Reading Instruction, Curriculum and
Coaching Panel
Moderated by Pennye Thurmond
Director of Administrator Evaluations
Tennessee Department of Education
Welcome to our Panelists
• Tony Dalton, Ed.D.
Instructional Coach,
Hamblen County Schools
• Caresa Brooks
Coordinator, Reading and Instructional Interventions,
Murfreesboro City Schools
• Jennifer Jordan, Ed.S.
School Psychologist,
Lauderdale County Schools
Today our panelists will be discussing the
following three questions:
• What are the key elements principals and teachers
need to hear to improve core reading instruction?
• How do you identify gaps in skill and understanding
for your students?
• How can intervention be structured to provide
meaningful, targeted instruction for all students?
What are the key elements
principals and teachers need to hear
to improve core reading instruction?
Tony Dalton
Instructional Coach,
Hamblen County Schools
Improving Our School’s Core
Reading Instruction
Tony Dalton
PreK-1st District Instructional Coach
Hamblen County
Scientifically Based Reading and
Intervention Programs
 Reading Components (Phonics, Phonemic
Awareness, Vocabulary, Fluency,
Comprehension, and Writing) each day
 Scope and Sequence for consistency and to
ensure all skills/standards are addressed
 Differentiated Instruction/Materials to meet
the need of all students
 Grade level and High Expectations for all
 Technology-based reinforcement
 RTI2 with Fidelity
Effective Scheduling
• Efficient, but flexible use of staff,
resources, and time
• Prioritize responsibilities, skills, and
strengths
across staff
• Common Planning for teachers
• 90-120 minutes of Reading/Language Arts
each day
• Emphasis on small-group differentiated
instruction. Tier I implemented correctly!
Professional Development
• On-going/follow-up training for all staff
members on current, research-based, best
practices and intervention
• Regular monthly staff meetings/training
• Empower teachers to lead PD
Parental Involvement
• Ongoing Communication
• Flexible and Accommodating time for
parent meetings/training
• Encourage assistance at home and offer
support
• Involve them by keeping them informed
Data Analysis
• Valid and reliable assessments/screener
• Ongoing data management,
disaggregation, and utilization
• Grade-level meetings/PLC to analyze data
and make instructional decisions
Strong Leadership – Strong Vision
• Recognize and identify staff needs
• Establish reading instruction as a priority
• Constant support and encouragement
How do you identify gaps in skill and
understanding for your students?
Caresa Brooks
Coordinator, Reading and Instructional
Interventions,
Murfreesboro City Schools
The Reading Rope
SKILLED READING:
Language Comprehension
● Background Knowledge
● Vocabulary Knowledge
● Language Structures
● Verbal Reasoning
● Literacy Knowledge
fluent execution and coordination of word
recognition and text comprehension.
Increasingly strategic
Word Recognition
● Phonological Awareness
● Decoding (and Spelling)
● Sight Recognition
Increasingly automatic
Reading is a multifaceted skill, gradually acquired over years of instruction and practice
Areas of Deficit
Reading
• Basic Reading
– Phonological Awareness
– Decoding skills (and spelling)
– Sight word recognition
• Reading Fluency
– Retrieval speed
– Reading quickly, correctly, and with expression
• Reading Comprehension
–
–
–
–
–
Background Knowledge
Vocabulary Knowledge
Language Structures
Verbal Reasoning
Literacy Knowledge
Identifying Skill Deficits
• Benchmark Testing
– Red Flag that something is wrong
– Much like a thermometer; a fever indicates something is
wrong….but what???? Have to go deeper
• Skills Assessment
– Identify deficit then assess that skill for instruction
Example
• 3rd grade student flags in reading CBM (fluency
measure) at the 8th percentile
– Questions to ask:
• Is the fluency deficit due to a Basic Reading Deficit?
– If you don’t ask this question, you could provide intervention for a
fluency deficit and never address the underlying deficit
• How far below the standard is the student?
• What skills must be remediated to help the student reach the
standard?
– INTERVENTION
Example (cont’d)
• 3rd grade student
– RTI team feels the student has deficit Basic Reading
Skills
– Administer a test of phonological processing and basic
decoding and sight word recognition
• This student is found to have deficits in phonemic
segmentation, confusing short and long vowel
patterns (reading and spelling), and poor retrieval
speed
Example (cont’d)
Standard for third grade
• Know and apply gradelevel phonics and word
analysis skills in decoding
words.
