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Implementing Ohio's Plan to Raise Literacy Achievement

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Implementing Ohio's Plan to Raise Literacy Achievement

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For more resources and information about implementing literacy instruction aligned with Ohio's Plan to Raise Literacy Achievement, access the resources for each age band.

Emergent Literacy Early and Conventional Literacy Adolescent Literacy

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Implementing Ohio's Plan to Raise Literacy Achievement: Resources for School Leaders

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For more resources and information about implementing literacy instruction aligned with Ohio's Plan to Raise Literacy Achievement, access the resources for each age band. Emergent Literacy Early and Conventional Literacy Adolescent Literacy

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You Can't Intervene Your Way Out of a Tier 1 Problem

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You Can't Intervene Your Way Out of a Tier 1 Problem

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Michelle Elia  "You Can't Intervene Your Way Out of a Tier One Problem

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Designed specifically to meet the higher expectations of the CCSS, LANGUAGE! Live is a comprehensive literacy solution that combines teacher-directed learning with personalized, adaptive instruction in an online social environment. The curriculum was developed to reach the most struggling readers in grades 4-12 who are two or more years below grade level.

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Five Components of Reading   Michelle Elia   Ohio Literacy Lead

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There's No Such Things as a Reading Test

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There's No Such Things as a Reading Test

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It is among the most common of nightmares. You dream of taking a test for which you are completely unprepared -- you've never studied the material or even attended the course. For millions of American schoolchildren, it is a nightmare from which they cannot wake, a trial visited upon them each year when the law requires them to take reading tests with little preparation. Sure, formally preparing for reading tests has become more than just a ritual for schools. It is practically their raison d'etre! Yet students are not prepared in the way they need to be.

Schools and teachers may indeed be making a Herculean effort to raise reading scores, but these efforts do little to improve reading achievement and to prepare children for college, a career, and a lifetime of productive, engaged citizenship. This wasted effort is not because our teachers are lazy or of low quality. Rather, too many of our schools labor under fundamental misconceptions about reading comprehension -- how it works, how to improve it, and how to test it.

Reading, like riding a bike, is an ability we acquire as children and generally never lose. Some of us are more confident on two wheels than others, and some of us, we are told, are better readers than others. The culture of testing treats reading ability as a broad, generalized skill that is easily measured and assessed. We judge our schools and increasingly individual teachers based on their ability to improve the reading skills of our children. When you think about your ability to read -- if you think about it at all -- the chances are good that you perceive it as not just a skill but a readily transferable skill. Once you learn how to read you can competently read a novel, a newspaper article, or the latest memo from corporate headquarters. Reading is reading is reading. Either you can do it, or you cannot.

This view of reading is only partially correct. The ability to translate written symbols into sounds, commonly called "decoding," is indeed a skill that can be taught and mastered. This explains why you are able to "read" nonsense words such as "rigfap" or "churbit." Once a child masters letter-sound correspondence, or phonics, we might say she can read because she can reproduce the sounds represented by written language. But clearly there's more to reading than making sounds. To be fully literate is to have the communicative power of language at your command -- to read, write, listen, and speak with understanding. As nearly any elementary schoolteacher can attest, it is possible to decode skillfully yet struggle with comprehension. And reading comprehension, the ability to extract meaning from text, is not transferable.

Cognitive scientists describe comprehension as domain specific. If a baseball fan reads "A-Rod hit into a 6-4-3 double play to end the game," he needs not another word to understand that the New York Yankees lost when Alex Rodriguez came up to bat with a man on first base and one out and then hit a groundball to the shortstop, who threw to the second baseman, who relayed to first in time to catch Rodriguez for the final out. If you've never heard of A-Rod or a 6-4-3 double play and cannot reconstruct the game situation, you are not a poor reader. You merely lack the domain-specific knowledge of baseball to fill in the gaps.

Even simple texts, like those on reading tests, are filled with gaps -- presumed domain knowledge -- that the writer assumes the reader knows. Research also tells us that familiarity with domain knowledge increases fluency, broadens vocabulary (you can pick up words in context), and enables deeper reading and listening comprehension.

Think of reading as a two-lock box, requiring two keys to open. The first key is decoding skills. The second key is oral language, vocabulary, and domain -- specific or background knowledge sufficient to understand what is being decoded. Even this simple understanding of reading enables us to see that the very idea of an abstract skill called "reading comprehension" is ill-informed. Yet most U.S. schools teach reading as if both decoding and comprehension are transferable skills. Worse, we test our children's reading ability without regard to whether we have given them the requisite background knowledge they need to be successful.

Researchers have consistently demonstrated that in order to understand what you're reading, you need to know something about the subject matter. Students who are identified as "poor readers" comprehend with relative ease when asked to read passages on familiar subjects, outperforming even "good readers" who lack relevant background knowledge. One well-known study looked at junior high school students judged to be either good or poor readers in terms of their ability to decode or read aloud fluently. Some knew a lot about baseball, while others knew little. The children read a passage written at an early fifth-grade reading level, describing the action in a game. As they read, they were asked to move models of ballplayers around a replica baseball diamond to illustrate the action in the passage. If reading comprehension were a transferable skill that could be taught, practiced, and mastered, then the students who were "good" readers should have had no trouble outperforming the "poor" readers. Just the opposite happened. Poor readers with high content knowledge outperformed good readers with low content knowledge. Such findings should challenge our very idea of who is or is not good reader: If reading is the means by which we receive ideas and information, then the good reader is the one who best understands the author's words.

You have probably experienced the uncomfortable sensation of feeling like a poor reader when struggling to understand a new product warranty, directions for installing a computer operating system, or some other piece of writing where your lack of background knowledge left you feeling out of your depth. Your rate of reading slows. You find yourself repeating sentences to make sure you understand. If this happens only rarely to you, it is because you possess a broad range of background knowledge -- the more you know, the more you are able to communicate and comprehend. The implications of this insight for teaching children to read should be obvious: The more domain knowledge our children receive, the more capable they will become as readers.

The message has not yet reached American classrooms. A stubborn belief in reading comprehension as a transferable skill combined with the immense pressures of testing and accountability results in ever more time being wasted on scattered, trivial, and incoherent reading. A study sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development found that only 4 percent of first-grade class time in American elementary schools is spent on science and only 2 percent, on social studies. In third grade, about 5 percent of class time goes to each of these subjects. Meanwhile a whopping 62 percent in first grade and 47 percent in third grade is spent on language arts.

