I believe that reading is possible for all students, but that some may struggle more than others either due to lack of proper instruction, or a congenital reading disability. Regardless of the cause, with early intervention, I believe all children can learn effective reading strategies and be able to read as well as their peers.
Current Response to Intervention theories use class- or grade-wide progress monitoring throughout the school year to evaluate which students are falling behind (Brown-Chidsey & Steege, 2010). Programs like mClass are used often in Indiana to monitor student progress in reading with beginning, middle, and end of year assessments. These assessments, depending on the grade, target letter knowledge, nonsense word fluency, beginning and ending sounds, and general word fluency skills. The RTI process therefore works with students who struggle with the basic skills of reading. Ideally, interventions are targeted for each student, based on his or her need as evidenced by progress monitoring scores.
Based on need, individual interventions can be increased to small-group settings. For example, if there are many kindergarteners having difficulty with their letter sounds, a small-group intervention may be more useful in getting the most effective results. Such an intervention would be able to reach more students to improve reading levels (Wagner et al., 2006; Simmons et al., 2007). The most accurate way to see what kind of reading difficulty the student has is to do a comprehensive psychoeducational assessment. However, that is not feasible in most cases, unless the student has already been falling behind in class and interventions are not working (Savage & Carless, 2005).
Based on this philosophy, the aim of this blog is to provide teachers with resources and evidence-based interventions for students with varying reading difficulties. The interventions will also range from individual, small-group, and whole-class instruction.
Current Response to Intervention theories use class- or grade-wide progress monitoring throughout the school year to evaluate which students are falling behind (Brown-Chidsey & Steege, 2010). Programs like mClass are used often in Indiana to monitor student progress in reading with beginning, middle, and end of year assessments. These assessments, depending on the grade, target letter knowledge, nonsense word fluency, beginning and ending sounds, and general word fluency skills. The RTI process therefore works with students who struggle with the basic skills of reading. Ideally, interventions are targeted for each student, based on his or her need as evidenced by progress monitoring scores.
Based on need, individual interventions can be increased to small-group settings. For example, if there are many kindergarteners having difficulty with their letter sounds, a small-group intervention may be more useful in getting the most effective results. Such an intervention would be able to reach more students to improve reading levels (Wagner et al., 2006; Simmons et al., 2007). The most accurate way to see what kind of reading difficulty the student has is to do a comprehensive psychoeducational assessment. However, that is not feasible in most cases, unless the student has already been falling behind in class and interventions are not working (Savage & Carless, 2005).
Based on this philosophy, the aim of this blog is to provide teachers with resources and evidence-based interventions for students with varying reading difficulties. The interventions will also range from individual, small-group, and whole-class instruction.
References
Brown-Chidsey, R. & M.W. Steege. (2010). Response to intervention: Principles and strategies for effective practice (2nd ed.). Guilford: New York.
Savage, R. & Carless, S. (2005). Learning support assistants can deliver effective reading interventions for 'at-risk' children. Educational Research, 47(1), 45-61.
Simmons, D.C., Kame'enui, E.J., Harn, B. ... & Kaufman, N. (2007). Attributes of effective and efficient kindergarten reading interventions: An examination of instructional time and design specificity. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 40(4), 331-347.
Wagner, D., McComas, J.J., Bollman, K., & Holton, E. (2006). The use of functional reading analysis to identify effective reading interventions. Assessment for Effective Reading Interventions, 32(1), 40-49.
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