RTI & Academic Interventions: Effective Strategies for Classroom Success

1. Instruction and Interventions within Response to InterventionJim Wrightwww.interventioncentral.org

2. RTI & Academic Interventions: Overview Writing Interventions Reading Interventions Math Interventions Strategies to Encourage Teachers to Implement Classroom Interventions Systems Change: Developing Intervention Capacity Throughout a School Web Resources to Support Academic Interventions Instruction & Interventions Within RTI: Workshop Agenda

3. Intervention Research & Development: A Work in Progress

4. Tier 1: What Are the Recommended Elements of ‘Core Curriculum’?: More Research Needed “In essence, we now have a good beginning on the evaluation of Tier 2 and 3 interventions, but no idea about what it will take to get the core curriculum to work at Tier 1. A complicating issue with this potential line of research is that many schools use multiple materials as their core program.” p. 640 Source: Kovaleski, J. F. (2007). Response to intervention: Considerations for research and systems change. School Psychology Review, 36, 638-646.

5. Limitations of Intervention Research… “…the list of evidence-based interventions is quite small relative to the need [of RTI]…. Thus, limited dissemination of interventions is likely to be a practical problem as individuals move forward in the application of RTI models in applied settings.” p. 33 Source: Kratochwill, T. R., Clements, M. A., & Kalymon, K. M. (2007). Response to intervention: Conceptual and methodological issues in implementation. In Jimerson, S. R., Burns, M. K., & VanDerHeyden, A. M. (Eds.), Handbook of response to intervention: The science and practice of assessment and intervention. New York: Springer.

6. Schools Need to Review Tier 1 (Classroom) Interventions to Ensure That They Are Supported By Research There is a lack of agreement about what is meant by ‘scientifically validated’ classroom (Tier I) interventions. Districts should establish a ‘vetting’ process—criteria for judging whether a particular instructional or intervention approach should be considered empirically based. Source: Fuchs, D., & Deshler, D. D. (2007). What we need to know about responsiveness to intervention (and shouldn’t be afraid to ask).. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 22(2),129–136.

7. What Are Appropriate Content-Area Tier 1 Universal Interventions for Secondary Schools? “High schools need to determine what constitutes high-quality universal instruction across content areas. In addition, high school teachers need professional development in, for example, differentiated instructional techniques that will help ensure student access to instruction interventions that are effectively implemented.” Source: Duffy, H. (August 2007). Meeting the needs of significantly struggling learners in high school. Washington, DC: National High School Center. Retrieved from http://www.betterhighschools.org/pubs/ p. 9

8. RTI & Intervention: Key Concepts

9. Essential Elements of Any Academic or Behavioral Intervention (‘Treatment’) Strategy: • Method of delivery (‘Who or what delivers the treatment?’)Examples include teachers, paraprofessionals, parents, volunteers, computers. • Treatment component (‘What makes the intervention effective?’)Examples include activation of prior knowledge to help the student to make meaningful connections between ‘known’ and new material; guide practice (e.g., Paired Reading) to increase reading fluency; periodic review of material to aid student retention.

10. Core Instruction,Interventions, Accommodations & Modifications: Sorting Them Out • Core Instruction. Those instructional strategies that are used routinely with all students in a general-education setting are considered ‘core instruction’. High-quality instruction is essential and forms the foundation of RTI academic support. NOTE: While it is important to verify that good core instructional practices are in place for a struggling student, those routine practices do not ‘count’ as individual student interventions.

11. Core Instruction, Interventions, Accommodations & Modifications: Sorting Them Out • Intervention. An academic intervention is a strategy used to teach a new skill, build fluency in a skill, or encourage a child to apply an existing skill to new situations or settings. An intervention can be thought of as “a set of actions that, when taken, have demonstrated ability to change a fixed educational trajectory” (Methe & Riley-Tillman, 2008; p. 37).

12. Core Instruction,Interventions, Accommodations & Modifications: Sorting Them Out • Accommodation. An accommodation is intended to help the student to fully access and participate in the general-education curriculum without changing the instructional content and without reducing the student’s rate of learning (Skinner, Pappas & Davis, 2005). An accommodation is intended to remove barriers to learning while still expecting that students will master the same instructional content as their typical peers. • Accommodation example 1: Students are allowed to supplement silent reading of a novel by listening to the book on tape. • Accommodation example 2: For unmotivated students, the instructor breaks larger assignments into smaller ‘chunks’ and providing students with performance feedback and praise for each completed ‘chunk’ of assigned work (Skinner, Pappas & Davis, 2005).

