Bookshare and Response to Intervention
Kristina King Cohen
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the Bookshare and RTI
Webinar. My name is Kristina King Cohen and I'm a Senior Education Program
Manager With Bookshare. I just wanted to cover a couple of housekeeping items before
we get into the main content. If you experience any technical difficulties, feel free to
contact ReadyTalk at 1-800-843-9166 or you can email them at help@readytalk.com.
Now throughout the webinar, you can put in your questions via the chat box. We will
have plenty of time at the end of the webinar to answer your questions. At the conclusion
of the webinar we will send out a recording and slides from today's presentation. So,
again, I appreciate you all joining us for today's webinar. And without further ado, I will
hand it over to Kristen Ruedel She's with the American Institute For Research. And she's
going to introduce today's topic and speakers. Kristen—
Kristin Ruedel
Thanks, Christina. Good morning. We're here today to talk about Response To
Intervention and using Bookshare as a way to instruct under the Response To
Intervention framework. We have Dr. Stephanie Jackson and Dr. Tracy Gray with us,
both from the American Institutes For Research and experts in the field of Response To
Intervention and Educational Technology. Tracy, I will go ahead and turn it over to you.
Dr. Tracy Gray
Thanks so much, Kristen. And we are here on the east coast, so I'm going to say, good
afternoon to everyone who's on this side of the Rocky Mountains. As Kristen noted, I'm
here with my colleague, Stephanie Jackson. We're here in Washington D.C. from the
American Institutes For Research. And we're delighted to have the opportunity to talk
with you today about a very important topic, Response To Intervention, and how the
Bookshare tools support the implementation of RTI.
During our discussion today we're going to be talking about how Bookshare, actually,
supports the RTI framework and we're going to give you just a quick overview, a
snapshot if you will, of how this powerful Bookshare tool can be used to support reading
instruction for students with disabilities. So let's get started. On to the next slide. And as
we're moving to that slide I just want to emphasize that we want to hear from you.
If you have any questions or issues that you'd like to contribute, please be sure to put
those questions and responses in the box where it says, Chat. And we will, actually, stop
and take time to answer your questions. But if we don't get a chance to answer them
during this webinar, we will be sure to get back to you. And we're also being supported
by our colleague, Jillian Reynolds, (SP?) who's in the middle of the country. And she'll
be tracking your questions and issues. So please be sure to share them with us.
So let's look at what Bookshare offers. It's a wide range of free, and we want to
emphasize that, digital curriculum materials for individuals. And we're probably, today,
talking about students with print disabilities. These students and these materials that
support these students are really very flexible and easy to modify. And they provide
students with multiple means of assessing content. They're also compatible with a wide
range of assistive technologies to ensure access for these students.
Moving on, students who are eligible to use Bookshare have a documented severe
learning or reading disability, who struggle to obtain information from printed materials
using standard, print-based instructional materials. In addition, they have documented
evidence that they continue to struggle to access print materials, despite high-quality
instruction and interventions. Now who are the students who aren't eligible? And again,
this eligibility is, actually, taken from the legislation that was drafted several years ago in
regard to accessible materials.
So who are the students who aren't eligible? Those students receiving initial instruction
in reading, English-language learners who do not have a print-based disability, students
who may be struggling because they have not been exposed to quality instruction, and
finally students who just like to hear books being read to them rather than reading them.
So that you can see that we've got some pretty clear eligibility criteria for who can have
access to these materials. Now these individual students may be students who are blind
or have low visibility, have a physical disability, in which they are unable to hold a book
or turn pages, or they have, again, a documented learning or reading disability.
And we do hope that after we go through our presentations, that this will help clarify
some of the misconceptions that are related to eligibility of students with learning and
reading disability. So I'm going to now turn the podium over to my colleague, Stephanie
Jackson, who's going to be talking about RTI and Response To Intervention and who will
provide you with an overview of what this approach, actually, looks like. Stephanie, take
it away.
Dr. Stephanie Jackson
Thank you, Tracy. I'm going to give a very brief overview of RTI. I mean, there's a lot
more information that you could get about RTI. And if you'd like to get that at the end of
the presentation there will be a site that is available where you can find a lot more very
valuable information about Response To Intervention. As this slide states, Response To
Intervention is an evidence-based approach. It is a framework for providing
comprehensive support to students and it is not an instructional practice.
