What is Needed to Supplement Tier 3 Reading Interventions?

           Before we dive fully into what is needed to effectively supplement Tier 3 reading interventions, let’s review what it means to have phonemic and phonological awareness.  Ideally, there is no argument that phonemic and phonological awareness is an essential competency for emergent literacy. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words and the understanding that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of speech sounds (Yopp, 1992).

Phonemic awareness is essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system, because letters represent sounds or phonemes.  Without phonemic awareness, phonics makes little sense.  Phonemic awareness is fundamental to mapping speech to print.  For instance, if a child cannot hear that "man" and "moon“ begin with the same sound or is unable to blend the sounds /rrrrrruuuuuunnnnn/ into the word "run",  then he or she may have great difficulty connecting sounds with their written symbols or blending sounds to make a word.

A phoneme is a speech sound.  A phoneme is the smallest unit of spoken language.  It has no inherent meaning (National Reading Panel, 2000).  Phonemic awareness involves hearing language at the phoneme level. Phonemic awareness is not phonics.  Phonemic awareness is auditory and does not involve words in print.  Phonemic awareness is important because it teaches students to attend to sounds. Phonemic awareness primes the connection of sound to print.  Phonemic awareness gives students a way to approach reading new words.  Phonemic awareness helps students understand the alphabetic principle whereby letters in words are systematically represented by sounds.

Phonics, is the use of the code (sound-symbol relationships to recognize words.  Phonological awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the sound structure of language. This is an encompassing term that involves working with the sounds of language at the word, syllable, and phoneme level.

Phonemic and phonological awareness is difficult because although the English language includes 26 letters, there are approximately 40 phonemes.  Sounds are represented in 250 different spellings.  For instance, /f/ as in ph, f, gh, ff.  Research has established that children lacking phonemic and phonological awareness skills exhibit difficulty grouping words with similar and dissimilar sounds (mat, mug, sun), blending and splitting syllables (sun-ny), blending sounds into words (m_a_n), segmenting a word as a sequence of sounds (e.g., fish is made up of three phonemes, /f/ ,/i/, /sh/), detecting and manipulating sounds within words (change “r” in “run” to “s” to make “sun”), (Kame'enui, et. al., 1997).

Most research-based reading intervention programs utilize a phonemic and phonological awareness approach as the foundation for their model of reading intervention.  This approach is utilized as part of a Tier 3 (Intensive) RTI implemented through the programs discussed last month.  Arguably, what needs to come next is the true debate. 

For quite some time, Reading Recovery has remained a 1:1 program and thereby utilized as a Tier 3 RTI reading intervention.  Reading Recovery marketers are potentially being deceptive if stating nothing more is ever needed. Reading Recovery founder Marie Clay (2005) was clear there should be two years of monitoring and additional support following a Grade 1 student’s successful completion of the Reading Recovery program (Tier 3). 

Remove the students that were not provided any support beyond Reading Recovery during Grade 1 from the APM (2022) study and the real problem will be evident:  Neglect of the need to effectively monitor and adjust instruction or interventions based on subsequent results!  Many of the Tier 3 RTI reading programs discussed last month have evolved to offer further structured and systemic support that can be delivered as Tier 2 and Tier 1 (universal) practice.  The need for continued evolution will ideally soon include Reading Recovery. 

As noted last month, the Remediation Plus System's Teacher Training White Paper (2017) helps teachers and school administrators understand its reading intervention training and curriculum. Crucially, the system provides opportunities to become expert teachers of reading and remediation. By 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. Tier 2 RTI should always be a structured literacy intervention that builds upon a systemic P-3 curriculum of fluent reading, comprehension, writing, and thinking skills.

The benefit of programs such as the Remediation Plus System, is it was created to address the need for systemic professional development rather than only creating a specialized group trained in delivering Tier 3 interventions.   Having HIGHLY Proficient PK-Grade 3 teachers delivering Tier 1 & 2 reading, comprehension, and writing skills should be part of every district’s strategic goal.  

