Katie-Jo McGoldrick
September 2013
Response to Intervention
Perla
Dr.Murphy
Perla is a third grade student who is having trouble in her classes with
reading. Perla is falling behind in class and is struggling with reading fluency. Even
though she has trouble with fluency, Perla has no trouble with decoding words.
Perla’s teacher has not observed any type of any specific phonological deficits. Perla
is able to read and does not have any deficits but she still struggles with reading
fluency, which gives her trouble with reading comprehension. When it comes to
state testing Perla is in the low 20% of her class for reading comprehension and
fluency. To understand Perla’s problem we have to see what is causing her trouble.
Since Perla does not struggle with decoding words when reading she might have
trouble processing what she read. Perla’s slow processing could be why she is
struggling with reading comprehension because she cannot understand what she
read. Another problem could be Perla’s memory in which she cannot remember
what she read in order to answer the questions given. By implementing a Response
to Intervention Perla will be monitored in order to see where her struggles are . For
Tier I we will have to implement a small group instruction with research evidencebased intervention. When completing the Tier I the teacher will need to monitor
Perla’s progress and see if the instruction is helping her overcome her struggles. If
not we will continue to move on to Tier II and Tier III of the Response to
Intervention.
To help Perla with her reading fluency problem as the Special Education
teacher I suggest the teacher using Partner Reading as the research based
intervention (Southwest/West Central Service Cooperative [SWWC], 2013). During
this activity the teacher will monitor Perla’s progress in class to see if the
intervention is helping her or if she still seems to be falling behind. The Partner
reading activity will begin by the teacher giving copies of the required text to each
student in the pairs. The students will practice reading and retelling of the passage
that was given to them. Perla should be paired with a higher reader in the class and
the text should be something Perla can read with 95% accuracy. Each student in the
pairs will be labeled student A and B with the higher reader being labeled A. The
students will take turns reading the passages aloud for one minute each, with
partner A starting first. Partner B will than read that same text again for only one
minute. After each student reads they will than discuss the text by asking questions
and answering the questions. The students will than continue this process until the
given text that they are suppose to read is completed. While the class is actively
doing this procedure the teacher should be checking the Intervention Integrity
Checklist. This checklist is used to guide the teacher as to how Perla should be
performing. The teacher will be walking around the class and listening to the
students and how they are reading. The teacher should also be paying close
attention to Perla and her partner to see how Perla is reading. The teacher will be
watching to see if Perla has any trouble reading the text or is having trouble
discussing the text with her partner. The main idea of the intervention is to have
Perla practice reading fluency by having her read as much as the passage as she can
in a minute (SWWC,2013).
Even though Tier I was designed for Perla to succeed and improve her
reading fluency she still seems to be having some trouble with reading fluency and
comprehension. Even though Perla did participate in the partner reading activity
she still had trouble responding to questions given to her from her partner. She also
seemed to struggle with reading out loud passages that were longer than other ones.
For the Tier II intervention the class will be doing a repeated reading with
comprehension strategy practice (SWWC,2013). The goal for Perla during this
intervention is for her to practice reading out loud. The main concept for this
intervention is for Perla to reread the same passage and follow up with questions
about the passages.
The teacher and student will be working together during Tier II with reading
the current material. The teacher will have a copy of the passage and will tell Perla
when to Begin and Stop. When Perla is reading her teacher will mark any errors she
had when reading and mark the last word she read during that minute. When the
minute is complete the teacher, or Perla, will create a graph to show the rate and
number of errors and the quality of reading. Together than they will review the
errors and try to correct them. The teacher will than explain that Perla will re-read
the passage and explain to the teacher who or what the passage she read was about
by repeating the same process, reading for one minute and marking any errors that
occur and by reviewing them. Next the teacher will read the passage for the third
time and asks questions like what was the most important thing she learned about.
Another question the teacher will ask her is “what is the most important thing you
learned during this process?” After repeating the passage one more time the teacher
will ask Perla to predict what she thinks the next passage will be about. Than they
will discuss the prediction she made about whether or not her prediction was
appropriate for what she read. The teacher and student will than read the next
passage together at the same pace and with expression. Finally, the teacher and
Perla will review what she predicted and if it was appropriate to the story. If the
prediction seems possible the teacher will provide praise to Perla’s prediction being
accurate. If Perla does not give a reasonable answer together they will review what
a appropriate prediction could have been from what they learned in class. Along
with reviewing the predictions Perla gave they will review the responses from the
earlier passages that Perla answered. To conclude the process the teacher will ask
Perla what does the passage take her think about to guide her to create a connection
to her self and the text, text to text, or text to the world (SWWC, 2013).
