RtI as a Model for Reading
Improvement:
A Focus on Students
Learning English
Rollanda O’Connor
University of California at Riverside
A “Fact” that began a model:
Phonemic awareness is more strongly
associated with reading achievement
at the end of first grade than IQ,
vocabulary, or SES of the family.
 Share,
Jorm, et al (1984; 1986)
 Juel (1988)
 O’Connor & Jenkins (1999)
2
The Conundrum
Becoming “phonemically aware” is most
useful prior to Grade 2
 Most students with LD in reading (RD) aren’t
identified until after Grade 2

Does phonemic awareness predict
RD?
Yes
 But PA “catches” 20-40% of a kindergarten
population

Notions of Catch and Release
A nimble instructional model that includes
instruction AND learning
 Catch & Release (Jenkins & O’Connor, 2002)

 Consider
early intervention interfaced with
measurement of progress
 Keep intervention flexible to release children
mistakenly caught in the RD net
5
RTI = A General Education Plan

Practitioners deliver good instruction
 Screen
students for reading difficulty
 Identify students who perform poorly
 Problem solve:




6
What is the problem?
What do we do about it?
What we do about it = Tier 2
Are students responding to the intervention?
RTI: A Layered Model
Professional Development to improve teaching
 Measurement of children (“Gating”)
 Feedback to teachers on children’s progress
 Additional intervention for children who need
it
 Flexible movement across groups and
conditions

O’Connor (2000)
7
Which Outcomes are Important?
Silent reading comprehension by Gr 3
 Reading fluently by Gr 2
 Decoding words by the end of Gr 1
 Understanding the alphabetic principle by the
end of K

8
Linking Assessment to Instruction



Alphabetic principle:
 Segmenting sounds in short words
 Matching sounds to alphabet letters
Reading words
 Blending letter sounds
 Letter combinations
 Sight words
Fluency and comprehension
 Oral reading rate and prosody, and ???? [need better
measures of vocabulary and comprehension]
9
K-1 Studies in RTI

Small groups unrelated to general class instruction:
 Vellutino et
al., 1996; Torgesen et al., 1999; McMaster,
Fuchs et al., 2005

Small groups interfaced with general class
instruction
 K-1



10
Studies with Teachers as Tier 1:
O’Connor, 2000; 2005
Blachman et al., 2004
Simmons, Coyne, Kame’enui, 2004
K-2 Studies in RTI
Kamps & Greenwood, 2004
 Vaughn et al., 2004
 Tilly, 2003 (Iowa evaluation)
 O’Connor et al. (2011)

11
K-3 Studies in RTI
O’Connor et al., 2005
 Simmons et al., 2009
 O’Connor et al., current research

12
Areas of Agreement Across Studies
Classroom instruction must be adequate
 Use measures for catch & release
 Intervention available regardless of student
“category”

13
A Few Statistics:




30% of 4th grade native English speakers score <
Basic
71% of 4th grade ELL score < Basic (NAEP, 2007)
24% of all students in CA are ELL
20-50% of students in Riverside County schools are
ELL
Including English Language Learners
in RtI

The problem with identifying risk for RD
(Klingner et al., 2006):
 Is
it reading risk?
 Is it language risk?

Does it matter?
 Is
our RtI system nimble?
What about Students Who Are ELL?

ELL learn during small group reading
instruction in English:
 Lesaux
& Siegel (2003)
 Linan-Thompson et al. (2006)
 Lovett et al. (2008)
 Solari & Gerber (2008)
 O’Connor et al. (2010)

However--ELL responsiveness was not
analyzed in early studies of RtI
Our Current Studies of RtI for ELL

Compare response to intervention between
ELL and native English speakers in Grades K3 on:
 Overall
RtI effects on reading and language
development
 Kindergarten vs. Grade 1 start
 Identification for Tier 2 and for special education
Moving from Research to Practice

Include the entire K-3 sample
 Prior
researchers identified students in K-1 only
 Did not consider late-emerging RD (Catts et al., 2010;
2012)
 Late-emerging
(Kieffer, 2010)
RD are more prevalent among ELL
Measures for All Children: Gating
September, January, May:
 K: Segmenting, letter names, letter sounds
 Gr 1: Word identification, reading rate in
January, comprehension in May
 Gr 2-3: Word identification, rate, &
comprehension
19
Catch and Release for Tier 2
K
Fall
1st Snd
<6
Letters
<8
1
Winter Fall
2
Winter Fall
<15
<45
<8
<25
<30
NWF
<25
<50
WIF
<8
<15
Segment
Rdg Rate (wcpm)
Comprehension (SS)
<7
<35
3
Winter Fall
Winter
<60
<75
<85
<85
<85
<85
Targets for Tier 2 Intervention



Kindergarten
 Alphabetic principle
 Conversation & sentence expansion
First Grade
 Phonics and decoding words
 Conversation & restatements
Second grade
 Affixes and reading fluently
 Conversation & justifications


Why do you think that…?
Third grade
 Multisyllable words and morphemes
 Justifications and evidence in text

Show me where….
Interventions in Kindergarten





Segmenting
Blending
Letter Sounds
The alphabetic principle
[and meanings of words]
Stretched Blending
Teaching Letter Sounds





Avoid alphabetical order (Carnine et al., 1998)
Use cumulative introduction
Teach short vowels in kindergarten
Start teaching letter sounds as soon as possible
Integrate letter sounds with phonological awareness
activities (Ball & Blachman, 1991; O’Connor et al., 1995)
Ex: Segment to Spell (O’Connor et al., 2005)
a m
s
t
i
f
Interventions in First Grade




Segment to Spell (to ensure the alphabetic principle)
Phonics
High frequency words
[and meanings of words]
Patterns in the 100 Most Common Words









th: that, than, this
or: for, or, more
ch: much, [which]
wh: when, which, what
ee: see, three
al: all, call, also
ou: out, around
er: her, after
ar: are, part
Interventions in Second Grade
Common letter patterns & affixes
 Fluency
 Conversation & justifications
Why do you think that…?

