Chapter 5 - Intensive Interventions for High-Risk Learners:
Mobilizing Experts and Resources
Tier 3 is about intense and further time, expertise and assessment. It is also important to make sure that the Tier 3 and the core lessons relate to each other. The chapter starts off with an example of a Tier 3 meeting that is predetermined through teacher collaboration and careful consideration of that individual student's needs and interests.
Conditions Necessary for Effective Intensive Intervention Efforts
Condition 1: High-Quality Core Program "Struggling readers struggle more because they get far less appropriate instruction every day than the achieving students do" (as quote from Allington, p. 78).
Condition 2: Access to Expert Teachers - computers, volunteers, and paraprofessionals are not experts.
Condition 3: Individual Instruction - has to be one-on-one.
For interventions to matter, these five components must be in place:
- The teacher should play a critical role in assessment and instruction - only teachers can make those important split-second decisions that are responsive to individual students' needs.
- The intervention should reflect a comprehensive approach to reading and writing - students need to see the whole picture in each subject as tied to and provide engagement and understanding of meaningful and real text.
- The intervention should be engaging - students NEED to see the relevance and feel successful to be motivated and have a chance at being life-long learners.
- Interventions should be driven by useful and relevant assessments - F&F recommend engagement in literacy tasks in a variety of contexts and for a variety of purposes.
- Interventions should include significant opportunities for authentic reading and writing - students need many opportunities to actually read in authentic situations more than they need practicing skills and strategies related to literacy.
Planning Intensive Interventions
Consider the following questions: (these are things I am reminded of that we are already doing that could be considered for Tier 3 lessons as well)
- What is the purpose of the lesson? (TYWL)
- What are the student's background knowledge and prior experiences? (Do Now or Pretest)
- What are the targeted skills or strategies for this lesson? (TYWL or Step 4 in Data Teams)
- How will essential vocabulary be taught?
- What will students produce? (TYWL, Guided/Independent Practice or Closure)
- What future skills will the student need? (Closure, Check for Understanding, Posttest)
Is this similar to what happens when students are pulled out of classrooms now?
What will need to change for this to take place?
Does our district have the funding to provide the time, expertise, etc.?
At our level, will these interventions be done by classroom teachers, special education teachers, or others?
Chapter 6 - The Role of Assessment in RTI2:
Progress Monitoring for Student Success
There are four broad purposes for assessment:
- progress monitoring
- diagnosis
- program evaluation
- accountability
"Assessments drive the entire RTI2 system!" (p. 95). See figure 6.1 on page 96 for assessment types, purposes, and administration guidelines.
Formal assessments provide data that allows us to compare student performance to expected levels. I think of the annual assessment calender that is provided by the district each year. These tests measure knowledge of what was previously discussed and provide a snapshot of a student's progress at a certain moment in time.
Curriculum-based measurements (CBM) are the day-to-day and frequent checks for understanding that occur in the classroom that "are meant to gauge progress and determine effectiveness of instruction and intervention" (p. 98). A good instruction and intervention plan ensures that a student gets both opportunities to master and apply knowledge.
Informal assessment can include CBMs, observations, checklists, rubrics, and self-assessments. It is important for teachers to keep track of these as well. Notes and any other documentation will provide a teacher with specific information to inform their teaching, share with other teachers, and communicate with parents.
"Data collection is useful only if the next step is data analysis" (p. 102). This goes right along with data teams. Data should result in improvement in student work and teacher practice.
Can each teacher come up with one thing to universally screen and track among their classes? Is this too much?
If we stick to non-fiction writing, what will our report show - rubric score overall?
Is there a way to track the use of CBM or checks for understanding? We always say, what gets checked gets done...
