten ones to form an additional ten, and in subtraction, sometimes we must break a ten into ten ones. The eventual goal of this standard is fluency. This will not happen all at once; students will build gradually towards having procedures and strategies by which they can fluently add an subtract, including standard algorithms and skip-counting up or down.

In a given addition and subtraction problems, ask students to identify which digits are in the one and tens positions. In addition, they should be able to identify the digits in the ones and tens positions.
Provide students with a variety of manipulatives and technologies (such as base-ten blocks or drawings) which can aid in their practice of addition and subtraction through 100.

Use properties of addition to make addition more fluid. For example, 64 + 8 can be thought of as (62 + 2) + 8, reordering addends allows (2 + 62) + 8, regrouping addends yields 2 + (62 + 8) which gives 2 + 70, which is equal to 72. This is what is meant by using a strategy with the properties of the operations.  Another strategy would be using skip-counting for addition (e.g., 58 + 15 can be found by skip-counting up from 58 by ten, and then by five. An additional strategy is to break down place value: 58 + 15 can be thought of as 50 + 10 + 8 + 5, which is 60 + 13, or 73.

Students should have at least one algorithm in place that is robust and works in all cases, but they also should be encouraged to use alternative strategies if they can do so quickly and accurately.

One of the hardest math concepts is learning multiplication is an essential part of a student’s elementary education. It’s the foundation for more complex math student encounter as they move through school.

Why memorize the times tables?

Just like everything in life to do more complex task like walking before running learning
multiplication and memorizing the times tables are building blocks for other math topics taught in school - higher learning such as division, long multiplication, fractions and algebra. Students who have not memorized the times tables will find these levels of math much more difficult than they need to be. Students who have not mastered their tables will very often fall behind in math and begin to lose confidence.  Multiplication is used in our daily lives. You might need it when doubling a recipe, determining a discount at a store or figuring out our expected arrival time when traveling.

Calculators?

Calculators are great tools for figuring out complex calculations. However, using a calculator takes much longer for simple facts and can result in keying errors. Students who rely on calculators are also weak in estimating skills and are unaware of wrong answers that occur from keying mistakes. In Colorado and on most high stakes tests calculators are not allowed in many tests and admission exams—they have to use paper and don’t have the time to work them the using strategies.

Understanding or memorization or both?

It's not one or the other, it's both. A student must understand and memorize the facts. Early on, a student needs to understand what multiplication is - the grouping of sets, repeated addition, and a faster way of adding. Show them this with an assortment of manipulatives, by skip counting and by using arrays. As they master the basics, expand upon this concept by creating interesting word problems. Eventually comes a time to highlight the importance of rapid recall. Students need to know that they should recall the answer instantaneously. This is why quizzing and practicing need to happen at the same time.

Have fun together in this process. One of my favorite ways is to use games!  It's always a good review and opportunity for the whole family to exercise their brains.

How Parents Can Help Their Child Memorize the Times Tables

1. Make sure there is understanding.
2. Explain why it is important.
3. Demonstrate what fast recall is.
4. Be interested in math yourself.
5. Find out what facts they already know.
6. Involve your child in the goal setting process.
7. Focus primarily on the facts they need to learn.
8. Use a chart to monitor progress.
9. Provide encouragement along the way.
10. Spend quality time together practicing.
11. Acknowledge their success.
12. And most importantly: Have fun!