I know, a lot of times, you hear people talking about a program of Response To
Intervention. RTI is not a program. It is a prevention-oriented approach to linking
assessment and instruction that can inform educators' decisions about how to best teach
their students. A goal of RTI is to minimize the risk for long-term negative learning
outcomes by responding quickly and efficiently to documented learning or behavioral
problems and ensuring appropriate identification of students with disabilities.
Dr. Stephanie Jackson
With RTI, schools identify students at risk for poor learning outcomes, monitor student
progress, provide evidence-based interventions, and adjust the intensity and nature of
those interventions based on a student's responsiveness. Next slide. There are four basic
components of RTI. Screening, progress monitoring, school-wide, multi-level
prevention—that's the overall system. And they—most places have three levels—the
Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Level.
And we'll give you lots more information about those and data-based decision making for
instruction. Evaluating effectiveness—and that can be evaluating effectiveness of your
instructional programs at the school level, evaluating effectiveness of your instructional
program for the students also. Moving within the multi-level system and disability
identification. And we're gonna talk a lot more about those as we move through the
slides.
How RTI work? This graphic represents the relationship among the essential
components of RTI. And, as you see, data-based decision making is the essence of good
RTI practice and that’s why it's in the middle of the graphic. It is essential for the other
three components—screening, progress monitoring, and multi-level instruction. All
components must be implemented using culturally-responsiveness and evidence-based
practices. If the other three components are in place, but data-based decision making is
absent, then RTI is, technically, not being implemented.
Next slide. Screening. The purpose of screening is to identify students who are at risk
for poor learning outcomes. And this is when a school really focuses on all students.
And these are brief assessments that are valid, reliable, and demonstrate diagnostic
accuracy for predicting learning or behavioral problems. And usually these are
administered at the beginning of the year. It's a rigorous prevention system for providing
early identification of learning and behavioral challenges and timely intervention for
students who are at risk for long-term learning problems. Usually, schools will do this at
the beginning of the year, in the winter, and at the spring. Next slide.
Progress monitoring—once schools identify students through screening and they start
working with students more individually in some small groups and start providing some,
sort of, intervention, they have to monitor their progress. So progress monitoring is used
to assess students' performance over time. And they want to quantify student rates of
improvement or responsiveness to instruction, to evaluate instructional effectiveness.
And for students who are least responsive to effective instruction, to formulate effective
individualized programs.
Students—we focus on students identified as at risk for poor learning outcomes and when
we're monitoring progress we use brief assessments that are valid, reliable, and evidencebased. And they should be assessed at regular intervals—weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly.
Next slide.
The multi-level prevention system—I'm sure many of you have seen this triangle. The
Primary Level Of Prevention—this is your core instructional program. And 80 percent of
your students, hopefully, are at this level. This is the instruction delivered to all students
using research-based curricula and differentiation in the general educational curriculum.
And incorporates universal screening, continuous progress monitoring, and outcome
measures or summative assessments.
This is where you would do your screening to identify students who might need a little bit
more help. And those are the students who might get the Secondary Level Of Prevention.
That's where you get targeted, supplemental instruction delivered to small groups of
students identified through screening as at risk for poor learning outcomes. Usually in
the general education classroom or in a general education location within the school.
And this is where we start using our progress monitoring assessments.
And in most schools it should not be more than about 15 percent of students. When we
get to Tertiary or Level Three, that's delivered to small groups or individually to students
who have not responded to secondary or targeted prevention. And this also can happen in
the general education classroom or in the special education classroom, depending on the
student's identification class status. In some places, Tertiary means you've been
identified as a student with disabilities. In other places, that's not the case. Again, you
use progress monitoring tools for diagnostic purposes to determine progress. Next slide.
Within all of these levels, of course, you would want to change the intensity and the
nature of instruction. And there are five ways that you could do that. You could change
the intervention, the duration, the frequency, the intervention, and the group size. The
progress monitoring data are used to determine when a student has or has not responded
to instruction at any level of the prevention system. So you can increase the intensity of
the intervention or you can change the intervention completely.