13. “Teaching is giving; it isn’t taking away.” (Howell, Hosp & Kurns, 2008; p. 356). “ ” Source: Howell, K. W., Hosp, J. L., & Kurns, S. (2008). Best practices in curriculum-based evaluation. In A. Thomas & J. Grimes (Eds.), Best practices in school psychology V (pp.349-362). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists..

14. Core Instruction,Interventions, Accommodations & Modifications: Sorting Them Out • Modification. A modification changes the expectations of what a student is expected to know or do—typically by lowering the academic standards against which the student is to be evaluated. Examples of modifications: • Giving a student five math computation problems for practice instead of the 20 problems assigned to the rest of the class • Letting the student consult course notes during a test when peers are not permitted to do so

15. ‘Intervention Footprint’: 7-Step Lifecycle of an Intervention Plan… • Information about the student’s academic or behavioral concerns is collected. • The intervention plan is developed to match student presenting concerns. • Preparations are made to implement the plan. • The plan begins. • The integrity of the plan’s implementation is measured. • Formative data is collected to evaluate the plan’s effectiveness. • The plan is discontinued, modified, or replaced.

16. Team Activity: What Are Challenging Issues in Your School Around the Topic of Academic Interventions?… • At your tables: • Discuss the task of promoting the use of ‘evidence-based’ academic interventions in your school. • What are enabling factors that should help you to promote the routine use of such interventions. • What are challenges or areas needing improvement to allow you to promote use of those interventions?

17. Big Ideas: The Four Stages of Learning Can Be Summed Up in the ‘Instructional Hierarchy’ pp. 2-3(Haring et al., 1978) Student learning can be thought of as a multi-stage process. The universal stages of learning include: • Acquisition: The student is just acquiring the skill. • Fluency: The student can perform the skill but must make that skill ‘automatic’. • Generalization: The student must perform the skill across situations or settings. • Adaptation: The student confronts novel task demands that require that the student adapt a current skill to meet new requirements. Source: Haring, N.G., Lovitt, T.C., Eaton, M.D., & Hansen, C.L. (1978). The fourth R: Research in the classroom. Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Co.

18. Increasing the Intensity of an Intervention: Key Dimensions Interventions can move up the RTI Tiers through being intensified across several dimensions, including: • Type of intervention strategy or materials used • Student-teacher ratio • Length of intervention sessions • Frequency of intervention sessions • Duration of the intervention period (e.g., extending an intervention from 5 weeks to 10 weeks) • Motivation strategies Source: Burns, M. K., & Gibbons, K. A. (2008). Implementing response-to-intervention in elementary and secondary schools. Routledge: New York. Kratochwill, T. R., Clements, M. A., & Kalymon, K. M. (2007). Response to intervention: Conceptual and methodological issues in implementation. In Jimerson, S. R., Burns, M. K., & VanDerHeyden, A. M. (Eds.), Handbook of response to intervention: The science and practice of assessment and intervention. New York: Springer.

19. RTI Interventions: What If There is No Commercial Intervention Package or Program Available? “Although commercially prepared programs and the subsequent manuals and materials are inviting, they are not necessary. … A recent review of research suggests that interventions are research based and likely to be successful, if they are correctly targeted and provide explicit instruction in the skill, an appropriate level of challenge, sufficient opportunities to respond to and practice the skill, and immediate feedback on performance…Thus, these [elements] could be used as criteria with which to judge potential tier 2 interventions.” p. 88 Source: Burns, M. K., & Gibbons, K. A. (2008). Implementing response-to-intervention in elementary and secondary schools. Routledge: New York.

20. Research-Based Elements of Effective Academic Interventions • ‘Correctly targeted’: The intervention is appropriately matched to the student’s academic or behavioral needs. • ‘Explicit instruction’: Student skills have been broken down “into manageable and deliberately sequenced steps and providing overt strategies for students to learn and practice new skills” p.1153 • ‘Appropriate level of challenge’: The student experiences adequate success with the instructional task. • ‘High opportunity to respond’: The student actively responds at a rate frequent enough to promote effective learning. • ‘Feedback’: The student receives prompt performance feedback about the work completed. Source: Burns, M. K., VanDerHeyden, A. M., & Boice, C. H. (2008). Best practices in intensive academic interventions. In A. Thomas & J. Grimes (Eds.), Best practices in school psychology V (pp.1151-1162). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.

