Showing posts with label intervention. Show all posts
Showing posts with label intervention. Show all posts

A Path to Ensuring Mastery in Addition and Subtraction for Math Success

Do you happen to know how many standards students have to master to be able to solve basic multiplication and division equations?

I went looking and it’s more than 15!

I’m talking about place value, counting, and solving addition and subtraction facts fluently.

These skills are the foundations and need to be taught to mastery!

Do you need help getting your students to master place value or counting skills or addition and subtraction fluency?

If so, you're in luck! In this blog post, we will discuss how to teach these skills and ways to teach these concepts. 

The first way is drill and kill practice. This is a traditional approach that many teachers use. The second way is with place-value games. Games are a great way to engage students and help them learn in a fun way. Finally, the third way is to give students time to demonstrate mastery in a variety of different ways. 

Why Worry about it??

First–if you don't, who will!! Passing the buck doesn’t help anyone and when they get to 3rd grade your students will drown and the teacher who has them will give up.

Thank you for being part of my soap box.

Mastering multiplication and division requires a strong foundation in several basic mathematical skills, notably place value, counting, and addition & subtraction. Each of these skills plays a crucial role in understanding and performing multiplication and division effectively.

Place Value

Place value is fundamental in mathematics as it helps in understanding the significance of digits in a number based on their position. 

This product is filled with task cards and games that are perfect for interventions or small groups to work on place value from ones to hundreds. It's super easy to differentiate and personalize for your learners in any group. 

These cards are always part of my math groups even as a warm-up. Students always benefit from the remembers--especially once you get to regrouping. 

Place value starts in kindergarten with understanding numbers to 20 aka the 1s and 10s places. First graders, continue building this information by comparing 2-digit numbers and can compose and decompose numbers to 20. In second grade, understanding numbers to the hundreds place. This information is needed because when students move from single-digit math to double or multi-digit operation if they don't understand how those places work students won't understand how to complete any complex math. 

This product has 4 easy to differentiate activities that can be added to any center, small group, or intervention to help students reach independence or practice place value. 

The stronger student's place value is the easier moving into complex math will be!

In multiplication and division, recognizing the place value of digits allows one to:

Break Down Numbers: Multiplication and division often involve breaking down larger numbers into smaller, more manageable parts. For example, understanding that 234 is 200 + 30 + 4 allows for easier mental multiplication and division using distributive properties.

Align Numbers Properly: When multiplying or dividing multi-digit numbers, place value ensures that digits are aligned correctly, which is crucial for obtaining accurate results. Misalignment can lead to significant errors.


Counting

Think for a second, can you students count by 1s past 50 without starting at 1. Or can they skip count by 5s starting at 65. Or counting by 100s starting at 200?

Counting is a foundational skill that underpins many mathematical concepts, including multiplication and division.

Counting is one of those skills that starts in preschool and gets more complex as students move through the grades. But it is also a standard that we think students have mastered or understand and walk away from before there is data to show they can count. 

In Kindergarten, students are to count to 100 in both 1s and 10s. First grade, students are extending the counting sequence 120. Not to mention plus 10s or minus 10s. In Second grade students need to count by 100s and skip count by 5s, 10s, and 100s.

Students don't get counting or skip counting with calendar math. They need more. They need to count everything. Not just by 1s starting at zero or one but starting at 14 or 46 or 98. 

Do you have students that don't know what number comes after 100 or 110? 

You need this! 

In this product, you will find student worksheets to get students working on counting by 1s, 5s, 10s, and writing numbers passed 100. And like all my activities--progress monitoring to support interventions and the RTI process.

Understanding Multiples: Multiplication can be viewed as repeated addition. For instance, 4 x 3 can be thought of as 4 counted three times (4 + 4 + 4). Similarly, division involves understanding how many times a number can be subtracted from another number, essentially counting in reverse.

Skip Counting: Skip counting (counting by 2s, 3s, 4s, etc.) is a direct application of counting that helps in learning multiplication tables and understanding the concept of grouping in division.

Patterns Recognition: Counting aids in recognizing numerical patterns, which is essential for mastering multiplication tables and identifying factors and multiples.

Addition & Subtraction 

I started this blog post with a soapbox. It comes from listening to classroom teachers complain about students being fluent in their addition and subtraction facts. 

I think as a special education teacher, we forget just like classroom teachers that these skills have to be practiced first, then mastered, and then the fluency comes. Just like learning to read or ride a bike. 

Most state standards, like Common Core or your state standards--students have roughly 2 years to get these skills mastered and be fluent. 

