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Teacher modeling is a excellent accommodation for ELL students because they can see what is being asked of them. ELL students may have trouble understanding when it comes to verbiage but modeling and being able to see what they are supposed to do is a great accommodation for ELL students.

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Alternative Assessments and activities are essential for ELL students. Being able to give them multiple ways to learn and prove they know what they are being taught is huge and will help ELL students academically. Sometimes they have a hard time understanding one certain way so giving them options is imperative.

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Teaching ELL students can be stressful on a teacher but stick to the basics. Make sure you are reading to them daily, teach letters in the alphabet, teach phonics and comprehension and support these students as much as possible.

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Supporting ELLs in the Mainstream Classroom: Reading Instruction

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You can and should use what you already know to be effective, research-based reading instruction to English language learners (ELLs). However, ELLs will need additional support in learning how to read, and the strategies here will help you to provide assistance in your everyday teaching, particularl…

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An accommodation that I will use with SPED students would be alternative testing options. Testing in another room would help the student focus because it would be a distraction free setting and can reduce the auditory and visual distractions.

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The National Center for Learning Disabilities presents examples of accommodations that allow students with learning disabilities to show what they know without giving them an unfair advantage. Accommodations are divided into the following categories: how information is presented to the student, how…

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Providing SPED students with quick breaks will help these students retain more information and have less meltdowns in the classroom.

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Students are easily distracted, but regular, short breaks can help them focus, increase their productivity, and reduce their stress.

©Shutterstock.com/Rawpixel.com

Regular breaks throughout the school day-from short brain breaks in the classroom to the longer break of recess-are not simply downtime for students. Such breaks increase their productivity and provide them with opportunities to develop creativity and social skills.

Students, particularly young ones, often struggle with staying focused for long periods of time. In a 2016 study, psychologist Karrie Godwin and a team of researchers measured how attentive elementary students were during class, and discovered that they spent over a quarter of the time distracted, unable to focus on the teacher or the current task. Shorter lessons, however, kept student attention high: Teachers found it more effective to give several 10-minute lessons instead of fewer 30-minute ones.

And there are more benefits to downtime than increased attention: It decreases stress, increases productivity, boosts brain function, and provides opportunities for children to learn social skills.

Reducing Stress, Increasing Productivity

Recent research shows that our brains aren't idle when we take breaks-they're hard at work processing memories and helping us make sense of what we experience. In a groundbreaking 2012 study, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and her colleagues at USC and MIT used an fMRI scanner to examine neural activity during the brain's "default mode"-a state of rest that's usually associated with taking a break or letting our minds wander. In this state, the brain is still highly active, with a different set of regions lighting up than when we're focused on the outside world.

Further experiments showed that this default mode is crucial for consolidating memories, reflecting on past experiences, and planning for the future-in other words, it helps shape how we make sense of our lives. Breaks keep our brains healthy and play a key role in cognitive abilities such as reading comprehension and divergent thinking (the ability to generate and make sense of novel ideas). "Rest is indeed not idleness, nor is it a wasted opportunity for productivity," Immordino-Yang and her colleagues write.

So breaks are an essential part of learning. But the benefits extend beyond the psychological well-being of students. Particularly for younger students, regular breaks throughout the school day can be an effective way to reduce disruptive behavior. In a series of recent studies, short physical activity breaks in the classroom improved students' behavior, increasing the effort they put into their activities as well as their ability to stay on task.

Both students and teachers benefit from using unstructured breaks to reduce stress. According to the American Psychological Association, stress can have serious health consequences, increasing someone's chances of serious conditions such as heart disease and depression. The APA recommends frequent breaks, in addition to other activities such as exercise and mediation.

Boosting Brain Function

Exercise breaks-whether short activities in the classroom or recess-help promote physical fitness, which in turn boosts brain health. In 2013, the National Academy of Medicine (then called the Institute of Medicine) published a major report on the benefits of physical activity on children's cognitive development and academic success.

At the time, less than half of U.S. students were meeting the federal guideline of 60 minutes of daily exercise. Bringing together experts across a range of fields, the report made the case for why regular exercise crucially belongs in schools: It not only provides physical health benefits to students but also enhances their cognitive functioning, leading to higher academic performance.

