Organizing Schools and Classrooms to Teach Every Child to Read: The Big Ideas

1. Immediate Intensive Interventions Organizing Schools and Classrooms toTeach Every Child to Read: The Big Ideas National Reading First Conference New Orleans July 2005 Stuart Greenberg, Deputy Director Eastern Regional Reading First Technical Assistance Center Florida State University and The Florida Center for Reading Research www.fcrr.org

3. 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

4. Goals Will Drive Plans • At least 80% of Kindergarten students achieve benchmark status • At least 80% of First Grade students achieve benchmark status • At least a 50% movement in grades 2 & 3 of students who were strategic to benchmark status • At least a 50% movement of students in grades 2 & 3 for those students who were intensive to at least the strategic status

5. Why don’t we have more effective interventions in our schools right now? 1. We may not have a conviction that doing the extra work interventions require will produce the effects we want 2. We need support to schedule more intensive interventions during the school day 3. We need to reallocate the resources to hire the extra personnel required to do the interventions 4. We need the personnel trained and skillful in the delivery of effective interventions 5. We need to match the intervention(s) to the needs of students based upon data

6. Three Organizing Principles for Reading Success • Earlier rather than later -Prevention and early intervention are supremely more effective and efficient than later intervention and remediation for ensuring reading success. • 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. • Evidence, not opinion -Prevention and early intervention pedagogy, programs, and procedures should be based on trustworthy scientific evidence.

7. Six Big Ideas about interventions for struggling readers: 1. They should be offered as soon as it is clear the student is lagging behind in development of skills or knowledge critical to reading growth – the practice problem 2. To be effective, they must increase the intensity of instruction and practice – they should be available in a range of intensity 3. They must provide the opportunity for explicit (direct) and systematic instruction and practice

8. Six Big Ideas about interventions for struggling readers: 4. They must provide skillful instruction including good error correction procedures 5. They must be guided by, and responsive to, data on student performance. 6. They must be motivating, engaging, and supportive—positive atmosphere

9. Two important Ideas about the value and nature of effective interventions in Reading First Schools Getting to 100% requires going through the data student by student The student who is deficient will require a very different kind of effort in both the short and long run.

11. Components of Effective Intervention Instruction Effective reading instruction for all students. Early identification of students at risk for reading problems. Immediate intensive interventions for students at risk of reading problems. Efficient, effective use of school resources to sustain interventions.

12. Why do we need interventions? A central problem in reading instruction arises, not from the absolute level of children’s preparation for learning to read, but from the diversity in their levels of preparation (Olson, 1998)

13. “Current difficulties in reading largely originate from rising demands for literacy, not from declining absolute levels of literacy” Increasing demands for higher levels of literacy in the workforce require that we do better than we have ever done before in teaching all children to read well.

14. What are the areas most likely to require intensive intervention for students in RF schools? Three main reasons children struggle in learning to read (NRC report) 1. Lack of preparation, or lack of talent that interferes with ability to understand the alphabetic principal (phonics) and learn to read words accurately and fluently 2. Lack of preparation, or lack of talent in the general verbal domain (i.e. vocabulary) that limits comprehension of written material 3. Low motivation to lean or behavior problems that interfere with learning in the classroom

15. Start With The End In Mind Reading Is Thinking GuidedBy Print

16. In other words, student’s reading comprehension depends on: How well they read the words on the page How much knowledge they have, and how well they think How motivated they are to do “the work” of comprehension

17. The Many Strands that are Woven into Skilled Reading (Scarborough, 2001) LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION Skilled Reading- fluent coordination of word reading and comprehension processes BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE VOCABULARY KNOWLEDGE LANGUAGE STRUCTURES VERBAL REASONING LITERACY KNOWLEDGE SKILLED READING: fluent execution and coordination of word recognition and text comprehension. increasingly strategic WORD RECOGNITION PHON. AWARENESS DECODING (and SPELLING) SIGHT RECOGNITION increasingly automatic Reading is a multifaceted skill, gradually acquired over years of instruction and practice.

18. Three potential stumbling blocks to becoming a good reader(NRC Report, 1998) • Difficulty learning to read words accurately and • fluently 2. Insufficient vocabulary, general knowledge, and reasoning skills to support comprehension of written language 3. Absence or loss of initial motivation to read, or failure to develop a mature appreciation of the rewards of reading.

19. The nature of the underlying difficulty for most children who have difficulty in learning to read Weaknesses in the phonological area of language ability inherent, or intrinsic, disability Expressed primarily by delays in the development of phonemic awareness and phonics skills

20. Extreme difficulties mastering the use of “phonics” skills as an aid to early, independent reading • difficulties with the skills of blending and analyzing the sounds in words (phonemic awareness). • difficulties learning letter-sound correspondences • Slow development of “sight vocabulary” arising from: • limited exposure to text • lack of strategies to reliably identify words in text

21. Important fact about talent in the phonological language domain: It is like most other talents in that it is distributed normally in the population

22. Children can be strong in this talent “Phonological talent” is normally distributed in the population Percentile Ranks 50th 16th 84th 2nd 98th 70 85 100 115 130 Standard Scores

23. Children can be moderately weak in this talent “Phonological ability” is normally distributed in the population Percentile Ranks 50th 16th 84th 2nd 98th 70 85 100 115 130 Standard Scores

24. Each of these kinds of weakness is normally distributed in the population Serious difficulties-probably require special interventions and a lot of extra support Percentile Ranks 50th 16th 84th 2nd 98th 70 85 100 115 130 Standard Scores

25. Special work to develop phonemic awareness

26. Learning letter-sound relationships

27. Motivational

28. From a recent multi-disciplinary scientific review of the research: “From all these different perspectives, two inescapable conclusions emerge. The first is that mastering the alphabetic principle is essential to becoming proficient in the skill of reading….” and the second is that instructional techniques (namely phonics) that teach this principle directly are more effective than those that do not.” Raynor, K., Foorman, B.R., Perfetti, C.A., Pesetsky, D., & Seidenberg, M.S. 2001. How psychological science informs the teaching of reading. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 2: 31-73.

