Planning, Scheduling and
Supporting Intensive Interventions
for Struggling Readers:Their critical
role within a whole school program
Stuart Greenberg, Deputy Director
Eastern Regional Reading First Technical Assistance Center
The Florida Center for Reading Research
FSU
A Special Thank You
The ERRFTAC Team, Joe Torgesen, Pat Howard, Marcia Grek, Edward
Kame'enui,The FCRR staff, The NRFTAC staff, and all of the great
educators in this room and throughout the United States.
Teaching Reading is Urgent
“No time is as precious or as fleeting
as the first years of formal schooling.
Research consistently shows that
children who get off to a good start in
reading rarely stumble. Those who fall
behind tend to stay behind for the rest
of their academic lives.”
(Burns, Griffin, & Snow, 1999, p. 61)
Teaching Reading is Urgent
Children must be given the opportunity and
the support to become successful readers by
third grade.
Learning
to Read
Reading
to Learn
Transitioning
Educational Timeline
PreK K
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Infinity
Reading First’s model for preventing
reading failure in grades K-3: Three big
ideas
1. Increase the quality and consistency of
instruction in every K-3 classroom. Provide initial
instruction that is appropriate to the needs of the
majority of students in the class
2. Conduct timely and valid assessments of reading
growth to identify struggling readers
3. Provide high quality, intensive interventions to
help struggling readers catch up with their peers
How Do I Teach the BIG IDEAS in
Beginning Reading?
"Teaching Reading is Rocket Science.“ Moats,
1999
The Problem and Context:
•20% of students have significant reading problems.
•Most reading failure is unnecessary.
•Teaching Reading is a job for an expert.
The Scope of the Reading Problem in America
•"17.5 percent of the nation's children--about 10
million children--will encounter reading problems in
the crucial first three years of their schooling"
(National Reading Panel Progress Report, 2000;
•Approximately 75% of students identified with
reading problems in the third grade are still reading
disabled in the 9th grade. (Shaywitz, et al., 1993;
Francis et al., 1996;
•Juel found the probability of being a poor reader in
fourth grade given you were a poor reader in first
grade was 88%.
The Solution to the Problem:
Quality Initial Instruction and Immediate
Intensive Intervention
•Identify early and intervene strategically.
•Focus on the vital signs.
•Teach "less" more thoroughly.
•Hold instructional time sacred.
•Expect and plan for "different" levels of instruction (e.g.,
small groups, double dose).
•Monitor progress to determine if children are learning
enough.
Three Organizing Principles for
Reading Success
1. Earlier rather than later: Prevention and early
intervention are supremely more effective and efficient
than later intervention and remediation for ensuring
reading success.
2. Schools, not just programs: Prevention and early
intervention must be anchored to the school as the host
environment and the primary context for improving
student reading performance.
3. Evidence, not opinion: Prevention and early intervention
pedagogy, programs, and procedures should be based
on trustworthy scientific evidence.
A Schoolwide Reading Improvement Model
1. What do we know and what guidance can we gain from
scientifically based reading research?
2. What outcomes do we want for our students in our
state, district, and schools?
3. How are we doing? What is our current level of
performance as a school? As a grade? As a class? As an
individual student?
4. How far do we need to go to reach our goals and
outcomes?
5. What are the critical components that need to be in
place to reach our goals?
6. What more do we need to do and what instructional
adjustments need to be made?
Research indicates that students need to acquire
skills and knowledge in at least five main areas in
order to become proficient readers
Five critical components:
Phonemic Awareness
Phonics
Fluency
Vocabulary
Comprehension strategies
Identifying words
accurately and
fluently
Constructing
meaning
once words
are identified
Phonemic Awareness
• Research
– PA improves word reading, spelling, and
comprehension
– Poor readers who enter first grade with
weak PA are most likely to be the poor
readers in fourth grade
• Instruction
– Auditory Activities
– Needs to follow the developmental
hierarchy of phonological awareness
Phonics Research
• “Systematic and explicit phonics
instruction is more effective than nonsystematic or no phonics instruction”
(Put Reading First, p. 13).