How does exercise improve learning? Engaging in physical activity increases blood flow and oxygenation in the brain, boosting neural connectivity and stimulating nerve cell growth in the hippocampus, the center of learning and memory. So exercise actually changes the structure of our brains, with a number of benefits: improved attention and memory, increased brain activity and cognitive function, and enhanced mood and ability to cope with stress.

Decades of research show that physically active children consistently outperform their inactive peers academically on both a short- and long-term basis.

Developing Social Skills

Longer breaks-such as recess or playtime-provide opportunities for children to learn important life skills. Research shows that when children play together, they learn how to take turns, resolve conflicts, and solve problems. They also learn how to manage their own emotions and behavior-fundamental skills for life. So dropping recess is a mistake, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics: Recess is a "crucial and necessary component of a child's development," and sacrificing it for more academics is counterproductive.

Unstructured playtime provides an opportunity for imaginary and creative play and allows children to practice divergent thinking. They benefit from the freedom to explore new ideas without fear of failure or the stress of grades, and regular exposure to new experiences can also increase their cognitive flexibility, preparing them for academic challenges.

Incorporating Breaks in Your Classroom

Several breaks throughout the day can help students stay focused:

While breaks can help reset student focus, a useful alternative-especially for older students-is to switch teaching strategies throughout a lesson: Try having students team up on a think-pair-share activity or work in groups, spend a few minutes reviewing concepts, or give a low-stakes practice test at the end of a lesson. These activities can help break up the monotony of a long lesson, and as a bonus, boost students' memory.

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Students are easily distracted, but regular, short breaks can help them focus, increase their productivity, and reduce their stress.

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Providing these students with extra time on quizzes and tests is another accommodation that I will give any student that has this accommodation in their personalized IEP

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These are all great strategies to implement in any classroom to help promote retelling stories and key details. Guided discussions, summaries of the story, and asking academic based questions are all helpful for promoting reading comprehension.

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1. Cudd, E.T., & Roberts, L.L. (1987). Using story frames to develop reading comprehension in a first grade classroom The Reading Teacher, 41, 75-79.

2. Stauffer, R.G. (1975). Directing the reading-thinking process. New York: Harper & Row.

3. Ogle, D.M. (1986). K-W-L: A teaching model that develops active reading of expository text. The Reading Teacher, 39, 564-570. and Ogle, D.M. (1989). The know, want to know, learn strategy. In K.D. Muth (Ed.), Children's comprehension of text: Research into practice (pp. 205-233). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

4. Beck, I.L., McKeown, M.G., Hamilton, R.L., & Kucan, L. (1997). Questioning the author: An approach for enhancing student engagement with text. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

5. Palincsar, A. S., & Brown, A. L. (1984). Reciprocal teaching of comprehension fostering and comprehension-monitoring activities. Cognition and Instruction, 2, 117-175.

6. Brown, R., & Coy-Ogan, L. (1993). The Evolution of transactional strategies instruction in one teacher's classroom. The Elementary School Journal, 94, 221-233; Pressley, M., El-Dinary, P.B., Gaskins, I., Schuder, T., Bergman, J., Almasi, L., & Brown, R. (1992). Beyond direct explanation: Transactional instruction of reading comprehension strategies. The Elementary School Journal, 92, 511-554.

7. Hoffman, J.V. (1992). Critical reading / thinking across the curriculum: Using I-Charts to support learning. Language Arts, 69, 121-127.Language Arts, 69, 121-127.

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Based on research and effective practice, these strategies help students learn how to coordinate and use a set of key comprehension techniques before, during, and after they read a variety of texts.

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Retelling stories that include key details is essential for reading comprehension growth. I will provide activities such as retelling stories through writing journals and group discussions to help these students retain the information they were being taught through the story.

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When I moved up from Kindergarten to 2nd grade, I discovered something a little shocking: not all of my 2nd graders were able to retell stories! Since we worked on that skill so much in Kindergarten, I assumed that kids would have mastered it by 2nd grade. But...not so much.

As I found out, retelling is something that kids have to practice again...and again...and again. But how do you keep it interesting if students must practice retelling year after year? In this post, I'll describe 7 engaging ways to practice retelling - that won't put your students to sleep!

1. Give students a purpose for retelling.

Kids need to understand why we're asking them to do things, and retelling is no exception. When I talk about retelling, I use language like:

"Retelling is a great way to share information about a text with other people."

"Retelling is a good way to remember what you've read and check to make sure that you really understand a text."