29. Three potential stumbling blocks to becoming a good reader(NRC Report, 1998) • Difficulty learning to read words accurately and • fluently 2. Insufficient vocabulary, general knowledge, and reasoning skills to support comprehension of written language • Absence or loss of initial motivation to read, or • failure to develop a mature appreciation of the • rewards of reading.

30. Language

31. Hart and Risley (1995) conducted a longitudinal study of children and families from three groups: • Professional families • Working-class families • Families on welfare

32. Meaningful Differences By the time the children were 3 years old, parents in less economically favored circumstances had said fewer different words in their cumulative monthly vocabularies than the children in the most economically advantaged families in the same period of time (Hart & Risley, 1995). Cumulative Vocabulary Children from professional families 1100 words Children from working class families 700 words Children from welfare families 500 words

33. Instructional reach: • Children enter school with a listening vocabulary ranging between 2500 to 5000. • First graders from higher SES groups know twice as many words as lower SES children (Graves & Slater, 1987) • Vocabulary differences at grade 2 may last throughout elementary school (Biemiller & Slonim, in press) • College entrants need about 11 to 14,000 root words (meter in thermometer or centimeter)

34. The Effects of Weaknesses in Oral Language on Reading Growth (Hirsch, 1996) 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 High Oral Language in Kindergarten 5.2 years difference Reading Age Level Low Oral Language in Kindergarten 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Chronological Age

35. Four Critical Elements for More Robust Vocabulary Instruction Select the right words to teach – Tier 2 words absurd fortunate ridiculous Develop child-friendly definitions for these words Engage children in interesting, challenging, playful activities in which they learn to access the meanings of words in multiple contexts Find a way to devote more time during the day to vocabulary instruction

36. Three potential stumbling blocks to becoming a good reader(NRC Report, 1998) • Difficulty learning to read words accurately and • fluently 2. Insufficient vocabulary, general knowledge, and reasoning skills to support comprehension of written language • Absence or loss of initial motivation to read, or • failure to develop a mature appreciation of the • rewards of reading.

37. The circular relationship between skill and motivation in reading If we want children to learn to read well, we must find a way to induce them to read lots. If we want to induce children to read lots, we must teach them to read well. Marilyn Jager Adams

38. 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

39. Features of Scientifically Based Reading Interventions Intervention is MORE: -Explicit and Systematic -Intensive -Supportive How does intervention differ from core reading Instruction?

40. Start With The End In Mind Reading Is Thinking GuidedBy Print

41. Explicit • Nothing is left to chance; all skills are taught directly. • This is particularly helpful to students with weak phonological skills • Provides examples to lead to generalization.

42. Systematic • Instructional is purposeful and sequential. • Programmatic Scaffolding • The program of instruction is carefully sequenced so that students are explicitly taught the skills and knowledge they need for each new task they are asked to perform

43. Programmatic Scaffolding Oral blending skills before blending printed words Awareness of phonemes beforelearninghow they are represented in print Grapheme-phoneme knowledge before decoding Vocabulary instruction before reading for meaning Strategies for oral language comprehension that support reading comprehension

44. Intensive • At-risk/struggling readers must improve their reading skills at a faster pace than typically achieving peers to make up for gaps. • Intensity can be accomplished in two ways • decreasing group size • Increasing the amount of time in instruction • The most direct way to increase learning rate is by • increasing the number of positive, or successful, • instructional interactions (pii) per school day.

45. Supportive • At-risk/struggling readers benefit from a supportive environment, both emotionally and cognitively. • Students need encouragement, feedback and positive reinforcement. • Responsive Scaffolding After an error, or inadequate response, the teacher provides responsive support to assist the child in making a more adequate, or correct response Through appropriate questioning or provision of information, the teacher supports the child in doing a task they cannot immediately do on their own

46. Progress Monitoring - The Teacher’s Map Whoops! Time to make a change! Aimline Phoneme Segmentation Fluency

47. A change in intervention Progress Monitoring: The Teacher’s Map Aimline

48. Progress Monitoring Assessment • Purpose: Frequent, timely measures to determine whether students are learning enough of critical skills. • When: At minimum 3 times per year at critical decision making points. • Who: All students • Relation to Instruction: Indicates students who require additional assessment and intervention. Discuss how you are using the data from progress monitoring as it relates to students who are being taught through immediate intensive interventions.

49. What does it take to effectively manage interventions? Regular meetings in which student progress is discussed-grade level team meetings Regular observations to be sure that instruction is being delivered in an effective manner – coach and principal Well trained teachers or paraprofessionals who receive regular inservice support

50. How can immediate, intensive interventions be scheduled and delivered? • 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 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 computers throughout the day