Most young American children spend anywhere from 90 minutes to two and a half hours a day in something educators call "the literacy block," an extended period that might include reading aloud, small-group "guided reading," independent writing, and other activities aimed at increasing children's verbal skills. Reading instruction largely focuses on teaching and practicing reading -- comprehension strategies -- helping students to find the main idea of a passage and make inferences or identify the author's purpose. The general idea is to arm young readers with a suite of all-purpose tricks and tips for thinking about reading that can be applied to any text the child encounters. Careful readers may be thinking, "If the ability to understand what you read is a function of your domain-specific background knowledge, then how is it possible to teach all-purpose reading strategies?"

Reading strategies figured prominently in the 2000 report of the National Reading Panel, based on evidence that reading strategies work -- which they do, to a point. Reading-comprehension scores tend to go up after instruction in strategies, but it's a onetime boost. The major contribution of such instruction is to help beginning readers know that text, like speech, is supposed to make sense. If someone says something you don't understand, you can always ask that person to repeat, explain, or give an example. Reading strategies offer similar workarounds for print. They're not useless, but repeated practice seems to have little or no effect on scores.

"The mistaken idea that reading is a skill -- learn to crack the code, practice comprehension strategies, and you can read anything -- may be the single biggest factor holding back reading achievement in the country," Daniel T. Willingham, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, recently wrote in The Washington Post. "Students will not meet standards that way. The knowledge base problem must be solved."

If our schools understood and acted upon the clear evidence that domain-specific content knowledge is foundational to literacy, reading instruction might look very different in our children's classrooms. Rather than idle away precious hours on trivial stories or randomly chosen nonfiction, reading, writing, and listening instruction would be built into the study of ancient civilizations in first grade, for example, Greek mythology in second, or the human body in third. Recently, the Core Knowledge Foundation has been piloting precisely such a language-arts program in a small number of schools in New York City and elsewhere. Initial results are promising; however, building domain knowledge is a long-term proposition. All reading tests are cumulative. The measurable benefit of broad background knowledge can take years to reveal itself.

At present, teachers are tacitly discouraged from taking the long view. Indeed, what incentive would second-grade teachers have to emphasize content that might not show up on a test until sixth grade, if even then? There is more upside for teachers in doing exactly what they chiefly do now -- test prep, skills, and strategies -- unless we actively promote a domain-specific approach to language arts.

Consider a reasonable, simple, even elegant alternative to replace the vicious circle of narrowed curriculum and comprehension skills of limited efficacy, which over time depress reading achievement. By tying the content of reading tests to specific curricular content, the circle becomes virtuous. Here's how it would work: Let's say a state's fourth-grade science standards include the circulatory system, atoms and molecules, electricity, and Earth's geologic layers and weather; and social-studies standards include world geography, Europe in the Middle Ages, the American Revolution, and the U.S. Constitution, among other domains. The state's reading tests should include not just fiction and poetry but nonfiction readings on those topics and others culled from those specific curriculum standards. Teachers would still teach to the test, emphasizing domain-specific knowledge (because it might be on the test), but no one would object, because it would help students not only pass the current year's test but build the broad background knowledge that enables them to become stronger readers in general.

The benefits of such "curriculum-based reading tests" would be many: Tests would be fairer and offer a better reflection of how well a student had learned the particular year's curriculum. The tests would also exhibit "consequential validity," meaning they would actually improve education. Instead of wasted hours of mind-numbing test prep and reading-strategy lessons of limited value, the best test-taking strategy would be learning the material in the curriculum standards -- a true virtuous circle.

By contrast, let's imagine what it is like to be a fourth-grade boy in a struggling South Bronx elementary school, sitting for a high-stakes reading test. If you do not pass, you face summer school or repeating the grade. Because the school has large numbers of students below grade level, it has drastically cut back on science, social studies, art, music -- even gym and recess -- to focus on reading and math. You have spent the year learning and practicing reading strategies. Your teacher, worried about her performance, has relentlessly hammered test-taking strategies for months.

The test begins, and the very first passage concerns the customs of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. You do not know what a custom is; neither do you know who the Dutch were, or even what a colony is. You have never heard of Amsterdam, old or new. Certainly it's never come up in class. Without background knowledge, you struggle with most of the passages on the test. You never had a chance. Meanwhile, across town, more affluent students take and pass the test with ease. They are no brighter or more capable than you are, but because they have wider general knowledge -- as students who come from advantaged backgrounds so often do -- the test is not much of a challenge. Those who think reading is a transferable skill and take background knowledge for granted may well wonder what all the fuss is about. Those kids and teachers in the Bronx struggle all year and fail to get ready for this? Why, all the answers are right there on the page!

It ends, as it inevitably must, in the finger-pointing that plagues American education. But do not blame the tests. Taxpayers are entitled to know if the schools they support are any good, and reading tests, all things considered, are quite reliable. Do not blame the test writers. They have no idea what topics are being taught in school and their job is done when tests show certain technical characteristics. It is unfair to blame teachers, because they are mainly operating to the best of their ability using the methods in which they were trained. And let's not blame the parents of our struggling young man in the South Bronx. Is it unreasonable to assume that a child who dutifully goes to school every day will gain access to the same rich, enabling domains of knowledge that more affluent children take for granted?

It's not unreasonable at all. That's what schools are supposed to be for. The only unreasonable thing is our refusal to see reading for what it really is and to teach and test accordingly.

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issue: the local-food revolution doesn't stand a chance

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Real literacy involves learning about the world, not just letters and sounds.

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Published in SEDL Letter Volume XIV, Number 3, December 2002, Putting Reading First

Myth 1: Learning to read is a natural process.

It has long been argued that learning to read, like learning to understand spoken language, is a natural phenomenon. It has often been suggested that children will learn to read if they are simply immersed in a literacy-rich environment and allowed to develop literacy skills in their own way. This pernicious belief that learning to read is a natural process resulting from rich text experiences is surprisingly prevalent in education-despite the fact that learning to read is not only unnatural, it is one of the most unnatural things humans do.

There is a difference between learning to read text and learning to understand a spoken language. Learning to understand speech is indeed a natural process; starting before birth, children tune in to spoken language in their environment, and as soon as they are able, they begin to incorporate a language. If the linguistic environment is not sufficiently rich or if it is confusing, the innate drive to find a language is so strong that, if necessary, children will create a language of their own (examples of this include twin languages and pidgin languages). Given the opportunity, children will naturally develop all of the essential comprehension skills for the language to which they are exposed with little structured or formal guidance.

By contrast, reading acquisition is not natural. While the ability to understand speech evolved over many, many thousands of years, reading and writing are human inventions that have been around for merely a few thousand years. It has been only within the past few generations that some cultures have made any serious attempt to make literacy universal among their citizens.

