Stakeholders involved with students exhibiting academic, behavioral, or social/emotional learning deficits too often sense there are too few options for effective support. While the teacher or parents believe such deficits exhibit a major concern, the student is often not evaluated until categorical programs such as Title I, ESL, literacy services, or special education becomes involved, Yet, since NCLB (2001) and IDEA (2004) began emphasizing the expectation for Response to Intervention (RTI), at-risk students with learning and/or behavioral challenges should be identified sooner rather than later, and provided with more flexible and responsive service options. RTI should be mitigating the expectation for individualized help to come only through special education services. An effective RTI approach offers several key opportunities for systemic effectiveness:
(1)
emphasizes early intervention in the typical, general education learning
environment,
(2)
maximizes all staff’s expertise and services, and makes effective use of all
existing resources,
(3)
intends to assess the student’s strengths and weaknesses based on their
academic performance or behavior in the regular educational setting,
(4)
delivers interventions regular educational setting and interventions are based
on reliable and measurable information,
(5)
response to the intervention is directly and frequently monitored and charted,
and
(6)
intends to de-emphasize categories and labels while encouraging creativity, problem
solving, and providing support to students in a timely manner.
The effective RTI approach institutionalizes a problem-solving model for schools. As such, the RTI model allows application of a systemic, school-wide problem-solving approach. Therefore, rather than perceptions or assumptions, effective curriculum and instructional decisions can be based on collected and analyzed student-centered data.
As
far back as 1990, Vacca and Padak found at-risk learners were seldom more academically vulnerable
than during instructional situations that required them to engage in acts of
literacy. Kletzien & Bednar (1990)
viewed at-risk readers as students who saw themselves “as poor learners who
have limited aptitude to benefit from educational opportunities. They are at risk by being constantly
discouraged and by having an inadequate understanding of their own learning
abilities and potential” (p 528).
To better understand the purpose of literacy
or developmental reading options utilized for RTI, it is prudent to understand that most
research-based reading intervention programs utilize a phonemic and
phonological awareness approach as the foundation for their model of reading
intervention. The most effective reading
programs for at-risk
students utilize a multisensory and systematic approach ( Ehri, Nunes, Willows, Schuster, Yaghoub-Zadeh, &
Shanahan, 2001; Kim, Wagner, & Lopez, 2012; Kruidenier, MacArthur, Wrigley,
2010). Research on the foundations of these
these approaches will find many to be based on the Orton-Gillingham method.
Many RTI initiatives utilize these
approaches within Tier 3 (Intensive) reading programs. Research by Slavin,
Lake, Davis, and Madden, (2009)
found one-to-one intervention effective for students at-risk for reading
failure. Below are brief descriptions of
some of the more popular reading programs utilized as Tier 3 RTI interventions.
Before
reviewing specific programs, let’s be mindful that regardless of the
intervention, it is crucial to recognize teaching does not entail instruction
alone. A highly qualified teacher will
understand the ongoing relationship between the curriculum, his or her
instruction, and ongoing assessment of learning. Competency regarding this relationship should
be exhibited through increased classroom assessment literacy whereby
standards-based instruction is continually provided and monitored through
diverse and consistent formative and criterion assessments. The aim of the Reading
Recovery® program is to
reduce the number of children that experience difficulty with reading and
writing. Specially trained Reading Recovery® teachers identify
children for the program. The identified children “are the lowest
achievers in the first-grade cohort as evidenced on a standardized test and the
Diagnostic Survey (Clay, 1985), excluding none” (Lyons, 1989, p 126). The
Reading Recovery® approach to identifying at-risk students involves a
relative notion of risk, rather than an absolute one. Students are
selected for the Reading Recovery® intervention program because of their
performance relative to their classmates according to teacher judgment and
performance on a diagnostic battery.
During
the Reading Recovery® intervention program, children
are pulled out
of their classrooms each day for thirty-minute individual lessons. The
lessons supplement regular classroom instruction for 12 to 20 weeks. The Reading
Recovery® program does not rely on consumable materials or step-by-step programs.
Rather, the knowledgeable Reading
Recovery®
teacher
develops
an individualized lesson for each child. Each lesson provides the child
with an opportunity to think and problem solve while reading and writing.
A detailed, daily running record is kept of the student’s progress and the
teacher then designs the next day’s lesson (Lyons, 1989).
Reading
Recovery®
is not meant to be a perfect program for every need. It is an
intervention that appears best suited for students with moderate reading or
language disorders. Evidence identifies Reading Recovery as a successful early
intervention reading program. A WWC report (2013) found Reading
Recovery® to have positive effects on general reading achievement and
potentially positive effects on alphabetics, reading fluency, and comprehension
for beginning readers. In response to critics, it is only logical to
believe sustained student progress will depend upon subsequent support, both in
school and at home.
The
Wilson Language Training® (WLT)
empowers individual educators, schools, and districts to achieve literacy with
all students. Approximately 25,000
teachers in United States schools have achieved WRS Level I Certification. While WLT initially focused solely on the
education of teachers who were working with individuals with dyslexia, since
2002 WLT programs provide professional
development to the general education classroom teachers as well.