– Prefixes and suffixes
– Multisyllable words
– Read irregularly spelled
words
SKILL DEFICIT (to reach this
standard)
• Phonemic Segmentation
• Read and spell short vowel
sounds
• Read common sight words
in first and second grade
Intervention
• Intervention should be focused to remediate these
skill deficits!!
• This is how students will access the standard
Caresa Brooks
Murfreesboro City Schools
Caresa.brooks@cityschools.net
How can intervention be structured
to provide meaningful, targeted
instruction for all students?
Jennifer Jordan, Ed.S.
School Psychologist,
Lauderdale County Schools
How can intervention be structured to
provide meaningful, targeted instruction
for all students.
Jennifer Jordan
Lauderdale County Schools
• [Intervention] is first and foremost, instruction
focused on individual needs. It is carefully
planned. It is intensive, urgent, relentless and
goal directed. It is empirically supported
practice, drawn from research.” (Zigmond,
1997, p.385).
Zigmond, N. (1997). Educating students with disabilities: The future
of special education. In J.W. Lloyd, E.J. Kameenui, & D. Chard
(Eds.). (1997). Issues in educating with disabilities. New Jersey:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Instruction and Intervention Matter!
• There is a convergence of research studies that show all
but 2-5 percent of children can master basic reading skills
in the early grades. (Mathes et al, 2005).
• In addition, interventions that are intensive, explicit, and
long-term will close grade level gaps for older students
(Torgensen, Alexander, et al 2001).
Mates, P. G., Denton, C. A., Fletcher, J. M., Anthony, J. L., Francis, D. J., & Schatschneider, C.
(2005). The effects of theoretically different instruction and student characteristics on skills
of struggling readers. Reading Research Quarterly, 40, 148-182.
Torgesen, J. K., Alexander, A. W., Wagner, R. K., Rashotte, C. A., Voeller, K. S., & Conway T.
(2001). Intensive remedial instruction for children with severe reading disabilities:
Immediate and long-term outcomes from two instructional approaches. Journal of Learning
Disabilities, 34, 33-58.
Why Students Struggle ….
• Studies find that there are three broad reasons
students have difficulty reading:
– problems with the alphabetic principal that lead to deficits
in fluent and accurate reading skills
– failure to acquire verbal knowledge and reading strategies
that are necessary for comprehension
– motivational issues due to continued reading struggles
(Perfetti, 2011; Torgesen, 2006)
Perfetti, C. A. (2011). Phonology is critical in reading: But a phonological deficit is not the
only source of low reading skill. In S. A. Brady, D. Braze, & C. A. Fowler (Eds.), Explaining
individual differences in reading: Theory and evidence (pp. 153-171). New York, NY: Taylor
& Francis Group.
Torgesen, J. K., (2006). Recent discoveries from research on remedial intervention for
children with dyslexia. In M. Snowling and C. Hulme (Eds.). The Science of Reading: A
Handbook. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Simple View of Reading
DECODING
Word Recognition
LANGUAGE
COMPREHENSION
READING COMPREHENSION
FLUENCY
Language
Comprehension
Phonological and
Phonemic Awareness
Text Comprehension
Phonics
Torgesen, 2006
K – 5 Reading
Tier 2 Intervention
Program
Specialized, scientifically-based reading intervention program
and/or research-based strategies.
Setting
General Education Classroom
Interventionist
General Education Teacher
Grouping
Homogeneous small-group instruction
(1:6 or less)
Time
Minimum of 30 minutes per day
Assessment
Progress monitoring twice a month on targeted skill at
students’ instructional levels to ensure adequate progress and
learning.
K-5 Reading
Tier 3
Program
Sustained, intensive scientifically-based reading program
emphasizing the five critical elements of beginning reading.
Setting
Appropriate setting determine by school (usually pullout setting)
Interventionist
Personnel determined by school to provide intensive
interventions
Grouping
Homogeneous small-group instruction
(1:5 or less)
Time
Minimum of 30 minutes per day (above Tier 1 and Tier 2)
Assessment
Progress monitoring weekly on targeted skill at students’
instructional levels to ensure adequate progress and learning.
High School Literacy Intervention Plan
• Reading Lab
– All 9th grade students who reading between the 2nd and 8th grade
are assigned to the Reading Lab.
• Students are served in the Reading Lab for 85 minutes daily for 18 weeks.
• The instruction is provided by one certified teacher and one
paraprofessional (approximately a 1:15 ratio)
• A research-based reading program (Cambium Learning Voyager) is used
in the Reading Lab.
• Progress Monitoring is conduced three times during the intervention
period.
– 10th grade students are in a Literacy Circle 30 minutes per day
during interdisciplinary studies to encourage out of school
reading.