If reading were natural, everybody would be doing it, and we would not have to worry about dealing with a 'literacy gap.' According to the National Institute for Literacy and the Center for Education Statistics, more than 40 million adults in this country alone are functionally illiterate, and despite our best educational efforts, approximately 40 percent of our fourth graders lack even the most basic reading skills. These staggering numbers provide evidence that reading is a skill that is quite unnatural and difficult to learn.

Myth 2: Children will eventually learn to read if given enough time.

This is arguably the second most pernicious myth, and it is closely related to the first. Many who claim that reading is natural also claim that children should be given time to develop reading skills at their own pace. This is a double-edged sword because, while it is true that children should be taught to read in developmentally appropriate ways, we should not simply wait for children to develop reading skills in their own time. When a child is not developing reading skills along with his or her peers, that situation should be of great concern.

Over time, the gap between children who have well-developed literacy skills and those who do not gets wider and wider. In the early grades, the literacy gap is relatively easy to cross, and with diagnostic, focused instruction, effective teachers can help children who have poor literacy skills become children with rich literacy skills. However, if literacy instruction needs are not met early, then the gap widens-the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer-until it gets so wide that bridging it requires extensive, intensive, expensive, and frustrating remedial instruction. The gap reaches this nearly insurmountable point very early. Research has shown that if a child is not reading grade-appropriate materials by the time he or she is in the fourth grade, the odds of that child ever developing good reading skills are slim. It is still possible, but it is much more difficult, and the child's own motivation becomes the biggest obstacle to success.

Myth 3: Reading programs are "successful."

It is common for schools to buy an off-the-shelf reading program to address their reading instruction needs and trust that the program will solve their school's literacy issues. Typically, these programs are designed to address a single part of the overall reading curriculum (for example, phonics programs or phoneme awareness programs or reading motivation programs), but often a school purchases a program with the hope that it will be a cure for the school's low reading achievement.

There are a few programs that, if properly implemented, could help a school move in the right direction, but nothing could ever take the place of a knowledgeable and talented teacher.

Although such reading programs can be a useful part of a larger reading curriculum, no reading program by itself has ever been shown to be truly "successful"-not with all children and all teachers. And no reading program by itself has been shown to accelerate all children to advanced levels of performance. Some of these programs, when properly implemented, have been shown to improve overall reading scores significantly (especially in low-performing schools), but that improvement is often a long way from what anyone should describe as "success." If 60 percent of the students in a school are performing unacceptably on the benchmark reading assessments, moving that number to 40 percent is an improvement, but it is still unsatisfactory. There are a few programs that, if properly implemented, could help a school move in the right direction, but nothing could ever take the place of a knowledgeable and talented teacher. Typically these programs do not provide substantial professional development for teachers beyond the basic training teachers need to implement the program in their classrooms.

Research has repeatedly indicated that the single most important variable in any reading program is the knowledge and skill of the teacher implementing the program, so why do we persist in trying to develop "teacher-proof" programs? Some would argue that it is our overdependence on such programs that prevents us from cultivating more knowledgeable and effective teachers. To achieve success for all children, teachers must become extremely sophisticated and diagnostic in their approach to reading instruction, and substantial resources must be devoted toward professional development for teachers. Every child is different: A program cannot be sensitive to the varied and rapidly evolving learning needs of individual children, but a knowledgeable teacher certainly can.

Myth 4: We used to do a better job of teaching children to read.

The good old days weren't always so good. We have, in fact, never done a better job of teaching children to read than we do today. The bad news is we've never really done a worse job either. We are basically just as successful today as we have always been-which is not very successful.

Nothing illustrates this better than the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). This assessment has been given to children aged 9, 13, and 17 across the country since 1970. Student performance at those three age levels has not changed substantially in over 30 years-consistently between 24 percent and 39 percent of students have scored in the "below basic" category (depending on the age tested), and between 3 percent and 7 percent have scored in the "advanced" category. Other investigations have found that literacy rates have not really changed in this country since World War II.

While the literacy rates have not changed substantially, the demand and need for literacy has increased markedly. Literacy now is a prerequisite for success. In the future, the ability to read will be an increasingly indispensable skill given the growing technology and information explosion. Clearly we do not need to get back to the old ways of teaching children to read-the old ways were really no better than (and some would argue, no different from) the current ways. Relatively recent research has given us great insights into why some children have difficulty learning to read, and the next frontier in reading education is to help teachers understand and apply that research information.

Myth 5: Skilled reading involves using syntactic and semantic cues to guess words, and good readers make many "mistakes" as they read authentic text.

Research indicates that both of these claims are quite wrong, but both are surprisingly pervasive in reading instruction. The idea that good readers use contextual cues to guess words in running text comes from a method of assessment developed by Ken Goodman that he called "miscue analysis." For his dissertation, Goodman examined the types of mistakes that young readers make and drew inferences about the strategies they employ as they read. He noticed that the children in his studies very often made errors as they read, but many of these errors did not change the meaning of the text (like misreading "rabbit" as "bunny"). He surmised the reason must be that good readers depend on context to predict upcoming words in passages of text. He further suggested that for good readers, these contextual cues are so important that the reader needs only occasionally to "sample" from the text-that is, look at a few of the words on the page-to confirm the predictions. Children who struggle to sound out words, Goodman says, are overdependant on letter and word cues and should learn to pay more attention to the semantic and syntactic cues.

Goodman's model, which eventually gave rise to the "Three Cueing Systems" model of word recognition, is extremely influential in reading instruction, but has never been supported by research evidence.

In fact, repeated studies have shown that only poor readers depend upon context to try to "guess" words in text-good readers depend heavily upon the visual information contained in the words themselves (that is, the letter and word cues) to quickly and automatically identify the word. Psychologist and researcher Keith Stanovich has been especially critical of the three-cueing-systems model because the predictions made by the model are exactly the opposite of what has been observed in research studies. Philip Gough, a psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and I addressed the second claim and showed that good readers almost never make any mistakes at all when they read, which means the notion of conducting a "miscue analysis" is somewhat suspect-how can you perform a miscue analysis when there are typically no miscues? We had over 400 college students read a passage of text from Ken Goodman's Phonics Phacts (Heinemann, 1993) and showed that the modal number of mistakes made by these students was zero. Almost all of the students read the passage flawlessly. To suggest that good readers correctly guess the words in the passage with 100 percent accuracy stretched the boundaries of credulity.

However, to be sure, we examined how accurate readers would be if they were forced to use semantics and context as their only cues. We concealed the passage of text and asked our college students to guess each of the words in the passage one at a time; after each guess, the correct word was revealed, and students were asked to guess the next word. This process was repeated for every word in the passage, so the students always knew the words leading up to the unknown word.

We found that, given unlimited time to ponder, students were able to correctly guess one out of ten content words in the passage. That's a 90 percent failure rate, as opposed to the zero percent failure rate seen in skilled readers who were not forced to make guesses based on context.