• “Systematic and explicit phonics
instruction significantly improves
children’s reading comprehension”
(Put Reading First, p. 14).
Fluency Research
• “Repeated and monitored oral
reading improves reading fluency
and overall reading achievement”
(Put Reading First, p. 24).
Fluency Instruction
• Articulate the importance & provide
modeling
• Reading Levels
• Monitor fluency progress
• Oral reading with feedback
• Variety of research based strategies
– Repeated Readings, Timed, Partner
Vocabulary Research &
Instruction
• Can be developed
– directly (teach important, difficult, and useful words)
– indirectly
• Teach word learning strategies
– How to use dictionaries and reference aids
– How to use word parts to determine meaning of words
– How to use context clues to determine meaning
• Provide multiple exposures to words
• Read aloud to students
• Encourage independent wide reading
Comprehension Research
• “Text comprehension can be improved
by instruction that helps readers use
specific comprehension strategies.”
• “Effective comprehension strategy
instruction is explicit, or direct.”
Put Reading First, pp. 49, 53
Comprehension Instruction
• Monitoring comprehension (promoting
metacognition)
• Using graphic and semantic organizers
– e.g., teaching the use of a Venn diagram
to compare and contrast 2 characters from
a story
• Main Idea
• Summarizing
• Text Structure
Teaching Reading is Urgent
• A student in the 20th
percentile reads books
.7 minutes a day.
______
• This adds up to
21,000
_________words
read
per year.
• A student in the 80th
percentile reads books
14.2 minutes a day.
______
• This adds up to
1,146,000 words
__________
read per year.
WHAT READING DOES FOR THE MIND
BY ANNE E.CUNNINGHAM AND KEITH E. STANOVICH.1998
Hart and Risley (1995) conducted
a longitudinal study of children
and families from three groups:
• Professional families
• Working-class families
• Families on welfare
Interactions
Hart & Risley compared the
mean number of interactions
initiated per hour in each of the
three groups.
50
40
30
20
10
0
Welfare
Working
Professional
Interactions
Hart & Risley also compared
the mean number of minutes
of interaction per hour in the
three groups.
50
40
30
20
10
0
Welfare
Working
Professional
Cumulative Language Experiences
Cumulative Words Per Hour
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
Welfare
Working
Professional
Cumulative Language Experiences
Different words used per hour
500
400
300
200
100
0
Welfare
Working
Professional
Cumulative Language Experiences
Cumulative Words Spoken to Child
(in millions)
50
40
30
Professional
Working
20
Welfare
10
0
0
12
24
Age of child
(in months)
36
48
Hart and Risley’s Study
• Observed parent-child interaction in 42 families
who differed in terms of income
• They found:
• Children in professional families heard, on average,
2,150 words per hour, whereas children in working
class (1,250) and welfare (620) families were
exposed to many less words.
• The cumulative language experience for children by
age 3 differed in amount and kind, and these
differences were highly correlated with children’s
reading/language performance at ages 9-10.
Do the relatively specific instructional program
recommendations mean that “one size fits all”
approach to instruction?
Absolutely Not!
How to distinguish different groups of students
who failed to meet the standards
Current research on student profiles.
“Not all poor readers are alike.
How do we differentiate for instruction?”
(Holly Lane, 2004)
•We all know that children vary
enormously from one another in their
instructional needs.
•To be most effective, instruction must be
adapted to the needs of individual children.
Reading Programs PLUS
LEADERSHIP
EFFECTIVE
INSTRUCTION
ASSESSMENT
PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
SCIENTIFICALLY BASED
READING PROGRAMS
The consensus view of most important
instructional features for interventions
Interventions are more effective when they:
Provide systematic and explicit instruction on whatever
component skills are deficient: phonemic awareness, phonics,
fluency, vocabulary, reading comprehension strategies
The logic of instructional intensity
Many children are already behind in vocabulary and
print knowledge when they enter school.