You can lengthen the time of the instruction. You can increase the frequency of the
instructional sessions or you can reduce the size of the instructional group or just the
level of the instruction. You can—the intensity can be increased by providing the
intervention support from a teacher with more experience and skill in teaching students
with learning or behavioral difficulties. So rather than using a paraprofessional, you
might use a reading specialist or a special educator.
So those are some of the ways that we can change the intensity or the nature of
instruction. And that can happen at any particular level. It could be at the Core Level,
the Secondary Level, or at the Tertiary Level. Next slide. So Bookshare supports
instruction across these tiers. And I'm gonna let Tracy talk about some of that now.
DR. TRACY GRAY
Great. Thanks so much, Stephanie. So we've seen the triangle here. And I think you
have a sense of the three different levels that RTI addresses. From the first tier to the
intensive intervention, Tier 3, with the secondary prevention level being Tier 2. Just to
recap, as Stephanie noted, the Tier 1, the green tier, that's the primary tier or Tier 1. And
it focuses on the core instruction and curriculum. Moving up the tier to the yellow we
have the secondary prevention or Tier 2 using evidence-based interventions provided to
the student in addition to what they're getting in the primary level and supporting the
targeted needs that have been identified for each of the individual students.
And then moving up to Tier 3, the red tier, where we're providing much more
individualized and intensive types of interventions that really speak to the specific needs
of the particular students. We're going to take some time now to look at the Bookshare
features and how they can be used across the tiers. But before I move on to the next
slide, I see that we've got a great question here from Jennifer. And her question has to do
with RTI students and 504 students, those students who can't download from NIMAC,
which is the national accessible materials center.
And Jennifer wants to know, what do we have to do to allow these students to have
access to the NIMAC? That's really a great question and it's one that we hear often from
individuals around the country. The challenge is that oftentimes each of the states have
their own regulations about allowing students to get access to those materials. And I
would strongly suggest that you reach out to the center that runs the NIMAC, which is
CAST. And you can reach out to them at cast.org and explain the specific situation.
They can really guide you through insuring that students have access to the NIMAC.
Also as it will become clear, many of the Bookshare tools can provide the types of
materials that students who fit into the category under 504 will find helpful. And I see
we've got a question here from Felicia. Can special educations also be an RTI provider?
I'm going to turn to Stephanie, our RTI expert on that. But we probably need a little bit
more information. Anyone can be an RTI provider. As Stephanie noted, it's an approach
that's used by teachers. So I'm just gonna look to Stephanie to see if she might be able to
unpack that question.
Dr. Stephanie Jackson
Well if a student is identified as a student with a disability, a special educator can be
providing the interventions. And many times at Tier 3, that is the person who is
providing the additional support. So yes, a special educator, many times, is the person
responsible for the additional interventions that might be provided.
Dr. Tracy Gray
Felicia, let us know if that didn't answer your question and we will return to it. So why
don't we move on to the next slide. And what we have here is an examination of how
Bookshare can support the different levels of intervention. Starting at the primary, Tier
1, and moving on to the secondary, Tier 2. Bookshare provides support for students to
ensure that they have access to the core curriculums or that these supports can be
incorporated into the interventions being delivered at the secondary level or the Tier 2
Level.
One of the key elements to consider is that the Bookshare tools and services are directly
aligned with Universal Design For Learning or the UDL Principle, by providing multiple
means of representation. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the UDL principles.
They, basically, provide a very sound and well-recognized blueprint for creating
instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for all students that
really focus on insuring that these different educational assessments and tools are directly
aligned to meet the specific needs and abilities of the students.
It's, in fact, a way to address the notion that not one single service—there is no one-sizefits-all solution. But it provides the types of tools necessary to take a specific curriculum,
to take a set of curricular materials, and it modifies them to meet the individual needs of
students. The features offered by Bookshare fall under the category of providing multiple
means of representation for students. They really provide a UDL checkpoint, if you will,
for offering alternatives to visual information.
So why don't we move along here so that we can see what this actually looks like. When
we move to Tier 3 on the next slide, what you're going to see is that Bookshare is
particularly relevant and helpful for students with intensive needs who have severe and
persistent academic or behavioral problems, those students who are not making adequate
progress in their current instructional program, those students who present with very low
academic achievements, and or have high-intensity or high-frequency behavior that's
hindering their ability to achieve in the classroom. And those students who have not
responded to secondary intervention programs that have been delivered with fidelity.