Research has shown that good readers depend very heavily upon the visual information contained in the word-for-word identification (what is commonly called the graphemic information or orthographic information). The semantic and syntactic information are critical for comprehension of passages of text, but they do not play an important role in decoding or identifying words. Good readers make virtually no mistakes as they read because they have developed extremely effective and efficient word identification skills that do not depend upon semantics, context, or syntax. For good readers, word identification is fast, fluent, and automatic-it must be so that their attention can be fully focused on using semantics and syntax to comprehend the text.

Myth 6: Research can be used to support your beliefs, whatever they are.

Unfortunately, it is true that many people selectively search and sample the research literature, citing only the research that seems to support their preconceived notions. Often research results are skewed or biased to appear to be consistent with hypotheses proposed.

And unfortunately, there are many people who are unwilling to reject a hypothesis or a theory even when research evidence does not support that theory. Adding to the problem of poor research is the problem that the public is largely uninformed about the hallmarks of good research.

Many articles appear to be "research" articles, but are not. The article you are reading right now, for example, might be cited as "research" by some, but in fact this is not a research article. This is rather an article written by a researcher, and that is an important distinction. This article, and others that appear in journals like Phi Delta Kappan and The Reading Teacher, are written as informative articles. These articles are usually meant to be analogous to newspaper articles, but are often more like editorials or commentaries. They may stimulate thought and focus attention on interesting issues, but they are not in any way "research" articles.

Publishing a research article requires a great deal of rigor and objectivity, and all good research publications have a formal, relatively unbiased expert peer review process. Research studies are tested and scrutinized from many angles by multiple, unrelated researchers. There is documented objectivity associated with research, and where possible, there is replication of results. And even after all of that, a healthy skepticism is still adopted by the research community. Researchers know that one piece of research evidence is nothing to get excited about. Several bits of evidence might get some attention. But it is only when there is substantial convergent evidence from multiple sources supporting a theory that the research community is willing to embrace the theory.

It takes years to convince the research community that a theory has merit, but often it takes no time at all to convince the public. The media tend to pay attention to unexpected or unusual findings-take the recent contretemps about cold fusion, for example. There is a mountain of evidence showing that cold fusion is not possible given our current technology and understanding of physics. But when one research team circumvented the normal channels of peer review and claimed that they had found a solution for cold fusion, they were celebrated in the media, and the public paid a great deal of attention to their claims.

It is true that "research-based" fads and programs come and go, but that stems from misuse of the term research-based. All of us need to adopt a bit of healthy skepticism, and we should demand that a substantial research base be provided as evidence to support claims. We also must learn to pay more attention to the research evidence and less attention to the messenger-the credentials of a researcher are important, but even researchers can editorialize and put forth unfounded opinions. That a well-known researcher said it doesn't make it so.

Myth 7: Phoneme awareness is a consequence-not a cause-of reading acquisition.

The evidence showing the importance of phoneme awareness to literacy acquisition is overwhelming. Still, there are some who are not convinced. Some claim that teaching children to develop phoneme awareness is not necessary or even beneficial. They usually believe children develop phoneme awareness as they learn to read, but they claim phoneme awareness is nothing more than a byproduct of reading acquisition, arising as a result of learning to read-not the other way around. Further, it is often argued that phoneme awareness instruction is "inauthentic" and unnatural and therefore inappropriate. Research findings do not support this view.

First, it is clear that phoneme awareness is a necessary prerequisite for developing decoding skills in an alphabetic writing system such as English. Phoneme awareness in the early grades is one of the best predictors of future reading success. All successful readers possess phoneme awareness.

Those who do not have phoneme awareness are always poor readers, and poor readers almost never have phoneme awareness. The most compelling evidence for the importance of phoneme awareness stems from the research demonstrating that when children are taught to develop phoneme awareness they are more likely to develop good word decoding skills-and they develop those skills faster and earlier than children who are not taught to be aware of phonemes in spoken words.

Second, phoneme awareness instruction can be authentic and natural. Teachers can use music, tongue twisters, poetry, and games to help children develop phoneme awareness. Children enjoy playing these games; they love to experiment with language, and teachers should give them every opportunity to explore spoken language.

Given the importance of finding developmentally appropriate ways of helping children to develop foundational reading skills as early as possible (see Myth 2), assessment of phoneme awareness should begin early, and games and lessons that help children develop an awareness of phonemes in speech should be used to help those that need it.

Myth 8: Some people are just genetically "dyslexic."

The belief in an underlying genetic cause for dyslexia ignores the fact that reading and writing simply have not been around long enough to become a specific part of our genetic makeup (see Myth 1). It was long argued that when a disparity existed between a person's intelligence and their reading skill, the person should be described as a "dyslexic." The term dyslexic eventually became a catch-all term used to account for people who failed to learn to read despite apparent intellectual capacity and environmental support.

The term "dyslexia" has come to encompass so many reading difficulties that it is of little use. The term simply means "difficulty with words," and anybody who has not learned to read could be called "dyslexic." There is nothing about this definition that addresses the underlying reasons for the difficulty with words. We know that people fail to learn to read for a very wide variety of reasons, and categorizing all nonreaders under the "dyslexia" umbrella belies the complexity of reading disorders.

Clearly, some people have more difficulty learning to read than others. In broad strokes, the three reasons people have difficulty developing basic reading skills are that they have difficulty developing (1) decoding skills, (2) language comprehension skills, or (3) both decoding and language comprehension skills.

Difficulties developing decoding skills often arise from difficulties processing sounds in speech. Some people seem to have an easier time than others mentally breaking spoken words apart and discerning the subparts of spoken words-such as alliteration and rhyme. To learn to decode words in alphabetic systems like English, it is necessary to understand that the letters in text represent the phonemes in speech. It is unlikely that people who have difficulty hearing and manipulating the phonemes in speech will make the connection between letters and phonemes. It could be argued that there is a genetic foundation for variations in phonological processing skills-some people seem to naturally tune in to speech sounds, and others seem to have difficulty examining and manipulating the phonemes in speech. Furthermore, these abilities have a tendency to run in families. However, even if there are specific genetic foundations for phonological processing skills, we know that it is quite easy to teach children to be aware of the phonemes in speech whatever their genetic tendencies.

While some children have difficulty developing decoding skills because of poor phonological processing skills, other children simply do not get adequate instruction in other necessary knowledge domains important for developing good decoding skills (such as concepts about print, letter knowledge, and knowledge of the alphabetic principle). Or they fail to get sufficient opportunities to practice decoding real words and thus fail to develop fluent, automatic word recognition skills. There is no genetic factor for insufficient instruction-the deficit is not intrinsic to the child; it is intrinsic to the classroom and the system that failed to help the child to develop these critical knowledge domains.