The whole process of the Repeated reading with Comprehension Strategy is
to focus on Perla reading a passage and retaining information from the passages.
Besides the teacher marking Perla’s errors while reading, the teacher will be
referring to the intervention integrity observation checklist. With this check list the
teacher will monitor what happened during the intervention. By monitoring the
errors made during the intervention the teacher will be able to see what Perla is still
struggling with reading fluency and reading comprehension. Since the teacher
works one on one with Perla she will be able to fully grasp what the struggles she
was experiencing she was on.
Tier II of response to intervention again was not enough for Perla to improve
with her reading fluency. She still seems to be failing with the interventions that
were given to her. Though she keeps practicing on reading aloud she still seems to
have trouble processing what she is reading. Her fluency still seems to be behind
compared to the rest of her class. Considering she still seems to be having
processing issues she is slow at comprehending what she is reading. In order to help
her succeed we need to move on to Tier III of the Response to Intervention.
For Tier III the strategy to help Perla with her reading fluency is Promoting
Understanding and Building Endurance through Reading Reflection with Pauses
(Intervention Central, 2013). For this intervention the Perla gets to decide how
much she has to read, whether it is 3 sentences or at the end of a paragraph. At the
end of the section Perla will stop and recall the main parts of the reading. When
reading if Perla is confused about what she is reading or has any questions about the
passage the student should re-reads parts of the section or she should re-read the
whole thing. The concept of this intervention is to have Perla read and re-read until
she understands the main points of the passage.
To monitor Perla’s achievement the teach will check her responses to what
she thinks the main points of the passages are. Just like the previous Tiers Perla’s
answers are the main concern because if she still does not understand what she is
reading e she has to learn to re-peat the process to understand. Teaching Perla how
to go back and read through the text to grasp any clues does just as important as
know how to read. Because she is struggling with comprehension the teacher should
be checking the answers Perla is giving to see what concepts she is or does not
understand. The answers Perla gives should be read and reviewed to see if she
understood what she read and if the main ideas she gives makes sense (Intervention
Central,2013).
The Response to Intervention approach has both positive and negative
effects on those who need it. The negative process of the RTI is how the
interventions are chosen. There is no set way to decide which intervention is right
for each student to help them succeed. The RTI process is very subjective because
there is no guidelines to follow of which intervention strategy to try with students
and when. Everything is based on the teacher’s opinion of what will be best for the
student. Along with the teachers having to choose what will be best for the students
the teachers still have to help the student achieve in class. The student may be
receiving help to succeed but they still have to catch up before they could receive
services. In order for the student to be considered for a RTI the teacher has to see
the student failing. The positives of the RTI process are that a student can begin the
evaluation process to help a struggling student. The students are able to begin the
process without being tested for cognitive disabilities or trouble with academic
achievement. The main focus of the RTI is to help all students who seem to be
struggling in class but do not seem to have a discrepancy between their cognitive
scores and academic scores. Response to Intervention is proactive in helping
students receive the help they need before they fail (National Dissemination Center
for Children with Disabilities, August 2012).
For Perla the RTI process was about her improving her reading fluency and
reading comprehension. Since Perla’s state test scores were below the rest of her
class and was at the lowest 20% of the students in the school. Tier I focused on Perla
reading aloud to improve her reading fluency. Tier II focused on Perla re-reading
passages and answering questions about the passages to improve her reading
comprehension. In Tier III Perla’s main goal was to read passages on her own and
address the main ideas of the passages appropriately. The goals of Perla’s RTI is to
help her reading fluency improve and reach grade level for reading fluency and
comprehension.
References
Intervention Central. (2013). Reading Comprehension Fix-up Skills: A Classroom Toolkit.
Retrieved September 23,2013, from http://www.interventioncentral.org/hom
National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities. (August 2012). Response
to Intervention (RTI). Retrieved September 23,2013, from http://nichcy.org/schoolsadministrators/rti Southwest/West Central service Cooperative. (2013). Fluency. Retrieved September 23,2013,
from http://www.swsc.org/page/725
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