And, of course, the notion of delivering those interventions with fidelity is a key
component of the RTI approach, ensuring that, in fact, programs, not only have the
principles of addressing high-quality programs, but actually are being implemented using
those principles to ensure that they understand the needs of the individual students and
that the program and the interventions align with those needs.
So let's move on to supporting the development of fundamental reading skills. What we
wanted to do here was to take a few minutes to look at the different types of reading skills
that we're all familiar with and to provide you with just an overview of two different
ways that Bookshare can support the teaching of these fundamental reading skills. So
why don't we look at the five components of reading instruction. We have, again, a
multicultural, multi-colored pyramid of color. And these represent the five components
of reading instruction.
Moving from the bottom up, we have phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary,
and comprehension. These five essential components of effective reading instruction will
identify and have been corroborated over the years since the 2000 National Reading
Panel Report was published. These essential components are recognized as the
fundamental building blocks of teaching students the very basics of learning how to read.
What we're going to be doing now is focusing on two of these components to show how
Bookshare can support your students. So why don't we move on to that section. And
we're going to be looking at phonemic awareness and phonics instruction. What you see
here is a screenshot. And we apologize if it's a little difficult to discern. But we hope
that this will be a way to tickle your interest and to excite you to go to the Bookshare
website and to see the different types of functionality that's available through the
Bookshare tool.
Dr. Tracy Gray
So if you look at this issue of phonemic and phonic instruction, as you know phonemic
awareness is the knowledge that a student has that words are made up of individual
sounds. Phonics is the relationship between a specific letter and it's sound in a written
word. Phonetic principles are used to decode words, to read them aloud, and to encode
words—to write them down. Students can select individual words or portions of text to
be read out loud using the Bookshare tool.
And you can see there that a student can, actually, highlight the texts that they want and
the Bookshare tool will, actually, read the text aloud to them. This allows a student to
focus on the phonemes that make up specific words as they are spoken aloud. So you can
just imagine, if you haven't had the opportunity to use the Bookshare tool, how this can
support students, particularly those who are in Tier 2 and Tier 3 and give them the
opportunity to better understand what the teacher has been saying to them over and over
again about phonemic and phonic awareness.
They can spend time reviewing by themselves or being supported by a teacher or a
teacher aide. Hearing that word that they didn't get, hearing it repeated to them, and
being able to connect the written word with the sounds of those words. Let's move on to
the next component of reading.
And here we're focusing on fluency instruction. And, again, getting a screenshot from
the Bookshare tool. And how Bookshare supports students who are having difficulty
understanding the actual text that's written. And to become fluent in reading. The readaloud function in Bookshare allows the student to, actually, adjust the pace of the
reading. So depending upon where they are on the continuum of learning these skills or
as they enhance their fluency ability, they can speed up what's being read to them on
Bookshare.
They can adjust the pace of the read-out-loud feature based on their respective needs.
And also, it allows the teacher to really have a formative assessment, if you will, of how
the student's doing from day-to-day or from week-to-week. And it also provides that,
kind of, support that we know is so critical for our struggling readers, where they can,
actually, see their progress. They can see that they're able to attain a higher level of
fluency as they're going along. So I'm going to just stop here for a minute and read
Katharine Daily's (SP?) questions.
You can see it there in the left-hand corner. And she's writing, if I'm understanding
correctly, students can access Bookshare if they are at the Tier 2 Level of intervention
and don't have a formal special-ed eligibility yet. Katharine, that's a great question and
it's one of those questions that I'm glad it's written in gray, because it actually is in—it's
one of those gray areas. The student—going back to what we talked about in terms of the
eligibility criteria, it's, sort of, a chicken-and-egg.
If the student is already in the Tier 2 Level, one would assume that they have a formal
special-ed eligibility—that they have IEP. But my colleague, Stephanie, is shaking her
head. So I'm gonna turn that over to Stephanie, because, obviously there are many
instances where students who are falling into the Tier 2 RTI framework, but who don't
have a formal IEP or haven’t' received a formal special-ed eligibility. Stephanie—
Don’t necessarily, so therefore if they're not identified as special ed at that point of
needing special education services, would they, in fact then be eligible for Bookshare
then, is her question. But—
Dr. Tracy Gray
Yes. And I understand the question.