"If you just finished this story and wanted to tell your friend all about it, what would you say to explain the most important parts?"

"If your Mom/Dad asked you what you were reading about, what would you say about the beginning, middle, and end?"

2. Provide a predictable structure to set students up for success.

Having kids "mentally organize" the parts of a story makes it easier for them to retell it. You can teach them to think about beginning, middle, and end, and have them write or draw a picture for each part (graphic organizer from my retelling unit for K-1):

I've also seen teachers use a structure called "Somebody-Wanted-But-So" to help students structure their retellings. You can read more about that strategy here.

3. Let kids practice retelling in ways that respect their individual preferences.

Some students may want to draw, write, or talk it out with a friend. As long as they all arrive at the same place (learn to retell a story), why not let them choose how they get there? Providing choice is a great motivator, too!

(Another idea - if you want to have the whole class create an illustrated retelling, grab some butcher paper and have them create a class mural to retell a story.)

4. Provide props.

How much more fun is retelling when kids get to use props?! One of the first retelling activities I do in Pre-K or Kindergarten is to read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (Martin & Carle) and have students retell it using craft stick puppets.

To create the puppets, I adhered a picture of each type of animal to a large craft stick. Students took turns retelling (using the props) as a whole class, and then I set it up as a center.

Stuffed animals and other "realia" are also fun for retelling. In Kindergarten, we often read a big book multiple times throughout the week, and then students got to use props to retell the story on Friday.

If you have a flannel board in your classroom, students can practice retelling using felt pieces. I have a tabletop dry erase board that also has a flannel board side, and I totally love it! You can check it out here:

5. Use photos.

A couple of the basal reading series I've used came with photos for retelling. Even if you don't have access to these types of materials, you can create them yourself! Use your phone or tablet to take photos of different illustrations in the story (just make sure that you don't distribute or sell the images - that would be violating copyright!).

You can then print the images or display them on an interactive white board. Have students put them in order, and then retell the story from those photos.

6. Use sticky notes.

I have never met a child who doesn't love sticky notes. Put kids' obsession to sticky notes to good use, and use them for retelling activities!

You can give young students 3 sticky notes and have them draw a picture for the beginning, middle, and end of a story. Children who are beginning to read chapter books can write a few notes about each chapter and place them in their book as they read. When they finish the book and it's time to retell the story, they can take out the sticky notes and use them as the basis for their retelling.

7. Try a retelling rope or bracelet.

Using a retelling rope or bracelet is a fun, hands-on way to help kids practice! These activities have students physically touching and moving small items as they retell different parts of a story.

To read more about making a retelling bracelet (it's so simple!) click here. To read more about using a retelling rope (and get some free printables), click here.

And...if you're looking for complete lessons that guide students with retelling, main idea, and story elements, check out my unit (for K-1):

Do you have any great retelling strategies to add to this list? Please comment below!

Happy teaching!
Disclosure: This post contains Amazon affiliate links.

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7 Ways to Practice Retelling That Won't Put Your Students to Sleep! - Learning at the Primary Pond

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When I moved up from Kindergarten to 2nd grade, I discovered something a little shocking: not all of my 2nd graders were able to retell stories! Since we worked on that skill so much in Kindergarten, I assumed that kids would have mastered it by 2nd grade. But...not so much.

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Providing story maps is a great activity I plan on using to help my students retain the story they were told. This will include characters throughout the story and key details that had transpired throughout the story. Great way for students to lock in and understand what was being told to them.

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Adler, C. (2004). Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension.

Armbruster, B. B., Lehr, F., & Osborn, J. (2001) Put reading first: The research building blocks for teaching children to read kindergarten through grade three. Washington, DC: The U.S. Department of Education.

Boulineau, T., Fore, C, Hagan-Burke, S. and Burke, M. (2004). Use of Story-Mapping to Increase the Story-Grammar Text Comprehension of Elementary Students with Learning Disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Spring, 2004), pp. 105-121

Nell K. Duke, P. David Pearson, Stephanie L. Strachan, and Alison K. Billman (2011) Essential Elements of Fostering and Teaching Reading Comprehension . From What Research Has to Say About Reading Instruction (4th ed.), International Reading Association.

Nell K. Duke, Alessandra E. Ward, and P. David Pearson (2021). The Science of Reading Comprehension Instruction , The Reading Teacher, Vol 74, No. 6 (May-June 2021).