Most Common Affixes
Inflected endings: -ed, -ing, -s, -es
 Prefixes

 Un-,
re-, in-, dis- account for 58% of words with
prefixes (White et al., 1989)

Suffixes
 -ly,
-er/or, -sion/tion, -ible/able, -al, -y, -ness, -less
Why Bother Building Reading Rate?


One piece of the comprehension puzzle
Minimum fluency requirements (O’Connor et al., 2007,
2009, 2010)



Silent reading is NOT effective in improving
fluency (NRP, 2000)
Building rate requires frequent, long-term practice
Improving rate improves comprehension
2 Methods of Partner Reading

Modeled reading (PALS)
 Each
student reads in 5 minute intervals
 Strongest
partner reads first
 Allows a model for the poorer reader

Sentence-by-sentence (CWPT)
 Partners
take turns reading sentence by sentence
 Reread with other student starting first
 Encourages attention and error correction
Interventions in Third Grade
Morphemes
 BEST
 Rules for combining morphemes
 Comprehension strategies
 [and meanings of words]

Morphemes

The meaningful parts of words
 Improves
decoding
 Improves with spelling
 Reinforces word meanings
Teaching Morphemes…
(The meaningful parts of words)
 “not”


“excess”


Uni, mono, bi, semi (uniform, monofilament, bicolor, semiarid)
“in the direction of”


Out, over, super (outlive, overflow, superhuman)
“number”


Un, dis, in, im (disloyal, unaware, invisible, imperfect)
Ward (skyward, northward)
“full of”

Ful (merciful, beautiful)
English/Spanish Cognates from
Morphemes
Google for lists
 Praise student use of cognates

 Adult/adulto
 Atmosphere/atmosfera
 Chimpanzee/chimpancé
 Enter/entrar
 Intelligence/inteligencia
Inter-- means between
What does inter-- mean?
 So what does interstate mean?
 What’s a word for a highway between states?
 What would interperson mean?
 So what are interpersonal skills?

BEST for Multisyllable Words




Break apart
Examine the stem
Say the parts
Try the whole thing
BEST Examples
Understandingly
 International
 Uncomfortable

Changes in 3rd Grade Reading
Oral Reading Fluency
200
150
100
50
0
After
Before
Results of Early Intervention
39
Specific Questions for ELL v. EO
Targeted vs. Packaged Tier 2 Instruction
 Kindergarten vs. 1st Grade start
 Response to intervention across 3 years

Differentiating Instruction, Gr 2-3
Differentiation between skills + fluency, and
only fluency
 Children with slow rate but high skills were
not identified for SpEd by the end of Gr 3

 Rate
is less important for predicting RD for ELL
 Consider skills with and without speeded tasks
41
The cost of waiting…
English Only and ELL Outcomes Over Time
by Kindergarten Risk Status and K vs. 1st Grade Intervention
70.00
ELL Kindergarten At
Risk and Treated as
K's
Correct units per minute
60.00
50.00
EO Kindergarten At
Risk and Treated as
K's
40.00
ELL Kindergarten At
Risk and Treated
Initially in First Grade
30.00
20.00
EO Kindergarten At
Risk and Treated
Initially in First Grade
10.00
1st grade Fall
NWF
1st grade Spring
ORF
2nd grade Fall
ORF
2nd grade Spring
ORF
Kindergarten vs. First Grade Initial
Treatment… the cost of waiting
Gr 2 RtI vs. Historical Control
Same 5 schools
 Same teachers
 Same reading curriculum

Grade 2 Outcomes (ELL + EO at risk)
Gr 2 ORF Gr 2 ORF
Fall
Spr
RtI
Control
31.99
24.59
63.19
53.54
WRMT
GORT-4
101.42
93.59
87.4
70.1
ELL vs. EO Outcomes in Grade 2
ELL at Risk
ELL No
Risk
Rdg Rate
K Start
63.8
Gr 1 Start
60.5
Control
49.6
WRMT
Compre.
GORT-4
101.4
99.0
88.5
98.1
97.4
86.4
93.7
92.7
68.6
100.7
109.1
104.9
Year 3 Outcomes: Timing of Special Ed.
Identification by Initial Treatment
K Start
1st Grade
Start
Total
1
1
4
0
6
0
3
4
3
10
1
4
8
3
16
Grade
First
Second
Third
Fourth
Total
Conclusions
Students strong in K-1 were identified in later
grades [with a higher % of ELL identified late]
 Including ELL in RtI reduced risk
 Including ELL improved comprehension