To achieve grade level standards by third grade, poor
children must learn vocabulary words at a faster rate
than their middle class peers in grades K-3
The most direct way to increase learning rate is by
increasing the number of positive, or successful,
instructional interactions (pii) per school day.
There are a variety of ways to increase the number
of positive instructional interactions per school day
The consensus view of most important
instructional features for interventions
Interventions are more effective when they:
Provide systematic and explicit instruction on whatever
component skills are deficient: phonemic awareness, phonics,
fluency, vocabulary, reading comprehension strategies
Provide a significant increase in intensity of instruction
Provide ample opportunities for guided practice of new skills
Provide systematic cueing of appropriate strategies in context
Provide appropriate levels of scaffolding as children learn
to apply new skills
Instructional adaptations for individual children will be
made primarily in terms varying amounts and intensity
of instruction and practice on the five components
If children have difficulties learning “phonics” they should
not be switched to a “sight word” approach. This will not
build the necessary alphabetic reading skills that are
necessary to achieve high levels of reading ability
Children who experience reading difficulties must be
helped to acquire adequate skills in all five components. If
any one of these does not develop properly, the child is
unlikely to attain grade level reading skills.
•One child may require extra instruction in phonemic
awareness and phonics to get a good start in reading
•Another child might require extra instruction in vocabulary
•Another child may come to school with strong phonemic
awareness and letter knowledge, and may require very
little instruction in phonics to begin reading to build
fluency
•Another child may know very little about letters and sounds
upon school entry, and may require special instructional
support in this area for some time
•Still other children will require extended practice to develop
reading fluency
Who Is At Risk?
What Tools Do We Use To Determine
Who Is At-Risk
Screening + Placement Test + The Results of Science
Schedules
How can immediate, intensive interventions
be scheduled and delivered?
1. Delivered by regular classroom teacher during the
“uninterrupted reading period”
2. Delivered by additional resource personnel during the
“uninterrupted reading period”, or at other times during day
3. Delivered by classroom and resource personnel during after
school or before school programs
4. Delivered by well-trained and supervised paraprofessionals
during the “uninterrupted reading period” or other times
5. Delivered by peers during “uninterrupted reading period”
6. Delivered by computers throughout the day
How can we insure that interventions are
delivered consistently with high quality?
Professional development to provide knowledge of
instructional strategies, content (scope and sequence
and selection of materials), and appropriate
practice/skill building activities -- use of assessment
data to identify who should receive interventions and
what their focus should be
Identification of high quality intervention
programs/materials and professional development in
their use and individualization.
What does it take to manage a
successful interventions in a RF school?
1. Well trained teachers who understand the process of learning to read
and how to identify children lagging behind in development.
2. Systematic and reliable assessments to monitor the growth of critical
reading skills
3. Leadership within the school to allocate intervention resources
appropriately, and to monitor the use of those resources
4. Appropriate materials available to help structure the interventions and
provide instruction and practice activities at the appropriate level of
difficulty
5. Personnel to assist the classroom teacher in providing intensive
interventions to the students most in need
Sample Schedule
8:00
Whole Group Reading
8:30
Group 1
9:00
Group 2
9:30
Group 3
10:00
Flex Group
10:30
Flex Group
11:00
Lunch
11:30
Writing Workshop
12:00
Writing Workshop
12:30
Math
1:00
Math
1:30
PE
2:00
Reading Review Rotations
2:30
Science/Social Studies
3:15
Evaluation/Dismissal
Using Data to Schedule Instruction
• Establish a process for routinely analyzing data at the
student, classroom, grade level, school, and district
levels
• Think about a few things:
• All students receive instruction through the core to
the degree that it meets their instructional needs
• The iii is taught by the classroom teacher
• The iii is taught by a “push-in” teacher
• The iii is done through a “ walk and read” model
• Share innovative practices with others
Tier
Tier
Tier
Tier
Tier
One
Instructional
Recommendations
Instructional
Recommendations
Instructional Recomm
Benchmark/Low
Risk/Established
Two
Strategic/Some
Risk/Emergent
Three Intensive/At Risk/
Deficit
Instructional
Implication
Core Reading
Core Program +
Additional
Teaching
Core Reading +
iii
Early Screening Identifies Children Who
Need Additional Intervention
For example, in one longitudinal study:
• 201 randomly selected children from five elementary schools
serving children from mixed SES and ethnic backgrounds were
followed from the beginning of first grade to the end of fourth
grade.