The correlate of frequent monitoring and subsequent adjustment drives the core principles for effectively implementing RTI.  Therefore, the ability to collect data, evaluate results, and be an honest consumer of the resulting data promotes sustained success.  Teacher proficiency with data must therefore be embraced as an essential professional competency

                Frequent monitoring of student progress, and adjusting instruction or interventions based on results is a correlate of continuous school improvement within Effective Schools Research.  This correlate requires teacher competency in ethically and reliably collecting data, evaluating results, and effectively consuming the data.  Teacher bias becomes possible when teachers identify and prescribe an intervention.  They then may have difficulty accepting the need to adjust when the prescribed intervention proves ineffective. A teacher may erroneously perceive the intervention’s failure as a personal failure of his or her initial prescription.  Thus, defensiveness rather than professional awareness delays any necessary adjustment.  For this reason, teacher preparation programs as well as districts or schools need to institutionalize the following six ideas for successful development of an effective RTI system:

1. Encourage participation by key stakeholders during planning and implementation.
2. Elicit strong administrative support in staff development, instructional integrity, and data collection.
3. Provide in-depth staff development with mentoring, modeling, and coaching.
4. Begin follow-up trainings at the beginning of each school year.
5. Distribute a manual outlining procedures and materials.
6. Build Problem Solving Models such as RTI into school schedules and the student improvement process (Lau, Sieler, Muyskens, et al, 2006).

Crucially, the field of education will benefit from embracing a whole child approach to learning, teaching, and community engagement grounded in the belief that “each child, in each school, in each of our communities deserves to be healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged” (ASCD, 2018).  Advocates of these fundamental tenets have long considered them essential for ensuring students become college-, career-, and citizenship-ready, which is a desired outcome of Effective Schools Research.

In order to effectively lead a school using a whole child approach to education, an educational leader needs to be “visionary; effective instructional leaders; active learners; and influencers within their staff and the community” (ASCD, 2018).  As can be expected, the Whole Child Approach to education promotes policies and practices aligned to support the whole child.  This requires a change in how adults currently work together to educate children. 

As an advocate for Invitational Education Theory and Practices, I whole-heartedly believe student success is possible whenever educators utilize an intentionally caring, optimistic, respectful, and trusting (I-CORT) mindset. Through intentional invitations for vibrant discussions and active interactions, an I-CORT-driven educator systemically addresses institutional needs through an inventory of the people. places, policies, programs, and processes (5-Ps) that influence the potential for success. This intentional desire promotes collaboration,  exhibits critical, higher order thinking skills (HOTS), and analyzes accessible, reliable data.  Are you an I-CORT-driven educator embracing diverse approaches, promoting cooperative learning, exhibiting high expectations, utilizing HOTS, and analyzing data to monitor and adjust whenever needed?

Remember: A goal without a plan is just a wish. An ICORT-driven educator plans for success!  Strengthen your intervention plans and RTI systems through the active pursuit for increased awareness, elevated knowledge, and willingness to make better possible.

 

 

To cite:

Anderson, C.J. (April 30, 2022) What is needed to supplement tier 3 reading intervention? [Web log post] Retrieved from http://www.ucan-cja.blogspot.com/

 

References; 

ASCD (2018) The Whole Child Approach. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/whole-child.aspx

Big Ideas in Beginning Reading (2009) University of Oregon Center on Teaching and Learning

Retrieved from:  http://reading.uoregon.edu/resources/bibr_pa_concepts.pdf

 

Brown, R. (2021). Understanding dyslexia. A whitepaper published by for Illuminate Education

 

Kame'enui, E. J., Simmons, D. C., Baker, S., Chard, D. J., Dickson, S. V., Gunn, B., Smith, S. B.,

Sprick, M., & Lin, S. J. (1997). Effective strategies for teaching beginning reading. In E. J.

Kame'enui, & D. W. Carnine (Eds.), Effective Teaching Strategies That Accommodate

Diverse Learners. Merrill.

 

Lezotte, L. W. (1991) Correlates of Effective Schools: The First and Second Generation.

