I went in this morning to get some work done before returning next month. Before leaving for break, I was prepping data for our intervention team to review and make decisions on. These students were all getting the same intervention, "Just Words." We had pretested grades fourth through sixth with the WIST. We found that in both fifth and sixth that well over 60% of our students were needing some sort of phonics based intervention. (This was not a shock to us but to our administration is was. I fail to see why since these kidoos didn't have core phonics while in the primary grades nor did they ever have mastery of phonics skills.)

It was determined that Just Words would become part of students core instruction instead of Words Their Way. Just Words became core based on the number of students who needed the program. This was not the case in fourth grade. After pretesting students in fourth grade, less than six were determined to need a phonics program in this case it became a tiered intervention program.  The hope for fifth and sixth is that students can move from Just Words to Words Their Way. Just Words moves to an intervention for those who continue to need it. Even if student's don't move, the increase in their scores is fabulous and the carry over has been seen in students writing. Which is even better.

Our primary students receive daily phonics instruction as part of their core instruction provided by their classroom teacher. There are students who are either pulled out or seen within the classroom who receive the same lesson again or it is pre-taught to them; in this case it is a double-dose. A double dose is getting the same instruction twice but in a different way. In most cases this is done by the classroom teacher but not always. In my building double-dosing is done on top of what ever intervention the student is receiving and is seen as part of the expected core instruction.