Difficulty developing language comprehension skills often stems from either insufficient exposure to or practice with a particular language (children often have well-developed language comprehension skills in languages other than English). To understand a language well, children must develop a rich vocabulary and appreciation for semantics, and they must combine that with a wealth of background knowledge about the world. They also need to have an implicit understanding of the mechanics of the language (syntax), and their ear needs to be tuned to the phonology of the language so they can distinguish words that sound similar (like "hair" and "here").

There are very few genetic factors that lead to reading difficulty. Most factors that result in reading difficulty are environmental, but either way, research has shown that good instruction can overcome all of these factors. The unpleasant fact that we must come to terms with is that the reason so many children are "dyslexic" has little to do with the genetic makeup of the children; it has to do with the quality of their education. They were simply never taught to read.

Myth 9: Short-term tutoring for struggling readers can help them catch up with their peers, and the gains made will be sustained.

Many reading instruction interventions common in schools involve pulling a student out of the regular classroom for a period of time and sending that student to a reading specialist or a tutor for short, intensive, one-on-one instruction sessions. After a few weeks or months of intensive intervention, the students are exited from the intervention program, and they resume normal classroom activities. The prevalence of these fairly expensive programs reflects an underlying belief that this sort of intervention is effective and that the gains children experience in these programs are sustained when they return to the normal classroom.

But it is evident that such gains made by children in these programs are not sustained for very long once the children are exited from the program. Studies of pull-out tutoring programs have shown that children who are not thriving like their peers in the classroom continue to fail to thrive when they are placed back in that classroom full time. This suggests that there is something about the classroom environment that is not supporting and scaffolding these children as they learn to read.

Studies have shown that the best hope for these children is to place them full time with a "strong" reading teacher-a teacher who has a sophisticated understanding of the process of learning to read, a tendency to use assessment data to inform individualized instruction, and a talent for engaging students in focused and interesting instructional activities. Harvard Graduate School of Education professor Catherine Snow has reported research findings that indicate young "at risk" students who are placed with "strong" teachers for two consecutive years are very likely to be successful readers. Similarly, she has shown that students who are not "at risk" are likely to have difficulties learning to read if they are placed with "weak" teachers for two consecutive years.

Once again, we see that the right answer is the hard answer (see Myth 3). The solution for helping struggling readers succeed is to cultivate a population of teachers who are very knowledgeable about how children learn to read and who are adept at applying their understanding of reading acquisition to the assessment and instruction of individual children. Perhaps instead of having our most highly trained and knowledgeable reading teachers pulling students out of class for individual tutoring, a better use of their time would be to make them responsible for providing ongoing, job-embedded professional development and coaching for the other teachers on staff so that all of the teachers can develop expertise in reading theory and reading instruction.

Myth 10: If it is in the curriculum, then the children will learn it, and a balanced reading curriculum is ideal.

This is only a half-myth. Obviously, if something is not a part of the curriculum, then children are unlikely to learn it. But just because a concept or skill is taught is no guarantee that every child will learn it. Standards are shifting from an emphasis on what is taught to an emphasis on what is learned, and curricula are making the same shift. However, it is still common to divide a curriculum into instructional minutes and to focus more closely on what is taught than on what is learned. A curriculum is too often confused with a recipe, but creating proficient readers is not as simple as mixing ingredients in correct proportions. Teaching a complicated skill (such as reading) to a diverse group of students requires a great deal of flexibility and creativity on the teacher's part.

As to whether a curriculum should reflect a balanced reading approach, the answer is, again, yes and no. Unfortunately, the term balanced reading is not very clearly defined. According to the NAEP, most teachers currently claim they employ a balanced approach to their reading instruction, but what a "balanced approach" means to one teacher may be very different from what a "balanced approach" means to another. The approach most commonly used is to provide instruction traditionally associated with both the phonics and the whole-language philosophies and to add such elements as phoneme awareness that were never traditionally associated with either philosophy. Sometimes a balanced reading approach involves first using phonics activities and then later adding whole-language activities. Sometimes a balanced reading approach involves supplementing authentic text with phonics worksheets or decodable text.

According to data collected for the NAEP, the prevalent instructional philosophy shifted in 1996 from "whole language" to "balanced literacy," but NAEP scores have been unaffected by this shift. This should be no surprise-when the prevalent philosophy shifted in the late '80s and early '90s from phonics to whole language (with a period of balanced literacy in between), NAEP scores did not change then either. Thus, it seems the philosophies that drive curricula simply do not in themselves have an impact on student performance.

What does have an impact on student performance has been a recurring theme throughout this essay-the quality, knowledge, and sophistication of the teacher is what really matters for helping children to become proficient readers. The quality of the teacher plays a very large part in determining the reading success of a student. A high-quality teacher can help every one of his or her students develop advanced reading skills. A low-quality teacher can have the opposite effect. The importance of providing good professional development to engender a population of highly qualified diagnostic reading teachers is paramount, and every child will benefit from such teachers. It is not easy, but anyone who tells you there is an easier solution to the mounting problem of illiteracy is trying to sell a myth.

Further Reading

To learn more about these and other related issues in reading instruction and reading research, curious readers are encouraged to examine these titles:

Adams, M. J. 1990. Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Adams, M. J. 1998. The three-cueing systems. In J. Osborn and F. Lehr (eds.), Literacy for all: Issues in teaching and learning, 73-99. New York: Guilford Press.

Gough, P. B., and S. A. Wren. 1999. Constructing meaning: The role of decoding. In Reading Development and the Teaching of Reading, eds. J. Oakhill and R. Beard, 59-78.

Malden, MA: Blackwell. Moats, L. C. 1999. Teaching reading is rocket science. Washington D.C.: American Federation of Teachers.

Snow, C. E., W. S. Barnes, J. Chandler, I. F., Goodman, and L. Hemphill. 1991. Unfulfilled Expectations: Home and School Influences on Literacy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Snow, C., S. Burns, and P. Griffin, eds. 1998. Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington D.C.: National Academy Press.

Stanovich, K. E. 1986. Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 360-407.

Stanovich, K. E. 1992. How to think straight about psychology. New York: Harper Collins.

Sebastian Wren was a SEDL program associate working with low-performing schools under SEDL's Regional Educational Laboratory contract. Dr. Wren is the author of The Cognitive Foundations of Learning to Read: A Framework.

Next Article: The Importance of Phonemic Awareness in Learning to Read

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Published in SEDL Letter Volume XIV, Number 3, December 2002, Putting Reading First It has long been argued that learning to read, like learning to understand spoken language, is a natural phenomenon. It has often been suggested that children will learn to read if they are simply immersed in a literacy-rich environment and allowed to develop literacy skills in their own way.