            Retrieved from: http://www.effectiveschools.com/images/stories/escorrelates.pdf

 

Lezotte, L. W. & Snyder, K. M. (2011). What effective schools do: Re-envisioning the

correlates. Solution Tree Press.

 

Lyon, G. R. (1995). Toward a definition of dyslexia. Annals of Dyslexia, 45, 3-27.

 

Moats, L. C. (1999). Teaching reading is rocket science: What expert teachers of reading

should know and be able to do. American Federation of Teachers.

 

National Reading Panel (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of

the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction

[online]. Retrieved from: http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/nrp/smallbook.htm.

 

Remediation Plus teacher training white paper (2017) retrieved from https://issuu.com/remediationplus/docs/r__teacher_training_white_paper

 

Yopp, H. K. (1992). Developing Phonemic Awareness in Young Children. Reading Teacher,

45(9), 696-703.

Effective Response to Intervention Programs Can Make a Difference

        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.

 International Dyslexia Association. (2008). Just the Facts: Multisensory Structured Language

Teaching. Baltimore: MD.  Reading Research Quarterly, 36(3), 250-287.

doi: 10.1598/RRQ.36.3.2

 Hoover, N. L., (2011). Reading Rescue®: A literacy intervention for elementary students,

            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.

 Melby-Lervåg, M., Lyster, S.-A. H., & Hulme, C. (2012). Phonological skills and their role

in learning  to read: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 138(2), 322-352.

doi: 10.1037/a0026744

 National Early Literacy Panel. (2008). Developing Early Literacy: A Scientific Synthesis of

            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.

 

 

Aligning Effective Response to Intervention Programs to Formative Assessment Processes

Response to Intervention (RTI) provides a comprehensive service delivery system designed to prevent academic problems, detect problems that do occur early, and intervene quickly to reduce the adverse consequences of learning or behavioral problems.  One main purpose of RTI is to provide a coordinated system of effective and efficient instruction and intervention for all students in the schools.  Another primary purpose of RTI is to diagnose specific learning disabilities (SLD) when students do not sufficiently respond to provided instruction and intervention (Baker, Fien, Baker, 2010).

Do Response to Intervention (RTI) processes provide the most effective opportunity to institutionalize formative assessment as a process for optimizing learning?  Basic information about state planning and implementation of the Response to Intervention (RTI) approach within six Southeast Region states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina, as well as three local education agencies were examined by Sawyer, Holland, and Detgen, (2008).  Results of the study found four main reasons why these states adopted RTI.  These included:

1. To address disproportionality;
2. To promote overall student achievement;
3. To better integrate general and special education; and
4. To inform, or possibly determine, special education eligibility for students with learning disabilities.

 The authors further identified a diversity of approaches for implementation of RTI that included leadership efforts, different strategies for implementation, and collaboration between state education departments or external partners. The study empirically compared the states' experiences and concerns.  Thus, variables such as funding options, state planning practices, fidelity in implementation, identification of effective mathematics or behavior interventions, and secondary school implementation were examined. Efficacy in data collection and analysis was conspicuously absent.

A qualitative case study conducted by Dimick (2009) of administrators and teachers of a mid-sized, urban K-8 school examined views and knowledge about RTI.  Results of the surveys, interviews and focus groups indicated that RTI components and critical elements may be improved during implementation.  Specifically, results identified the value of increased leadership, training, communication, and teacher buy-in. 

Implementation of RTI offers a system of coordinated services that provides instructional and behavioral interventions to at-risk students at earlier points in time while possibly identifying students with SLD at earlier ages.  The result can be mitigation of the adverse impact of the disability or actual prevention for students developing disabilities (Stecker, Fuchs, & Fuchs, 2008).  Other researchers (Deno, Reschly, Lembke, Magnusson, Callender, Windram, & Stachel, 2009) identified the benefits of a school-wide progress monitoring system developed in partnership between university personnel working with an urban elementary school’s teachers and administration to develop and implement RTI. 