WLT serves as a provider of research-based
reading and spelling programs for all ages. Its programs offer a multisensory
and structured curricula. Programs include Fundations®, Wilson Just Words®, the Wilson Reading
System®, and Wilson Fluency®/Basic. The
approaches utilized within WLT programs have proven highly effective
(Melby-Lervåg, Lyster, & Hulme, 2012).
The Wilson Reading System® exhibit
potentially positive effects on alphabetics but no discernible effects on
fluency and comprehension. One study,
which included more than 70 third-grade students in Pennsylvania, used a
modified version of Wilson Reading System®.
The study met the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence
standards. As a result, of their literature review (2007), the WWC considered the extent of evidence
for Wilson Reading System® to be small for alphabetics, fluency, and
comprehension. No studies meeting WWC
evidence standards, with or without reservations, addressed general reading
achievement.
An intervention found to be popular
in New York City public schools is Reading Rescue®,
which
is a systematic reading intervention model based on tenets of Reading Recovery® (Clay, 1993). Ehri, Dreyer, Flugman, and Gross (2007) found
Reading Rescue® to be an
effective tutoring intervention model for first-grade struggling readers. The Reading Rescue® program offers staff
development designed to implement the intensive early intervention
program. Using trained tutors rather
than certified reading specialists, the intervention specifically targets
students who will benefit from one-on-one instruction to reach grade-level
reading. Training tutors rather than
reading specialists offers school districts a less expensive alternative to
providing Tier 3 RTI.
The Reading Rescue®
program’s twelve-part professional development protocol for those delivering
the intervention is delivered over two-years.
The structured training seeks to equip participating staff with
knowledge and skills typically associated with reading specialists. Ideally, this approach increases the school’s
culture of high expectations for successful literacy and builds the school's
capacity to promote learning for all students.
However, one reality of a cost-efficient two-year plan for professional
development is that at-risk students may not be served by tutors as fully
trained as those studied by Ehri, et. al (2007), thereby impacting the
generalizability of those findings. Additionally, spreading the full training
protocol over two years, may adversely impact the necessary development and
implementation of a systemic process for subsequent monitoring of program
completers for sustained success.
The Remediation
Plus System's Teacher Training White Paper (2017) seeks to help teachers and school administrators
understand the program's reading intervention training and curriculum. The
system provides opportunities to become expert teachers of reading and
remediation. If seeking to ensure every teacher is proficient to address
reading deficits, the system's replicable lesson plans offer an invaluable
opportunity to use a very strategic approach to providing interventions.
Undoubtedly,
RTI programs utilizing a phonemic and
phonological awareness approach in a multisensory, systemic reading
intervention model should be offering a research-based Tier 3 RTI administered
by well-trained interventionist. However, for at least two years following
successful participation in any early intervention program, the effective
school needs to ensure the student is exposed to “good classroom instruction
and moderate personal motivation that should be achievable” (Clay, 2005, p.
52). Next month’s post will address the need
for a systemic follow up program for successful completers of early
intervention reading programs. A
follow-up program needs to offer techniques that address the students’ “affective
needs to help them see themselves as capable learners and good thinkers” (Coley
& Hoffman, 1990, p 497).
To cite:
Anderson, C.J. (March 31, 2022) Effective Response to
Intervention programs can make a
difference [Web log
post] Retrieved from http://www.ucan-cja.blogspot.com/
References;
Brown,
R. (2021). Understanding dyslexia. A whitepaper published by for Illuminate
Education
Clay, M.M. (1987).
Learning to be learning disabled. New Zealand Journal of Educational
Studies, v22, 155-173.
Clay, M. M. (2005). Reading recovery. Heinemann
Ehri, L.. Dreyer, L.,Flugman,B. and Gross, A. Alan.
(2007) Reading Rescue: An effective
tutoring intervention model for
first-grade struggling readers. American Educational
Research
Journal, 44,414-448.
Teaching. Baltimore:
MD. Reading Research Quarterly, 36(3),
250-287.
doi: 10.1598/RRQ.36.3.2
Gainsville,
FL: The Literacy Trust.
Kletzien, S.B.
& Bednar, M.R., (1990). Dynamic assessment for at-risk readers. Journal
of Reading v33.
n7 528-533
Lyons, C.A. (1989)
Reading recovery: A preventative for labeling young at-risk learners.
Urban Education v 24, n2 125-39.
in learning to read:
A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 138(2), 322-352.
doi: 10.1037/a0026744
Early Literacy Development and
Implications for Intervention.
Jessup, MD:
National
Institute for Literacy.
Remediation Plus System Teacher Training White Paper (2017) Retrieved from:
https://issuu.com/remediationplus/docs/r__teacher_training_white_paper
Slavin, R. E., Lake, C., Davis, S., & Madden, N. A.
(2011). Effective programs for struggling
readers:
A best-evidence synthesis. Educational Research Review, 6(1), 1–26.
doi:10.1016/j.edurev.2010.07.002
Vacca, R. T. &
Padak, N. D. (1990). Who's at risk in reading? Journal of Reading v33. n7
486-88.