• Children who scored low on phonemic awareness and letter
knowledge at the beginning of first grade
– Started with lower skills
– Made less progress
– Fell further and further below grade level as they progressed from
first through fourth grade.
The top five myths about interventions for
struggling readers
1. If a child is a “visual” learner, they should be taught to read
using a visual, not an auditory strategy
2. If a child has not learned “phonics” by the end of first grade,
they need to be taught to read in some other way
3. Children who struggle with phonemic awareness,
vocabulary, or phonics in kindergarten and first grade will
frequently “catch up” if given time.
4. We should take guidance from theories of “multiple
intelligences” or “learning styles” to help us adapt our reading
instruction for different children
5. A little quality time with an enthusiastic volunteer tutor can
solve most children’s reading problems
Early Screening Identifies Children At
Risk of Reading Difficulty
5.2
Reading grade level
5
4
3
Low Risk on
Early
Screening
2
1
At Risk on Early Screening
1
2
3
4
Grade level corresponding to age
2.5
Additional Instructional Intervention
Changes Reading Outcomes
• Four years later, the researchers went back to the
same school. Two major changes were
implemented:
• First, a research-based comprehensive reading
program was implemented for all students, and
• Second, children at risk for reading difficulty were
randomly assigned to a control group or to a group
receiving substantial instructional intervention.
Early Intervention Changes Reading
Outcomes
5.2
4.9
Reading grade level
5
With substantial
instructional
intervention
4
3
Low Risk
on Early
Screening
2
1
At Risk on Early Screening
1
2
3
4
Grade level corresponding to age
With research-
3.2 based core but
2.5 without extra
instructional
intervention
Research-Based, Comprehensive Reading
Program and Substantial Instructional
Intervention
Both a research-based comprehensive reading
program and substantial instructional intervention
were needed for children at risk of reading difficulty.
Children receiving substantial additional instructional
intervention beyond an effective comprehensive
reading program:
– Progressed more rapidly than control students,
– Had reading skills more like the low risk group than the
at risk group, and
– Were reading about at grade level.
Immediate Intensive Intervention (iii)
• iii should be implemented with children as soon as we
know, based on assessment data, they are falling behind
in the development of critical reading skills.
• iii involves children in receiving instruction in reading that
is more intensive than what they have been receiving.
This can be accomplished by:
•
reducing the student/teacher ratio
•
providing more instructional time
Both include providing more supports (instructional
opportunity, time, resources, materials and/or personnel)
Resources to Implement iii
1.
Intervention program that
accompanies the core reading
program
2. Research based program that
– targets specific skills,
– is implemented explicitly and
systematically,
– is coordinated and consistent
with the work that is being
done during initial instruction.
http://www.fcrr.org/FCRRreports/reportslist.htm
http://oregonreadingfirst.uoregon.edu/
A high-quality intervention program can provide a
kind of on-going professional development for
teachers in the critical elements and methods of
instruction for phonemic awareness, phonics,
fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension strategies
A Window of Opportunity
To every complex problem, there is
a simple solution…
that
doesn’t
work
that
doesn’t
work.
Mark Twain
We know what to do to ensure that virtually
every child learns to read early and well.
Whether or not we do it will ultimately
depend upon how we feel about the fact we
haven’t done it so far.
We can do this.
We have to do this.
We have the knowledge.
We have the research.
Now, we even have the resources.
Three Definitions of Schools
A series of autonomous classrooms that
are connected by a common parking lot.
A place where the relatively young watch
the relatively old work.
A complex organization that is built upon
relationships that require individuals to
work interdependently.
Thank
You