DR. STEPHANIE JACKSON
But they wouldn't, necessarily, be eligible for special education just because they're in
Tier 2. There are kids in Tier 3 who aren't, necessarily, in special education either. It
depends on whether they've been identified or not.
Dr. Tracy Gray
And that raises a really good question. I'm, actually, going back to our eligibility slide,
which talks about those students who are eligible and those who aren't. And if Christina,
who represents Bookshare would like to pipe in, that certainly would be helpful. But if
we go back to slide four, back to our eligibility criteria, we're talking about—the key
word here being documented. And so that's probably—and you'll see both of those
bullets. A documented severe learning or reading disability and documented evidence
that the student continues to struggle to access print despite high-quality instruction. So
I'm gonna defer to Christina, if she wants to pipe in here. Because this is really a great
question.
Kristina King Cohen
Yeah. It is a great question and an important question. It is often confusing. So when
we're talking about Bookshare eligibility, eligibility is, actually, not based on having an
IEP or 504 Plan, for example. The eligibility is based on whether or not that student has
a documented print disability. And we rely on competent authorities such as special-ed
teachers, resource specialists, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists to
make that determination. So we are not requiring you, the educator, to send us a proof of
disability or an IEP or a 504 or medical note.
You are, essentially, saying to us that, yes, we have it documented that this student has a
print disability, that they cannot access traditional print material because of a visual
impairment, severe physical disability, or severe reading disability where they cannot
access traditional print. So it's—this is, sort of, why things are gray, because we have
certain eligibility criteria that is supported by OSEP, U. S. Department Of Ed. But then
there are some policies like Tracy mentioned in different states related to IDEA—things
like that. So when we're talking about Bookshare, our eligibility is about a documented
print disability by a competent authority. So I hope that helps.
Dr. Stephanie Jackson
So it does leave some flexibility in terms of the school for identifying kids who are,
perhaps, being nonresponsive, but not have a documented disability that results in an IEP.
So they could, in fact, access Bookshare, but not have received special education
services. Is that accurate? Okay. Good.
Dr. Tracy Gray
Yeah. And this really is a great question and it's obviously one that requires educators,
those working with students, to really be mindful of what's going on. Because, as
Stephanie noted, you might have a student who should have an IEP, but doesn't. But that
wouldn't—and as Christina noted, that wouldn't necessarily exclude them from getting
access to Bookshare. This whole issue of documented, as you can see, being the first
two—in the first two bullets is the key. So it sounds like there is that flexibility within
the system to get access to Bookshare to meet that student's need.
Kristina King Cohen
Yeah, correct. And I should quickly mention that our eligibility is, actually, based on
copyright law. It's an exemption to the copyright law, called the Chafee Amendment.
And that—the Chafee Amendment, basically, states that nonprofit entities can take a print
book, chop it, scan the pages, and make it digitally available to those with print
disabilities. So I think, again, also adds to, sort of, the murkiness of it all. Is that our
eligibility is not, essentially—it's not completely based on education law. It's based on
copyright law. So that's just another (UNINTELLIGIBLE) .
Dr. Tracy Gray
And, Christina, thanks so much for clarifying that. Because that was the next thing that I
was gonna note. And that's where it can add to a bit of the ambiguity. Because, on the
one hand, it's in an educational setting. On the other, it's being driven by copyright law.
Kristina King Cohen
Correct.
Dr. Tracy Gray
So the good news is in—some might argue that given these various issues, there is some
flexibility to ensure that students get the accessible materials that they need. But it does
require vigilance on the part of those working with the students to make sure that it is
documented sufficiently, so that they can then get access to it. So than you for the great
question. And I see that Kristen Rydel is also in there responding. These were all terrific
questions and we really appreciate it. So why don't we just go—
Kristin Ruedel
Tracy—
Dr. Tracy Gray
Yes, please.
Kristin Ruedel
Before we move forward, I also wanted to note that we have a question from Gina with
regards to, what are the applications for a post-secondary education and the RTI
framework?