Universal screening has become accepted as part of an effective RTI process.  Progress monitoring has also been accepted as an inherent part of RTI.  However, have districts, school leaders, and teacher preparation programs made the need for alignment between RTI programs and formative assessment processes sufficiently clear?

Historical and organizational perspectives provide plausible explanations for problems related to the practice of formative assessment (Dorn, 2010).  Is the practice of formative assessment for instructional and intervention decisions poorly understood because definitions are ambiguous, adoption is inconsistent, and prognosis for future use is questionable?  If so, how might a top-down approach ensure the needed professional development to align RTI programs and formative assessment processes?  System change leading to clear alignment between RTI programs and formative assessment processes should include identification of  school-level personnel to coordinate the collection of formative-assessment data as part of progress monitoring analysis and reporting in relation to RTI processes. This endeavor must also involve teacher preparation programs providing sufficient opportunities for teacher candidates and educational leaders to practice embedding formative assessment processes within progress monitoring expectations as part of an effective RTI program. 

To cite:

Anderson, C.J. (February 28, 2018) Aligning effective response to intervention programs to formative assessment

                processes.  [Web log post] Retrieved from http://www.ucan-cja.blogspot.com/

References:

Baker, S., Fien, H., & Baker, D. (2010). Robust reading instruction in the early grades: Conceptual and practical issues in the integration and evaluation of tier 1 and tier 2 instructional supports. Focus on Exceptional Children, 42(9), 1. Retrieved from https://journals.ku.edu/FOEC/article/view/6693/6068

Deno, S. L., Reschly, A. L., Lembke, E. S., Magnusson, D., Callender, S. A., Windram, H., & Stachel, N. (2009). Developing A school-wide progress-monitoring system. Psychology in the Schools, 46(1), 44-55. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ824903

Dimick, K. (2009). Response to intervention research to practice: Exploring a school in transition---a case study. (M.S., California State University, Long Beach). , 142. Retrieved from https://pqdtopen.proquest.com/doc/305180430.html?FMT=ABS

Dorn, S. (2010). The political dilemmas of formative assessment. Exceptional Children, 76(3), 325. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/201096956

Sawyer, R., Holland, D., & Detgen, A., (2008). State policies and procedures and selected local implementation practices in response to intervention in the six southeast region states. issues & answers. REL 2008-no. 063.Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED502697

Stecker, P., Fuchs, D., & Fuchs, L. (2008). Progress monitoring as essential practice within response to intervention. Rural Special Education Quarterly, 27(4), 10. Retrieved from https://www.questia.com/read/1P3-1614105741/progress-monitoring-as-essential-practice-within-response

A Social Justice Mindset Must Become a Leading Indicator for Closing the Opportunity Gap

            The National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) defines literacy as the use of “printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one's goals, and to develop one's knowledge and potential.”  Average scores on the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) literacy scale for adults age 16 to 65 ranged from 250 in Italy to 296 in Japan.  The U.S. average score was 270.  Compared with the U.S. average score, the average scores in 12 countries were higher, in 5 countries they were lower, and in 5 countries they were not significantly different.

            A potential indicator of an opportunity gap rather than an achievement gap is based on the PIAAC international average distribution of literacy skills.  Comparatively, the United States had a larger percentage of adults performing at both the top and bottom of the distribution.  Thirteen percent of U.S. adults age 16-65 performed at the highest proficiency level (4/5) on the PIAAC literacy scale.  This was higher than the international average of 12 percent.  Eighteen percent of U.S. adults performed at the lowest level of the PIAAC literacy scale (at or below Level 1), which was higher than the international average of 16 percent.

            Average scores on the IALS, ALL, and PIAAC literacy scales for adults in the United States age 16 to 65: Various years, 1994-2014

 

<="" * Significantly different (p < .05) from PIAAC 2012/14.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Statistics Canada and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS), 1994-98; Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey (ALL), 2003-08; and Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), U.S. PIAAC 2012/2014.

¹ Data from Australia are not shown due to national restrictions on the use of their data.