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CORE Science of Reading Resource Library

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CORE Science of Reading Resource Library

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Teacher Professional Learning | Literacy, Math | MTSS

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Curriculum Adoption

Curriculum Implementation

Literacy Coaching & Site Implementation Support

Early Literacy Planning & Implementation Collaboration

Online Language & Literacy Academy

Publisher-Approved Professional Learning

Elementary Reading Academy

Adolescent Literacy Solutions

Curriculum Adoption

Curriculum Implementation

Rise in Math

Math Coaching

Online Math Academies + Coaching

Onsite Math Academies

Teaching Reading Sourcebook 3rd Edition

Curriculum Adoption

Curriculum Implementation

Literacy Coaching & Site Implementation Support

Early Literacy Planning & Implementation Collaboration

Online Language & Literacy Academy

Publisher-Approved Professional Learning

Elementary Reading Academy

Adolescent Literacy Solutions

Curriculum Adoption

Curriculum Implementation

Rise in Math

Math Coaching

Online Math Academies + Coaching

Onsite Math Academies

Teaching Reading Sourcebook 3rd Edition

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Science of Reading Resource Library - Teacher Professional Learning | Literacy, Math | MTSS

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Free resources to help you develop your knowledge of the science of reading and how to teach all students to be strong readers.

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Laura Stewart, The Reading League

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Favorite Articles

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Find science of reading resources, recommended books, and professional development videos to build your professional knowledge.

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Anita Archer - The Magic is in the Instruction

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Anita Archer - The Magic is in the Instruction

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Jack Fletcher - Prevention of Reading Difficulties

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Jack Fletcher - Prevention of Reading Difficulties

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Keynote Presentation @ Ohio's Literacy Academies

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Overview

Tier 2 interventions are the additional programs and strategies provided to students who require supports in addition to universal supports. The purpose of tier 2 interventions is to reduce the risk of academic or behavior problems. The following are critical features of tier 2 interventions.

Small Group and Instructional Time

It is most efficient to group students with similar needs together for tier 2 interventions. Tier 2 interventions include increasing the amount of instructional time in addition to tier 1 reading instruction.

At the elementary level, the recommended group size is three to five students. The interventions should take place three to five times per week for 20 to 40 minutes.

At the secondary level, the recommended group size is 12 or fewer students.

Matched to Student Need(s)

Tier 2 interventions should be deliberately selected to focus on the specific big idea(s) in reading that the student needs to develop. Specific decision rules should be developed to determine which students would benefit from a specific tier 2 intervention. These entry criteria are used to best match students to interventions based on their specific needs.

At the elementary level, the focus of intervention instruction should be on one or more of the big ideas (phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle (basic phonics), fluency, vocabulary, and/or comprehension).

At the secondary level, intervention instruction should focus on the big ideas of adolescent reading (advanced word study/phonics, fluency with connected text, vocabulary, comprehension, and/or motivation).

Explicit Instruction

Intervention instruction should be explicit, meaning the instruction follows an instruction routine that includes:

A series of supports or scaffolds.

Guiding students through learning with clear expectations about the purpose and rationale for learning the skill(s).

Explanations and demonstrations that are clear and include "think-alouds" ("I do").

Step-by-step demonstrations of the instructional target ("we do").

Supported practice with immediate instructional feedback until independent mastery is reached ("you do").

Opportunities to Practice

Intervention instruction includes deliberate increases in opportunities to respond. This is maximized through the group size as well as the design of the instruction. Intervention should be characterized by a brisk teaching pace that increases the number of opportunities for individual and groups of students to respond with immediate feedback. It should also include judicious practice that includes initial practice, distributed practice, and cumulative practice and review over time.

Frequent Feedback

Intervention instruction should include increased feedback to students on their performance. Both immediate affirmative and corrective feedback is necessary to increase student academic performance.

Progress Monitoring

As the intensity of intervention increases, the frequency of progress monitoring should also increase. This includes collecting data on student outcomes as well as data related to the use of the intervention with fidelity. The specific skills that are being taught should be routinely monitored (e.g., at least twice a month). Tier 2 interventions often include assessments built into an intervention program (e.g., end of unit mastery tests). These data are also used to monitor student performance over time. Progress monitoring data are used to adjust the intervention as appropriate.

Fading Supports

Decision rules should be established to determine when a student's performance meets exit criteria. This means the students has made sufficient progress and will no longer receive the tier 2 intervention instruction.

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Tier 2 Reading | Michigan’s MTSS Technical Assistance Center

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Tier 2 interventions are the additional programs and strategies provided to students who require supports in addition to universal supports. The purpose of tier 2 interventions is to reduce the risk of academic or behavior problems. The following are critical features of tier 2 interventions.

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Ensuring Access to the General Curriculum for All Learners

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Ensuring Access to the General Curriculum for All Learners

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Trunk Work: Strong Systems, Structures, and Supports

As a collective state-wide group of education professionals, we are all responsible when it comes to meeting the needs of diverse and complex learners. Integrating supports that represent ALL learners, across all levels of the state-system, is a daunting task. This means we will have to work collaboratively across licensure areas, offices, and other silos of practice to ensure that ALL learners receive the expertise we each individually bring to the field. As a collaborative group, we will need to rely on strong guidelines and processes to planfully connect supports and implement to improve learner outcomes. Some examples of these structures within our system include academic learning standards, the assess, plan, teach cycle - Ohio Improvement Process (OIP), Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports (PBIS), etc.

Some examples of content targeting this "trunk work" can be found in:

Chapter 2: Designing Rich Tier I Instruction and Assessment: Overview

Chapter 2: Sorting and Clustering Standards for Instruction: Integrated Units

Chapter 4: Language and Communication Access: ALL In!

Chapter 10: Curriculum Screening, Audit, Selection, and Deselection

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Michigan's MTSS Technical Assistance Center

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Reading instruction at the tier 1 (universal) level includes all students and should cover the Big Ideas of reading. Through the combination of whole-group and small-group differentiated instruction, 80 to 90 percent or more of students should attain school-wide reading goals and meet universal screening benchmarks.

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Overview

Tier 3 support plans are designed in a unique and specific manner with the goal of addressing the individual student's specific needs. Often with reading interventions, a new intervention program is not started at tier 3. Rather, the individual problem solving to address the specific needs of the student includes increasing the intensity of the critical features of tier 2 interventions (e.g., smaller group, increased instructional time, opportunities to practice, frequency of feedback, frequency of progress monitoring). These plans often include a combination of specific reading intervention and behavioral strategies.