The standards start in Kindergarten with working within 10. But mastery is within 5. First grade is working of within 20. Working fluently within 10. Second grade is working within 20 using mental strategies. And by the end of the year from memory all sums of two one-digit numbers. 

I talk a lot about mastery. Like a lot a lot. 

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary defines Mastery as "the possession or display of great skill or technique".

The standards don't define mastery. 

So, who does???

Well, you do, or your team or grade level or building level. 

But ... that also means you have to hold all students to that same standard or benchmark. 

My Addition, Subtraction, and Multiplication fluency products have what my building has agreed to. This means that students who are timed are held to the fluency benchmark. This means you can create interventions and support them in RTI.

This means you also need something more than drill and kill to build students' accuracy and independent practice. 

These three products will help give students more independent practice, and more differentiated practice within small target groups without making it harder for you to support them.

Addition and subtraction are the building blocks of multiplication and division:

In second grade there is a tiny standard that where multiplication starts. It's 2.OA.C--students start to learn about arrays and start using skip counting to solve multiplication facts of 2s, 5s, and 10s. This set of activities will help you build students capacity in using games and number talks.  

Foundation of Multiplication: Multiplication is essentially repeated addition. For example, 5 x 4 can be seen as adding 5 four times (5 + 5 + 5 + 5). A solid grasp of addition makes this concept more intuitive.

Division as Repeated Subtraction: Division can be conceptualized as repeated subtraction. For example, 20 divided by 4 can be understood by subtracting 4 from 20 repeatedly until reaching zero, counting the number of subtractions made.

Handling Remainders: Division often results in remainders. Proficiency in subtraction is necessary to understand and calculate what is left over after dividing.


Interconnectedness of Skills

The interconnectedness of place value, counting, and addition & subtraction with multiplication and division highlights the importance of these basic skills. Mastering them provides a strong mathematical foundation, enabling students to tackle more complex problems with confidence. Understanding place value ensures accurate computation, counting fosters an intuitive grasp of numerical relationships, and addition & subtraction form the operational basis for both multiplication and division.

BUNDLE

Want it all???
I have you covered with a growing bundle. All these products are bundled together in my store, so you can start the year off strong and build those necessary skills to ensure your students master all the skills they need to understand multiplication.

Chat soon-





Why a Comprehensive Special Education Evaluation?

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?

The RIOT/ICEL model comes from Jim Wright and is one way to look at RTI/MTSS.  RIOT is the top horizontal row of the table and includes four potential sources of student information: Review, Interview, Observation, and Test. Teams should attempt to collect information from a range of sources.

ICEL is the left column of the table that includes key areas of learning to be assessed: Instruction, Curriuclum, Environment, and Learner. A common mistake that teams often make is to assume that student learning problems exist in the learner and underestimate the degree to which what the classroom teacher is providing in class ie., accommodations, curriculum, and environmental influences that impact the student's academic performance. The model ensures no rock is left unturned. 

The matrix is an assessment guide to help teams efficiently to decide what relevant information to collect on student academic performance and behavior and also how to organize that information to identify probable reasons why the student is not experiencing academic or behavioral success.  

The matrix is not itself a data collection instrument. Instead, it is an organizing framework that increases teams' confidence both in the quality of the data that they collect and the findings that emerge from the data. 

An editable RIOT/ICEL form is below for you--just click the picture. Be on the lookout for a blog post sharing how I use this model with grade-level teams. The object of this model is to remove bias, it is a good way to look at multi-lingual students (ELL or ESL). It can be a great way to have collegial conversations about students.


Chat Soon-



Evidence Based or Best Practice: The Beginning

Balanced literacy. Orton-Gilliamham. Think-Alouds. Graphic Organizers. Direct instruction. OMG!!! 

Have you ever sat staring at your plans and IEPs and wonder how the #@& am I going to move this kid? Simply because of where the student sits in relation to their grade-level peers. 

I have. 

OR 

I have so many with the same need but they didn’t make as much progress as I was hoping. (Or they needed to.)

Buildings don’t buy curriculum programs with special education students in mind. They might ask (if you're lucky) for your input. To be real, they buy with the larger in mind, which makes sense when you need to get the biggest bang for your buck. 

What to do?????

In my building, moving students more than a year's growth is VERY important to us. We strive to close those gaps before they move to middle school. 

I don’t have programs. Well, I have access to several but they can be (and most of the time) used by classroom teachers or worse the materials from the program were used but not the program itself. 

I know I’m not the only one. So, what do you do???  

OR 

Want to learn what I do to get data that looks like this? 

 

                                               

I had an Instructional Coach when I first started teaching, that showed me the value of putting time into learning and mastering both educational best practices and evidence-based practices. So even, if I was stuck with limited options, I could get tons of bang without a whole lot of stress. 