21. Interventions: Potential ‘Fatal Flaws’ Any intervention must include 4 essential elements. The absence of any one of the elements would be considered a ‘fatal flaw’ (Witt, VanDerHeyden & Gilbertson, 2004) that blocks the school from drawing meaningful conclusions from the student’s response to the intervention: • Clearly defined problem. The student’s target concern is stated in specific, observable, measureable terms. This ‘problem identification statement’ is the most important step of the problem-solving model (Bergan, 1995), as a clearly defined problem allows the teacher or RTI Team to select a well-matched intervention to address it. • Baseline data. The teacher or RTI Team measures the student’s academic skills in the target concern (e.g., reading fluency, math computation) prior to beginning the intervention. Baseline data becomes the point of comparison throughout the intervention to help the school to determine whether that intervention is effective. • Performance goal. The teacher or RTI Team sets a specific, data-based goal for student improvement during the intervention and a checkpoint date by which the goal should be attained. • Progress-monitoring plan. The teacher or RTI Team collects student data regularly to determine whether the student is on-track to reach the performance goal. Source: Witt, J. C., VanDerHeyden, A. M., & Gilbertson, D. (2004). Troubleshooting behavioral interventions. A systematic process for finding and eliminating problems. School Psychology Review, 33, 363-383.

22. RTI: Writing InterventionsJim Wrightwww.interventioncentral.org

24. Team: Writing Concerns in Your School or District • In your group, discuss concerns that you have about struggling student writers in your school or district. • Be prepared to share your discussion with the larger group.

25. Defining Student Writing Problems

26. Writing Sample Determine the 1 or 2 most important features in this writing that should be targeted for intervention. [If lost on an island] I woud drink water from the ocean and I woud eat the fruit off of the trees. Then I woud bilit a house out of trees, and I woud gather firewood to stay warm. I woud try and fix my boat in my spare time.

27. Determine the 1 or 2 most important features in this writing that should be targeted for intervention. Existing is being unique. Existence, reality, essence, cause, or truth is uniqueness. The geometric point in the center of the sphere is nature’s symbol of the immeasurable uniqueness within its measurable effect. A center is always unique; otherwise it would not be a center. Because uniqueness is reality, or that which makes a thing what it is, everything that is real is based on a centralization.

28. "If all the grammarians in the world were placed end to end, it would be a good thing." • Oscar Wilde

29. Graham, S., & Perin, D. (2007). Writing next: Effective strategies to improve writing of adolescents in middle and high schools – A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York. Washington, DC Alliance for Excellent Education. Retrieved from http://www.all4ed.org/files/WritingNext.pdf

30. The Effect of Grammar Instruction as an Independent Activity “Grammar instruction in the studies reviewed [for the Writing Next report] involved the explicit and systematic teaching of the parts of speech and structure of sentences. The meta-analysis found an effect for this type of instruction for students across the full range of ability, but …surprisingly, this effect was negative…Such findings raise serious questions about some educators’ enthusiasm for traditional grammar instruction as a focus of writing instruction for adolescents….Overall, the findings on grammar instruction suggest that, although teaching grammar is important, alternative procedures, such as sentence combining, are more effective than traditional approaches for improving the quality of students’ writing.” p. 21 Source: Graham, S., & Perin, D. (2007). Writing next: Effective strategies to improve writing of adolescents in middle and high schools – A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York. Washington, DC Alliance for Excellent Education.

31. Domains of writing to be assessed (Robinson & Howell, 2008): • Fluency/Text Generation: Facility in getting text onto paper or typed into the computer. (NOTE: This element can be significantly influenced by student motivation.) • Syntactic Maturity: This skill includes the: • Ability to discern when a word string meets criteria as a complete sentence • Ability to write compositions with a diverse range of sentence structures • Semantic Maturity: Writer’s use of vocabulary of range and sophistication Source: Robinson, L. K., & Howell, K. W. (2008). Best practices in curriculum-based evaluation & written expression. In A. Thomas & J. Grimes (Eds.), Best practices in school psychology V (pp. 439-452). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.

32. Domains of writing to be assessed (Robinson & Howell, 2008): 5-Step Writing Process: (Items in bold are iterative): • Planning. The student carries out necessary pre-writing planning activities, including content, format, and outline. • Drafting. The student writes or types the composition. • Revision. The student reviews the content of the composition-in-progress and makes changes as needed. After producing an initial written draft, the student considers revisions to content before turning in for a grade or evaluation. • Editing. The student looks over the composition and corrects any mechanical mistakes (capitalization, punctuation, etc.). • Publication: The student submits the composition in finished form. Source: Robinson, L. K., & Howell, K. W. (2008). Best practices in curriculum-based evaluation & written expression. In A. Thomas & J. Grimes (Eds.), Best practices in school psychology V (pp. 439-452). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.