Intensifying Literacy Instruction
Intensifying Literacy Instruction: Essential Practices
In an MTSS framework, the increasingly intensive instructional and intervention supports would be categorized as Tier 2 and Tier 3. Though these Tier 2 and Tier 3 type approaches likely occur in small groups as a supplement to their Tier 1 or class-wide (core) literacy instruction; it is important to recognize that most of the students receiving those supports spend a majority of their instructional time in the general education classroom/core subject area setting. Therefore, it is imperative the information related to intensifying literacy instruction supports not only special educators and additional staff providing intervention through Tier 2 and Tier 3 supports, but also classroom teachers. The Intensifying Literacy Instruction: Essential Practices identifies five practices as the most critical aspects of assuring students receiving Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions are provided necessary literacy instruction.

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Michigan's MTSS Technical Assistance Center

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Tier 3 support plans are designed in a unique and specific manner with the goal of addressing the individual student's specific needs. Often with reading interventions, a new intervention program is not started at tier 3.

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Increasing Instructional Intensity Across Tiers of Support

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Increasing Instructional Intensity Across Tiers of Support

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Increasing Instructional Intensity Across Tiers of Support

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This brief demonstrates how instructional intensity can be increased for struggling readers across a multi-tiered system of supports.

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Literacy Interventions Decision Flowchart Video

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In this video, Dr. Sharon Vaughn, Senior Advisor to the National Center on Intensive Intervention and the Executive Director of The Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk, defines intervention platform.

Question: What is an intervention platform?

Answer: An intervention platform is the way in which we refer to the instructional practice routine, materials or program that the school or the teacher is currently using to provide intervention for students. And whether you call that a secondary intervention or a Tier II intervention or whether you call that tertiary intervention or Tier III intervention, it is that instructional approach that you're currently using. And the idea by calling it a platform is that we consider it sort of the basis by which adaptations, accommodations, or other instructional practices will be included to make it more intense. And so since most of you are already doing something for students who have instructional needs beyond those in the classroom, the way in which you make it more intensive is to take a close examination and adjustment of what we're referring to as instructional platform or what you're currently doing. And so again, that could be instructional materials, instructional program, or a combination of materials and programs, instructional practices, professional development, any combination of those would constitute the current platform that you're using.

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In this video, Dr. Sharon Vaughn, Senior Advisor to the National Center on Intensive Intervention and the Executive Director of The Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk, defines intervention platform. Question: What is an intervention platform?

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When I began to learn about phonics instruction, I saw spelling puzzles in words I'd never noticed before, and I gained appreciation for the difficulty of learning to decode. Now, as an increasing number of students at my school can read accurately, the challenge of comprehension is looming large.

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In this special Reading Rockets video series, reading expert Linda Farrell works one-on-one with students in grades K-3 to help ensure that they master the skills they need to become proficient readers.

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Description

These videos, developed by the Vaughn Gross Center for Reading and Language Arts at The University of Texas at Austin as part of the Texas Adolescent Literacy Academies (TALA), demonstrate instruction in syllable structure.

Identifying Syllable Structures: Closed Syllables Review

Identifying Syllable Structures: Closed Syllables Practice

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TALA Videos: Syllable Structure (Decoding) - The Meadows Center

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Description These videos, developed by the Vaughn Gross Center for Reading and Language Arts at The University of Texas at Austin as part of the Texas Adolescent Literacy Academies (TALA), demonstrate instruction in syllable structure. Identifying Syllable Structures: Closed Syllables Review Identifying Syllable Structures: Closed Syllables Practice

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Description

These videos, developed by the Vaughn Gross Center for Reading and Language Arts at The University of Texas at Austin as part of the Texas Adolescent Literacy Academies (TALA), demonstrate instruction in morphemic analysis.

Morphemic Analysis Prefix Lesson (Grade 6)

Morphemic Analysis Prefix Lesson (Grades 7-8)

Morphemic Analysis Routine (Grade 6)

Morphemic Analysis Routine (Grades 7-8)

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TALA Videos: Morphemic Analysis (Vocabulary) - The Meadows Center

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Description These videos, developed by the Vaughn Gross Center for Reading and Language Arts at The University of Texas at Austin as part of the Texas Adolescent Literacy Academies (TALA), demonstrate instruction in morphemic analysis. Morphemic Analysis Prefix Lesson (Grade 6) Morphemic Analysis Pr…

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UFLI Webinar 6: Spotlight on Intermediate Grades (3-5)

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Increasing Instructional Intensity Across Tiers of Support

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This brief demonstrates how instructional intensity can be increased for struggling readers across a multi-tiered system of supports.

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Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4–9

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Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4–9

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Routinely use a set of comprehension-building practices to help students make sense of the text

Part 3A. Build students' world and word knowledge so they can make sense of the text

Part 3B. Consistently provide students with opportunities to ask and answer questions to better understand the text they read

Part 3C. Teach students a routine for determining the gist of a short section of text

Part 3D. Teach students to monitor their comprehension as they read

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reading intervention; reading instruction; literacy; reading difficulties; reading disabilities; comprehension; fluency; decoding; comprehension monitoring; world knowledge; word knowledge; vocabulary; stretch text; grade 4; grade 5; grade 6; grade 7; grade 8; grade 9

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WWC | Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4-9

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Routinely use a set of comprehension-building practices to help students make sense of the text Part 3A. Build students' world and word knowledge so they can make sense of the text Part 3B. Consistently provide students with opportunities to ask and answer questions to better understand the text they read Part 3C.

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10 Success Factors for Literacy Intervention

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10 Success Factors for Literacy Intervention

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In some schools, MTSS/RTI is losing steam because other initiatives are consuming educators' attention. Diverting focus away from MTSS is a mistake. A systemic approach to differentiating instruction to meet the needs of all students should be nonnegotiable. It's not a fad, and it shouldn't be pushed aside for something else that draws the staff's attention.

One reason it may be easy to push aside MTSS is that although results have been outstanding in some schools, they have been negligible in too many others. The reason results have not been consistently strong is that in implementing MTSS, too many schools have left out critical components.

What are schools that are getting good results doing? When results are unimpressive, what's missing?