Take guided reading, (yes, I know but you have to work with what you got), I became an expert at guided reading. I worked in tiny groups of two and three but with best practices and a couple of evidence-based practices, I was able to move kids to within months of their peers. (This brings up a whole different conversation when you can do this--is core really happening in the classroom or are they special education. I’m not going to answer those questions, as those are part of the larger school system.)

The Elementary Secondary Education Act defines evidence-based practices as those “effective educational strategies supported by evidence and research”.  When teachers use evidence-based practices with fidelity, they can be confident their teaching is likely to support student learning. 


and

David Ardale defines best education practices as the wide range of individual activities, policies, and program approaches to achieving positive changes in student attitudes or academic behaviors. 

Think Hattie and Marzano. (We all have a love/hate relationship with them)


Join me as I walk through how I use these ideas to get the most bang for your buck and move kids to close gaps with my special education students. 


Send me your questions or if you're stuck and need help with. I’ll help you problem solve.


Chat soon,






101: MTSS & RTI

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 the RTI tiers look with MTSS

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. 


How the levels of support look across all 3 tiers in MTSS and RTI


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. 

MTSS diamond of supports for remedial and enrichment for students
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. 

RTI Process Flow Chart

Parents, what are your questions about this process? I'd love to hear them. Teacher's what supports do you need to make this process work within your classrooms? Share your thoughts below. 


Be sure to check out how Shelia from Dualatiedu (a Bilingual Teacher) implements RTI with her teachers.



Chat Soon,





PS: Teachers are you looking for a document that has it all in one place. This doc has student strengths, and needs, you can list interventions with goals and progress monitoring, and a place a parent communication.  Click on the FREEBIE Alert to get yours
















Intervention Over? Now What?

My students love when they set short-term goals.  They love the thrill of the race. Of beating themselves. Of winning. These goals come from their IEP goals--broken down to a small chunk and most importantly student created. I also do six to eight weeks. It really depends on when our breaks are. This first one is 6 weeks and is rapidly coming to a close.

I started collecting the end of intervention data to review. I want to give you a closer look as to what I do and the decisions I make for the next intervention.



Step 1: Collate your data

If you remember, I get all the data for my interventions on a Google Sheet. (To catch how I set up this intervention click here) I start by going back to my original data and updating it with the new data.

As you can see, I added three new pieces of data, student's new baseline, the new gap, and the raw data change from the baseline.

In this case, I also color-coded the gap information. I did this to better see where the new gaps are and to see how well this intervention worked in closing those gaps.


Each student has their own graph. I also make sure I have up to date graph information.

Each graph has a trendline. By trendlines, I can see who over is activity closing their gaps faster than the goal line.

With these two pieces of data, I can make decisions about next steps.



Step 2: I've Got My Data--Now What

ALWAYS--Stick to FACT based statements, when talking about data. This helps me avoid student specific problems and opinions. (ie; they are slow, they are not working hard etc.)

*Students 1, 2, & 5 have gaps larger than 6.
*Students 1 & 2 had single-digit growth.
*Students 3, 4, 5, 6 had double-digit growth
*Everyone had growth.
*Average growth was 45 up from 32.




The Graphs:

*I look for trends: where is the score is (blue line) related to the trendline (pink line) and the Goal Line (yellow line).

I pay close attention to where these lines meet the Goal (red line). Is it before Week 19 or after?

*This matters, when determining if they are closing their gaps fast enough.

*Remember, the point is to move students more than a year. How long it may take them to close gaps is key to thinking about whether the intervention was successful for the student.


With this intervention, 3 students had great success, 2 students didn't, and 1 who it was moderately successful for.

Step 3: Analyze the Root Cause
(It takes at least five WHYs to get to a root cause) (You may find you need more information like a reading level, fluency data, etc. BUT stick to the FACTS.)




WHY: Student's need more encounters with sight words
WHY: Student's have the easy sight words but don't know what to do with the more difficult ones
WHY: Students are not connecting sight words from text to text
WHY: Sight word knowledge is not carrying over to Grade level Oral Reading Fluency
WHY: Students need more practice besides decodable repeated readings, individual flashcard rings, and instructional book reading.

Analysis:
*Keep intervention structure
*Change up: add extra practice to build the first 50 words
*Keep intervention cycle to 4 weeks
*Ensure Reading Mastery lessons are being completed with fidelity!