DR. TRACY GRAY
Thanks so much, because our chat function jumped down and we lost Gina. Not that
we'd ever want to lose you, Gina. In terms of the application for post-secondary
education, that is a great question, particularly as it relates to the U.S.. And so, Christina,
I’m gonna to turn over to you to get the update on how Bookshare—what the eligibility
criteria is for post-secondary use.
Kristina King Cohen
Right. So it's through the support of the U.S. Department Of Ed Office Of Special
Education Programs. They have funded Bookshare to provide free memberships for
qualified students of any age. So this includes students in post-secondary environments,
in adult education, and beyond. So any student that you're working with, who qualifies,
who is the post-secondary environment will qualify for Bookshare. And then in terms of
how RTI is used in that environment, in the post-secondary, you know, I'll turn that over
to Tracy and Stephanie.
But I think it is a great question. And we often get that question about, what about postsecondary students? Yes, they absolutely can use Bookshare, as long as they qualify.
Dr. Stephanie Jackson
In terms of RTI and post-secondary, we just don't hear about that at all. It is used at that
high-school level somewhat and it is used at the middle-school level. But it is, most
frequently, used at the elementary-school level now.
DR. TRACY GRAY
And that—
DR. STEPHANIE JACKSON
Most of the researchers at the K-through-12 level, at this point. And most frequently at
the elementary-school level.
Dr. Tracy Gray
And that really touches on such an interesting question, particularly as we have more
students entering the post-secondary pipeline, who have a whole variety of challenges.
Whether they actually have learning disabilities or other disabilities that were addressed
in the K-12 system or that they just are in need of remediation as a significant number—
and I don't have the data in front of me. But certainly when you talk about community
colleges, for example, if I'm not mistaken, the latest figures I saw was that approximately
80 percent of students going into community colleges need some sort of remediation in
English Language and in Math.
So if you just think about the magnitude of that number and look at what RTI offers in
terms of intensive intervention in the Tier 3, there's certainly a lot of applicability. But I
think individual schools and professors, again, particularly at community colleges are
taking many of these strategies. But I think it's fair to say, they're not referring to them at
RTI.
I don't think it's structured in the way the framework is structured.
Dr. Tracy Gray
Right.
Dr. Stephanie Jackson
I think they have remedial classes. I think they do some, sort of, screening when they get
to community college and they test kids and they say, you have to go into a remedial
class. But I don't think, beyond that, that they do progress monitoring in a structured
way, the way you would, you know, do it the way we talked about using evidence-based
practices and tools that, you know, have evidence behind them.
Dr. Tracy Gray
Well and not to get too far into this, but as we know in the K-12 arena, there's federal
legislation that's mandating that every students' needs be met, that the curriculum and the
structure of the classroom support the needs of every student. Once you get to the postsecondary level, that's not the case. So that's another reason why, I think, if we were to
do some type of study of what's going on in terms of the remediation, we'd find RTI
elements, but we wouldn't find it being delivered in a structured and deliberate way that
we're seeing in the K-12 educational arena.
But great questions. Really interesting discussions and a lot of food for thought. So
Jillian, if you would be so kind as to move us forward, we were on slide 19. And this is
where we're going to drill down a little bit, building upon what we've just been talking
about in terms of how Bookshare meets the needs of students, generally. We're gonna
look now, specifically, on using Bookshare as an instructional tool for supporting our
struggling readers. When we look at the next slide, we see that famous seesaw, if you
will, which is becoming something that I don't think we see in parks these days.
I realize that my children had these in their parks, but when I went to the park recently,
they didn't have a seesaw. But anyway, on this seesaw you see the two sides of dealing
with struggling readers and about finding a balance for those students, where we're
talking about explicit instruction in reading skills and providing access to texts through
services like Bookshare. We're talking about, on the one side, learning to read versus
reading to learn. And I'm always concerned about the V in the middle of these two.
Because really, if we think about it—and I know everyone on this call is critically aware
of the fact that it's really a continuum rather than an either-or. Because, as students learn
to read, they obviously are reading to learn. And Bookshare is a very powerful tool to
support students. Many of our struggling students who feel like they just want to give up
learning to read and they can't imagine ever reading to learn. I had one of those students
who lived in my home—our youngest daughter who really just struggled through the
third grade.