Author and literacy expert Dr. Susan Hall answers these persistent questions in her publication, 10 Success Factors for Literacy Intervention: Getting Results with MTSS in Elementary Schools. Dr. Hall's experience in working with schools across the United States led to the development of a list of 10 success factors observable in schools that are getting significant gains in student literacy with MTSS.
THE 10 SUCCESS FACTORS INCLUDE:
1. Group by Skill Deficit

2. Use Diagnostic Assessments

3. Implement a Walk-to-Intervention Delivery Model

4. Monitor Progress with an Appropriate Assessment

5. Flood the Intervention Block with Extra Instructors

6. Use Intervention Time Wisely

7. Be Aware of What Makes Intervention Effective

8. Provide Teachers with Intervention Lesson Materials

9. Invest in Professional Development

10. Inspect What You Expect
WATCH OUR ON-DEMAND 10 SUCCESS FACTORS WEBINAR SERIES
Excerpted from 10 Success Factors for Literacy Intervention: Getting Results with MTSS in Elementary Schools, by Susan L. Hall, Ed.D, Copyright © 2018 ASCD. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission .
Webinar #1: SUCCESS FACTORS 1-5
Join Dr. Hall as she thoroughly explores each of these ten success factors and provides the guidance educators need to move from disappointing results to student reading success in this practical publication. Watch our on-demand 10 Success Factors webinar series and download the complimentary 8-page booklet to preview the 10 Success Factors.
Webinar #2: SUCCESS FACTORS 6-10 & Wrap Up
What are the first five elements that need to be in place to begin and ensure a successful MTSS implementation?

Learn more about the 5 key characteristics of effective intervention lessons and make sure ....What does it take to keep your MTSS Implementation process moving forward? Learn how to INSPECT what you EXPECT by conducting snapshot observations.

No matter where you are with MTSS, just starting out or fully implemented, the 10 Success Factors webinars provide strategies and tips for delivering a continuum of support to match student needs. Now you can view both webinars at your convenience and share this information with your colleagues.

Collaboratively improve your Site-Based MTSS Practices

With our 10 Success Factors Book Study Bundle, educators have the collective opportunity to read 10 Success Factors while closely examining their school's current MTSS practices, identifying opportunities for improvement, and engaging in collaborative discussions that will ultimately lead to the development of a site-based MTSS Action Plan.
PURCHASE 10 SUCCESS FACTOR BOOKS AND BOOK BUNDLES IN OUR WEB STORE 24/7
The 10 Success Factors Book Bundle (GN 9013), a $50 value, includes a Facilitator's Guide and ten Reader's Guides - and is automatically included with the purchase of ten copies of 10 Success Factors for Literacy Intervention. The bundle is also available for individual purchase in our web store. Click here for more information.

Click here to place an order in our web store or contact us orders@95percentgroup.com.

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10 Success Factors for Literacy Intervention

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In some schools, MTSS/RTI is losing steam because other initiatives are consuming educators' attention. Diverting focus away from MTSS is a mistake. A systemic approach to differentiating instruction to meet the needs of all students should be nonnegotiable. It's not a fad, and it shouldn't be pushed aside for something else that draws the staff's attention.

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Literacy Sample Lessons to Support Intensifying Intervention

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Literacy Sample Lessons to Support Intensifying Intervention

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NCII provides a series of reading lessons to support special education instructors, reading interventionists, and others working with students who struggle with reading. These lessons, adapted with permission from the Florida Center for Reading Research and Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk, address key reading and prereading skills and incorporate research-based instructional principles that can help intensify and individualize reading instruction. The reading lessons are examples of brief instructional routines that may be used to supplement reading interventions, programs, or curricula that are currently in place. These lessons are designed to illustrate concepts and supplement, not supplant, reading instruction and interventions for struggling readers. They do not represent an exhaustive reading curriculum. It is expected that teachers would customize these lessons to meet the needs of their target students.

The NCII reading lessons are organized around the five components of reading identified by the National Reading Panel (2000): phonemic awareness, alphabetic principal or phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Intervention programs for struggling readers may focus on just one or a few of these components, or may include all five components.

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Reading & Literacy Lessons: Instructional Strategies | NCII

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A series of reading lessons to support special education instructors, reading interventionists, and others working with students who struggle with reading.

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Syntax Matters: A Kendore Learning Webinar Featuring William Van Cleave

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The Taxonomy of Intervention Intensity (Fuchs, Fuchs, & Malone, 2017) can be used to select or evaluate an intervention platform used as the validated intervention platform or the foundation of the DBI process. It can also be used to guide the adaptation of intensification of an intervention during the intervention adaptation step of the DBI process. The Taxonomy includes the following dimensions:

Strength: the evidence of effectiveness for students with intensive needs;

Dosage: the number of opportunities the student has to respond and receive feedback from the teacher;

Alignment: how well the intervention matches the targeted academic skills or behaviors of concern, as well as incorporates grade-appropriate standards or behaviors we would expect for a particular context;

Attention to transfer: whether the intervention is explicitly designed to help students make connections between the skills taught in the intervention and skills learned in other contexts and environments;

Comprehensiveness: how well the intervention incorporates a comprehensive array of explicit instruction principles; and

Behavioral or academic support: whether an academic intervention incorporates behavioral strategies that may support students with self-regulation, motivation, or externalizing behaviors that may impact their ability to learn, or whether a behavioral intervention considers academic components as part of the intervention.

The final dimension of the Taxonomy, individualization, focuses on the ongoing use of progress monitoring data and other diagnostic data sources to intensify and individualize the intervention based on student need. This approach mirrors the remaining steps of the DBI process that consist of data collection and modification in an iterative process until improvement is seen.
Tools and Resources to Learn About the Taxonomy of Intervention Intensity

Fuchs, L. S., Fuchs, D., & Malone A. S. (2017). The taxonomy of intervention intensity. Teaching Exceptional Children, 50(1), 35-43.

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How to Intensify Intervention: Intensification Strategies | NCII

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Tools and resources that provide an overview of the Taxonomy of Intervention Intensity and supports for selecting, evaluating, and intensifying interventions.

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William Van Cleave Syntax Interventions 

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William Van Cleave Syntax Interventions 

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Syntax Matters: A Kendore Learning Webinar Featuring William Van Cleave

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National Center on Intensive Intervention

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Trunk Work: Strong Systems, Structures, and Supports

As a collective state-wide group of education professionals, we are all responsible when it comes to meeting the needs of diverse and complex learners. Integrating supports that represent ALL learners, across all levels of the state-system, is a daunting task. This means we will have to work collaboratively across licensure areas, offices, and other silos of practice to ensure that ALL learners receive the expertise we each individually bring to the field. As a collaborative group, we will need to rely on strong guidelines and processes to planfully connect supports and implement to improve learner outcomes. Some examples of these structures within our system include academic learning standards, the assess, plan, teach cycle - Ohio Improvement Process (OIP), Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports (PBIS), etc.

Some examples of content targeting this "trunk work" can be found in:

Chapter 2: Designing Rich Tier I Instruction and Assessment: Overview

Chapter 2: Sorting and Clustering Standards for Instruction: Integrated Units

Chapter 4: Language and Communication Access: ALL In!

Chapter 10: Curriculum Screening, Audit, Selection, and Deselection