33. Elements of effective writing instruction for adolescents: • Writing Process (Effect Size = 0.82): Students are taught a process for planning, revising, and editing. • Summarizing (Effect Size = 0.82): Students are taught methods to identify key points, main ideas from readings to write summaries of source texts. • Cooperative Learning Activities (‘Collaborative Writing’) (Effect Size = 0.75): Students are placed in pairs or groups with learning activities that focus on collaborative use of the writing process. • Goal-Setting (Effect Size = 0.70): Students set specific ‘product goals’ for their writing and then check their attainment of those self-generated goals. Source: Graham, S., & Perin, D. (2007). Writing next: Effective strategies to improve writing of adolescents in middle and high schools – A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York. Washington, DC Alliance for Excellent Education. Retrieved from http://www.all4ed.org/files/WritingNext.pdf

34. Elements of effective writing instruction for adolescents: • Writing Processors (Effect Size = 0.55): Students have access to computers/word processors in the writing process. • Sentence Combining (Effect Size = 0.50): Students take part in instructional activities that require the combination or embedding of simpler sentences (e.g., Noun-Verb-Object) to generate more advanced, complex sentences. • Prewriting (Effect Size = 0.32): Students learn to select, develop, or organize ideas to incorporate into their writing by participating in structured ‘pre-writing’ activities. • Inquiry Activities (Effect Size = 0.32): Students become actively engaged researchers, collecting and analyzing information to guide the ideas and content for writing assignments. Source: Graham, S., & Perin, D. (2007). Writing next: Effective strategies to improve writing of adolescents in middle and high schools – A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York. Washington, DC Alliance for Excellent Education. Retrieved from http://www.all4ed.org/files/WritingNext.pdf

35. Elements of effective writing instruction for adolescents: • Process Writing (Effect Size = 0.32): Writing instruction is taught in a ‘workshop’ format that “ stresses extended writing opportunities, writing for authentic audiences, personalized instruction, and cycles of writing” (Graham & Perin, 2007; p. 4). • Use of Writing Models (Effect Size = 0.25): Students read and discuss models of good writing and use them as exemplars for their own writing. • Writing to Learn Content (Effect Size = 0.23): The instructor incorporates writing activities as a means to have students learn content material. Source: Graham, S., & Perin, D. (2007). Writing next: Effective strategies to improve writing of adolescents in middle and high schools – A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York. Washington, DC Alliance for Excellent Education. Retrieved from http://www.all4ed.org/files/WritingNext.pdf

36. Question: How Does a School Use Research Information to Influence Classroom Practice? • In this workshop, we reviewed recommendations from the Writing Next manual, a meta-analysis of effective writing instructional elements. • How might your school use information sources like this to influence classroom practice?

37. Origins of the Latin Alphabet:Early Greek Alphabet Boustrophedon: ‘ox trail’: Script alternates between left-to-right and right-to-left Source:http://www.translexis.demon.co.uk/new_page_2.htm

38. "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug." • Mark Twain

39. "Your manuscript is both good and original. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good." • Samuel Johnson

40. Selected Writing Interventions

41. Fluency: Have Students Write Every Day Short daily writing assignments can build student writing fluency and make writing a more motivating activity. Poor writers gradually develop into better writers when they are prompted to write daily--and receive rapid feedback and encouragement about that writing. The teacher can encourage daily writing by: • giving short writing assignments • allowing time for students to journal about their learning activities • requiring that they correspond daily with pen pals via email • even posting a question on the board as a bell-ringer activity that students can respond to in writing for extra credit. Source: Graham, S., Harris, K. R., & Larsen, L. (2001). Prevention and intervention of writing difficulties for students with learning disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 16, 74-84.

42. Writing Support in the Classroom: Essentials of Effective Instruction Teachers are most successful in reaching students with writing delays when they: • Build their written expression lessons around the 3 stages of writing –planning, writing, and revision— and make those stages clear and explicit. • Provide students with ‘think sheets’ that outline step-by-step strategies for tackle the different phases of a writing assignment (e.g., taking concise notes from research material; building an outline; proofreading a draft). • Expose students to different kinds of expressive text, such as persuasive, narrative, and expository writing-- good prose models that the student can review when completing a writing assignment. • Give supportive and timely feedback to students about their writing. When teachers or classmates offer writing feedback to the student, they are honest but also maintain an encouraging tone. Source: Gersten, R., Baker, S., & Edwards, L. (1999). Teaching expressive writing to students with learning disabilities: A meta-analysis. New York: National Center for Learning Disabilities.