        Despite the Elementary and Secondary Education Act’s (1965) emphasis on closing the achievement gap, the 2001 reauthorization known as No Child Left Behind has produced only modest changes to literacy rates.  The PIAAC results (2012/2014) indicate a statistical significant change compared to the Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey (ALL, 2003-08) but was not significantly different than the score on the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS, 1994-98).  Metrics, including those mentioned herein, have sought to quantify gaps in achievement.  However, perhaps it is time to examine the qualitative experiences found in diverse opportunities.

            The reality that problems exist for families regardless of their Socioeconomic status (SES) is indisputable.  However, the following may be helpful for understanding the real-life differences and opportunities provided for middle and upper SES students compared to lower SES students:

A study by UNICEF (2007) of the twenty-one richest nations in the world found the United States ranked last in almost every indicator of children’s well-being.  The United States had more children living in poverty (22%), had the worst record in child health and safety services, had the most children living in single-parent families, and had the lowest ranking in the positive health behaviors of its children.  Another analysis of poverty in America concluded that “disproportionately large numbers of American children remain poor” with 38% of children under 18 living in low-income families (Education Commission of the States, 2007).  Furthermore, the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States is widening.  Between 1979 and 2004, the after-tax income of the top 1% of the population nearly tripled, rising from $314,000 to nearly $868,000, for a total increase of $554,000 or 176% (with figures adjusted for inflation by using 2004 dollars throughout the analysis).  During that same timeframe, the average after-tax income of the middle fifth of the population rose a relatively modest 21%, or $8,500, reaching $48,400 in 2004.  Meanwhile, the average after-tax income of the poorest fifth of the population rose just 6%, or $800, during the past 25 years, reaching $14,700 in 2004 (Sherman & Aron-Dine, 2007).  Tax cuts enacted by the Bush administration in 2001 made the gap even more pronounced.  As a result of that legislation, in 2006, households in the bottom fifth of the income spectrum received tax cuts that averaged $20 and raised their after-tax incomes by an average of 0.3%, while households in the middle fifth of the income spectrum received tax cuts that averaged $740 and raised their after-tax incomes an average of 2.5%.  The top 1% of households, however, received tax cuts in 2006 that averaged $44,200 and increased their after-tax income by an average of 5.4% (Leiserson & Rohaly, 2006).  As one analysis concluded, “Income is now more concentrated at the top of the income spectrum than in all but two years since the mid-1930s” (Sherman & Aron-Dine, 2007).  From the liberal perspective, closing the student achievement gap required closing this cavernous and still growing gap between the poor and the middle class.  The disparity in achievement and academic potential between poor and middle-class students begins prior to children entering school and is only exacerbated during the school years (Lee & Burkham, 2002; Schemo, 2006; Steinberg, 1996; Rothstein, 2004).  Children of the poor are far more likely to attend lower-quality schools with substandard facilities, fewer resources, and less qualified teachers than their middle-class peers.  They return to homes and neighborhoods that are less likely to support student learning or communicate that learning is important (DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker, 2008, pp.49-50).  

The progressive perspective of this data is the problem does not originate in the schools but are societal conditions.  However, a social justice mindset recognizes social conditions creating an opportunity gap are leading indicators in education and must therefore, be addressed if we ever want to truly mitigate the trailing indicator known as the achievement gap.  Mehlinger (1995) posits, “If America’s poor children could be provided the same conditions for growing up, including the same quality of schools, as those afforded to middle-class suburban youth, we would have no crisis (in education) at all” (p. 27).  Otherwise, the following describes what has been the result of the opportunity gap leading to a discrepancy in achievement:

A chilling editorial in U.S. News & World Report (Zuckerman, 2006, 2015) warned that education and family background are replacing race and gender as barriers to upward mobility.  Throughout most of the 20^th century, young boys and girls could choose to drop out of school and would still have access to the middle class.  That possibility is increasingly remote in contemporary America.  Today a school dropout earns only 65 cents for every dollar earned by the high school graduate and only 33 cents for each dollar earned by those with a bachelor’s degree (United States Census Bureau, 2006a).  Those with an undergraduate degree are most likely to move up from the income bracket in which they started, but a student from the top income quartile has a 1 in 2 chance of earning a degree, while the chances of a student from the bottom quartile earning a bachelor’s degree are less than 1 in 10.  A child in a family earning under $35,000 has a 1 in 17 chance (Brooks, 2006).  The American dream is receding from reach for many of our children.  Education opens not only economic doors, but other doors as well (DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker, 2008, pp.60-61).