To Do over the next 4 weeks:
*Give all students a Phonics screener
*Complete an Error Analysis on Oral Reading Fluency

The why's are always hard but it helps you drill down to what needs to be changed. You also see--I have a list of things I need to do before the next cycle is over. These ideas fell out as I looked at the data--the big wondering "Is this a phonics thing?" Well, I don't have the right data to answer that question. If you find this to be your problem--then figure out your timeline to get the information you need and get it. But don't let it hold you up!! If you missed how I created this intervention you can check it out here.

Here is what the next four weeks of Sight Word Intervention:
*I will add an additional 4 weeks.
*I will add basic sight word books for the 3 students who made little growth.
*I will add exposure to more difficult sight words to all students based on the data from the grade level reading fluency.
*I will have a teammate come and observe a Reading Mastery lesson to ensure fidelity.

I hope you see how I work through my data at the end of an intervention and make changes to support students for the next four weeks. Send a shoutout on how your interventions are going and share any questions.

Chat Soon,







How I Use John Hattie to Create Interventions?

I have come to love John Hattie's work on student achievement. It makes creating small group interventions super easy and effective.  Its a resource a have come to use more and more as my budget gets smaller and helps me create something super specific to meet the needs of my ever-changing students with ease.

John Hattie has done the heavy lifting--researching some 200 influences on student achievement. The key is to look for ideas and not get caught up in the everything. You're looking for ideas that have been found to have the greatest effect size (the closer to 1 the better)


When I use Hattie to create interventions, I keep a couple of ideas in mind. I keep the ideas from Hattie to no more than 5, the intervention to 6 to 8 weeks, and very specific data collection.

Welcome to my Classroom

Here's a view of how I created an intervention to meet sight word and reading fluency goals.

Ideas from Hattie:

  • Direct Instruction
  • Feedback
  • Repeated Reading
  • Goals

These 4 influences play different roles in my intervention. Direct Instruction comes from SRA's Reading Mastery--this is the backbone of my instruction (bonus here is its research-based). Goals are set in two different ways-1) learning targets are a building requirement and 2) everyone set a SMART goal for sight words and reading fluency before the intervention started.

The nature of Reading Mastery is the immediate and actionable feedback is a lesson given but where does it come for sight words and reading fluency. For both, it is tied to repeated readings. After cold reads, students practice with an adult model before being timed each day.

Intervention:

This intervention is only set for six weeks. Why? It's long enough to make a couple of changes but short enough not to let half the year go by without seeing if its closing gaps.

Data Collection:

This intervention has four data points. Some data is collected daily and others once a week.

Sight word data is collected daily--as a repeated reading and as an exit ticket. The exit ticket words are reviewed weekly to see if students are progressing towards their goal.

Sight word data is also collected when they play games to see what carryover looks like.

Goal Line is IEP goal not the student set goal.

I also do trendlines more for me than my students. But having everything in graphs means I can look at it and see if they are moving up or if I need to change things up.







I also collect reading fluency data. The grade level data is graphed. The repeated reading data is kept in their binders as they collect it and maintain the data.  These goal lines make sense as they are working toward IEP goals.

I have all this data now what?

Reflect.

Reflect on the positives. Look at what needs to be changed.

Often you don't need to toss out the whole kitchen sink when putting the trashing the bin will work.

This intervention has at least 5 more weeks before it ends. Which gives me time to change things up if I need to.

Repeated Reading tell me if a student needs to spend more time with specific sight words. The same is true with the repeated readings they do with sight word heavy decodable text--if it needs to be more challenging.

Or if I need to look at an error analysis to see what changes need to be made to the overall intervention.

I'd love to hear how you set up your small group interventions. Where are your successes? Where do you need some help? I'd love to hear about your interventions.


Chat soon,


Vocabulary Development Strategies

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.

Tips for Selecting Words:
  • 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.



An Example:
I have a student who picks her own tough or challenging vocabulary as she reads.
She currently is an Instructional DRA K/20 and is a second language learning.
One task she has to complete while she reads is creating a list of 5 to 8 words she felt were hard.
She often has more than that but when I conference with her we talk about the words she found.
She then takes her 5 words, finds the pictures from Google or Bing, and creates a video to support
what she has learned.







Picture Walk Idea
“I Spy”: This activity is similar to reading books with your child. Label and point to pictures on the
pages of an “I Spy” book. Make it a game and see who can find the most objects on the page! Make
it more challenging by assigning specific items to you and your child that incorporate basic concepts
(“You find a small key and I’ll find a big one!”) You can also play “I Spy” without the book and find objects around the house or in your community.

Want to more ideas on Designing Effective Vocabulary Development Instruction Grab your Freebie
here. Click the image.


I’d love to hear what you do in your small groups to build in more language support in your groups.

Until Next Time,

How to Create an RTI Intervention

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,


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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