And then, because of persistence and because she had teachers who really were focused
on enhancing her strengths and building upon her weaknesses, that she really did and we
all saw that seesaw move from learning to read to reading to learn. But it really is a
critical issue and that balance of how you ensure that the tools that you're using, such as
Bookshare, create the necessary foundation for students to have those skills while they're
learning to read so that they can graduate to the other side where reading to learn is not
just something that they do. But as we all hope, that it's something that's exciting and it's
a skill that is with them throughout their lives.
So when we look at this next slide, the Development Of Reading Skills—Learning To
Read, we're talking about the reality that instruction in basic reading skills is critical,
obviously, for all students and, especially, for students with disabilities. That they get
that necessary foundation, so that they feel comfortable with the written word. One of
the things that we want to emphasize is that Bookshare and the Bookshare tool are not
intended to substitute basic reading instructions. But rather, they can support the
development of specific reading skills back to those five components that we talked about
earlier when they're incorporated into the RTI Intervention, in the Tier 2 and Tier 3, in
particular.
That's where you can find Bookshare is really your friend and it is the student's friend to
learn those basic learning-to-read skills. So let's move on to the development of content
knowledge, which was part of our tier. And that's an addition to supporting the
development of reading skills. Bookshare provides access to texts in Social Science, in
Social Studies, Science, Math, and other subjects to ensure that students with print
disabilities have the same opportunities to develop those skills and the content knowledge
as their non-disabled peers.
And we really want to emphasize the fact—and this is so important, that as students
progress with their basic reading skills, the need to feel comfortable comprehending texts
in their various content areas, such as the sciences and social studies, and mathematics, in
particular. So let's review what we've talked about here, in terms of what Bookshare
offers. We've talked about the fact that Bookshare and the support in their tool can help
students across all three tiers of RTI.
And it really provides invaluable supports for those students who are eligible. It provides
features that can support reading instruction. But then again, it's not an intervention or a
replacement for explicit reading instructions. But in fact, it's a valuable support that also
incorporates those UDL principles of providing instructional materials that meets the
individual needs of students. And also Bookshare offers access to content knowledge to
support the development of those different reading components—phonics, fluency,
vocabulary, and comprehensive skills across the three tiers.
So that brings us to our final slide. In terms of getting more information on Bookshare,
on RTI. And also seeing a video on using Bookshare to support RTI—you can see that
the video is on YouTube. There's the link. So I see here we've got another question here
from Katharine. On our Bookshare student roster, can I write Tier 2, which is our SAT
process in New Mexico, as opposed to IEP or 504? I think that takes us back to
Christina's response about insuring that you've got the necessary documentation to
support the use of Bookshare. And I think, again, it's less about having an IEP or being
504-compliant, as much as it is showing documented eligibility for that particular student
or those students so that they can get access to the Bookshare tool. Christina, did I do
justice to that question?
Kristina King Cohen
Absolutely. Yeap. That's perfect.
Dr. Tracy Gray
Okay. Are there any other questions? I know we've given you a lot of information. I
always describe it as ten pounds in a five-pound bag, trying to discern this. But these
slides will be available on the Bookshare website and we really encourage you to ask
your questions, let us know how we can be supportive, if there are any issues that come
up as you take this information back to your school. We've all been in schools for many,
many years. And we know that sometimes there's a disconnect between what services are
out there and what services, for a whole variety of reasons, your principal or the
superintendent, enable you to access.
So we're here to help you and to help you sort through any questions that you might have.
Stephanie, any other thoughts here?
Dr. Stephanie Jackson
No. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about RTI and hearing about Bookshare and how
it supports RTI.
Dr. Tracy Gray
Christina?
Kristina King Cohen
No. I just wanted to remind everyone that we'll be following up with a recording of the
webinar and the slides. And, again, you can always access us at bookshare.org or find
out more information at rtiforsuccess.org. And when you go to YouTube, feel free to
search for Bookshare and RTI and you'll find a playlist of several videos that you can
review. So thank you for joining us and thanks for all the great questions.
Dr. Tracy Gray
So sending best wishes to everybody out in the field and let us hear from you. Take good
care. Bye-bye.