43. Integrated Writing Instruction (MacArthur, Graham, & Schwarz, 1993 ) The instructor follows a uniform daily instructional framework for writing instruction. • Status-checking. At the start of the writing session, the instructor quickly goes around the room, asking each student what writing goal(s) he or she plans to accomplish that day. The instructor records these responses for all to see. • Mini-Lesson. The instructor teaches a mini-lesson relevant to the writing process. Mini-lessons are a useful means to present explicit writing strategies (e.g., an outline for drafting an opinion essay) as well as a forum for reviewing the conventions of writing. Mini-lessons should be kept short (e.g.,5-10 minutes) to hold the attention of the class.

44. Integrated Writing Instruction Cont. (MacArthur, Graham, & Schwarz, 1993 ) • Student Writing. During the session, substantial time is set aside for students to write. Their writing assignment might be one handed out that day or part of a longer composition (e.g., story, extended essay) that the student is writing and editing across multiple days. When possible, student writers are encouraged to use computers as aids in composing and editing their work. • Peer & Teacher Conferences. At the end of the daily writing block, the student may sit with a classmate to review each other's work, using a structured peer editing strategy. During this discussion time, the teacher also holds brief individual conferences with students to review their work, have students evaluate how successfully they completed their writing goals for the day, and hear writers' thoughts about how they might plan to further develop a writing assignment.

45. Integrated Writing Instruction Cont. (MacArthur, Graham, & Schwarz, 1993 ) • Group Sharing or Publishing. At the end of each session, writing produced that day is shared with the whole class. Students might volunteer to read passages aloud from their compositions. Students are encouraged to choose more polished work and post it on the classroom wall or bulletin board, have their work displayed in a public area of the school, publish the work in an anthology of school writings, read it aloud at school assemblies, or publish it on a school Internet site.

46. Monitoring to Increase Writing Fluency(Rathvon, 1999) Students gain motivation to write through daily monitoring and charting of their own and classwide rates of writing fluency. • Assign timed freewriting several times per week. • After each freewriting period, direct each student to count up the number of words he or she has written in their daily journal entry (whether spelled correctly or not). • Have students to record their personal writing-fluency score in their journal and also chart the score on their own time-series graph for visual feedback. • Collect the day’s writing-fluency scores of all students in the class, sum those scores, and chart the results on a large time-series graph posted at the front of the room. • Raise the class goal by five percent per week.

47. Expanding Content: Memorize a Story Grammar Checklist To write lengthier stories that include more detail, students are taught a simple mnemonic device with 7 elements: ‘WWW, What=2, How = 2’. • WHO the main character is; WHERE the story takes place; WHEN the story occurs • WHAT the main character(s) do or plan to do • WHAT happens next • HOW the story concludes • HOW the character(s) feel about their experiences. Students are taught this strategy through teacher demonstration, discussion, teacher modeling; and student use of the strategy with gradually fading teacher support. NOTE: Teachers can apply this intervention idea to any genre of writing (e.g., persuasive essay), distilling its essential elements into a similar short, easily memorized checklist to teach to students. Source: Reid, R. & Lienemann, T.O. (2006). Self-regulated strategy development for written expression with students with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Exceptional Children, 73, 53-68.

48. Organization: Build an Outline by Talking Through the Topic Students who struggle to organize their notes into a coherent outline can tell others what they know about the topic—and then capture the informal logical structure of that conversation to create a working outline. • The student studies notes from the topic and describes what he or she knows about the topic and its significance to a listener. (The student may want to audio-record this conversation for later playback.) • After the conversation, the student jots down an outline from memory to capture the structure and main ideas of the discussion. • This outline ‘kernel’ can then be expanded and refined into the framework for a paper. Source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (n.d.). Reorganizing your draft. Retrieved December 23, 2006, from http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/organization.html

49. Organization: ‘Reverse Outline’ the Draft Students can improve the internal flow of their compositions through ‘reverse outlining’. • The student writes a draft of the composition. • Next, the student reads through the draft, jotting notes in the margins that signify the main idea of each paragraph or section. • Then the student organizes the margin notes into an outline to reveal the organizational structure of the paper. • This ‘reverse outline’ allows the student to note whether sections of the draft are repetitious, are out of order, or do not logically connect with one another. Source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (n.d.). Reorganizing your draft. Retrieved December 23, 2006, from http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/organization.html

50. A Memory Device for Proofreading: SCOPE (Bos & Vaughn, 2002) When students regularly use a simple, portable, easily memorized plan for proofreading, the quality of their writing improves significantly. • Create and have students refer to a classroom with the SCOPE proofreading elements: Spelling: Are my words spelled correctly; Capitalization: Have I capitalized all appropriate words, including first words of sentences, proper nouns, and proper names?; Order of words: Is my word order (syntax) correct?; Punctuation: Did I use end punctuation and other punctuation marks appropriately? Expression of complete thoughts: Do all of my sentences contain a noun and verb to convey a complete thought?