Readers are encouraged to reflect upon the life opportunities provided to them.  How did your family rank on the statistical continuum related to SES as noted above?  Regardless of your high school successes, if you were a child in a family earning under $35,000 would you have been able to attend a college requesting $30K-$40K per year for annual tuition? 

This is why the seven correlates of Effective Schools Research (Lezotte & Snyder, 2011) address leading indicators of learning.  Schools interdependently implementing Effective Schools Research optimize the mission of learning for all regardless of SES factors.  We all desire to make a difference for our future students.  Collaborative leadership reminds us of a sound mission, provides a clear vision for growth, requires our professional integrity and competency, and details an action plan for sustained success, thereby optimizing opportunities to change students’ destinies! 

            The most effective way to mitigate the adverse impact of a lack of opportunity is to ensure public school are culturally responsive, capable of emotional nurturance, AND highly qualified to deliver the curricula.  The first two leading indicators address essential basic needs: love and belonging.  Maslow (1959) initially referred to basic needs as “deficiency needs” that must be satisfied BEFORE growth can occur (p.125).  The latter competency addresses the need for effective differentiation and Response for (Reading) Intervention.  The results of children failure in early childhood education includes:

• Dropping out in later years at 3-4 times greater rates is correlated with children who have not developed some basic literacy skills by the time they enter school (National Adult Literacy Survey, (2001) NCES, U.S. Department of Education). 
• More than 20 percent of adults read at or below a fifth-grade level.  This is far below the level needed to earn a living wage (National Institute for Literacy, Fast Facts on Literacy, 2001).
• Approximately 50 percent of the nation's unemployed youth, age 16-21, are functional illiterate.  Given this they have virtually no prospects of obtaining good jobs  (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services).
• Illiteracy is a variable in 75% of those on welfare, 85% of unwed mothers and 68% of those arrested are illiterate.  About 60% of America's prison inmates are illiterate (Washington Literacy Council).
• Illiteracy and crime are closely related. The Department of Justice states,  "The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure."  Over 70% of inmates in America's prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level.

         The Parent Nurture Science Program of Columbia University seeks to identify research-based strategies for effective parent nurturing.  Respective of the opportunity gap related to poverty and single parent households, this program should generalize to teachers that must renew the educational axiom: In Loco Parentis.  To promote the common good, a culturally responsive teacher capable of emotional nurturance willingly acts in place of a parent.

            Lastly, the link between reading failure in the early elementary grades and failure in society is profound.  Sixty-six percent (66%) of students who cannot proficiently read by the end of 4^th grade will become involved in jail or on welfare.  More than five million U.S. children (7%) had a parent who lived with them go to jail or prison.  This proportion is higher among black, poor, and rural children.  This creates a cycle that only a social justice mindset can begin to mitigate.  Therefore,  next month’s blog post will address the school failure to prison pipeline.    

    

To cite:

Anderson, C.J. (May 31, 2016) A social justice must become a leading indicator for closing the

               opportunity gap [Web log post] Retrieved from http://www.ucan-cja.blogspot.com/

References:

DuFour, R., DuFour, R., & Eaker, R. (2008). Revisiting professional learning communities at

               work: New insights for improving schools. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Lezotte, L. W., & Snyder, K. M. (2011). What effective schools do: Re-envisioning the

               correlates. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Marzano, R. & Waters, T.(2009).  District leadership that works. Bloomington, IN: Solution

               Tree Press

Reason, C. (2010). Leading a learning organization: The science of working with others.

               Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.