Dunst, C, Simkus, A, Hamby, D. (2012). Children's Story Retelling as a Literacy and Language Enhancement Strategy. CELLreviews 5(4). Asheville, NC: Orelena Hawks Puckett Institute, Center for Early Literacy Learning.

Santa, C., Havens, L., & Valdes, B. (2004). Project CRISS: Creating independence through student owned strategies 3rd Edition. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt Publishing Company.

Timothy Shanahan et al., Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade (2010). U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences.

Trabasso, T., & Bouchard, E. (2002) Teaching readers how to comprehend text strategically. In C. Block and M. Pressley, (Eds.) Comprehension instruction: Research-based practices (pp. 176-200). NY: Guilford Press.

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Story maps use graphic organizers to help students learn the elements of a book or story. The most basic story maps focus on the beginning, middle, and end of the story. More advanced organizers focus more on plot or character traits.

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Progress monitoring is an assessment tool I will use to see my students growth. This assessment is a great way for teachers to track students performance throughout the instructional period and will be able to identify where students thrive and where students are struggling.

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Student Progress Monitoring: What This Means for Your Child

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Progress monitoring can give you and your child's teacher information that can help your child learn more and learn faster, and help you make better decisions about the type of instruction that will work best with your child.

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Screening is another tool I will use to see if my students are proficient in reading comprehension. Screening allows teachers to be able to identify students who are at risk or struggling to read appropriately.

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Learning to read is arguably the most important work of students in the early elementary grades. Learning to read lays the foundation for future learning and understanding across all areas of the curriculum. Without this foundation, students will struggle to achieve academically in not only reading and writing, but also in areas such as math, science, and social studies. Decades of reading research have provided a good blueprint for understanding how children learn how to read. As reported by the National Reading Panel (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000), although the path may differ slightly based on individual experiences, children generally require the following to learn to read well:

1. Strong receptive and expressive language

2. Well-developed phonological and print awareness

3. Knowledge of letter-sound relationships (decoding)

4. An ability to comprehend what they read

5. The ability to read naturally and effortlessly (fluency).

Instructional research on reading has indicated that children develop these abilities best when provided with systematic and explicit instruction, when exposed to rich language and literary environments, and when exposed to appropriate developmental opportunities and environments at the earliest ages.

Many students, however, fail to develop the prerequisite skills and knowledge that enable them to become good readers (Spear-Swerling & Sternberg, 1994). Even with a strong instructional program, some students will require additional support to become good readers. A large body of evidence supports early intervention for struggling readers (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). Struggling readers who do not receive early intervention tend to fall further behind their peers, in some cases to the point that their reading difficulties become intractable (Stanovich, 1986). Given the importance of early intervention, as well as the importance of reading across the curriculum and grade levels, students who require intervention need to be identified as soon as possible. Universal screening within a Response-to-Intervention (RTI) framework is an important tool in the process of identifying students who require early reading intervention.

What Screening Processes Have Been Used to Identify Student at Risk for Reading Problems?

Screening measures, by definition, are typically very brief assessments of a particular skill or ability that is highly predictive of a later outcome. Screening measures are designed to quickly sort students into one of two groups: 1) those who require intervention and 2) those who do not. To sort students into these two categories, a screening measure does not need to be very comprehensive, it merely needs to focus on a specific skill that is highly correlated with a broader measure of reading achievement and that results in a highly accurate sorting of students.

As practiced in many schools, screening is a high-stakes assessment (Davis, Lindo, & Compton, 2007). Important decisions such as the allocation of precious intervention resources and the designation of a percentage of students as being at risk are made based on the results of a screening process (Davis et al., 2007). Therefore, many researchers recommend that for an RTI model to be effective, screening processes need to identify all, or nearly all, of the students who are at risk for poor learning outcomes (true positives) while managing the number of students who are falsely identified (false positives). In other words, sensitivity and specificity levels of 90% and higher are desirable, but with the exception of a very small number of research studies limited to predicting reading outcomes for 1st graders (Compton, Fuchs, Fuchs, & Bryant, 2006; O'Connor & Jenkins, 1999) these ideals have yet to be reached.

Researchers have proposed a variety of methods for identifying students at risk for reading problems. Within the context of an RTI framework, the most commonly described screening processes include a) direct route models, b) progress-monitoring models (Compton et al., 2006; Fuchs & Fuchs, 2006), and c) risk index models (Catts, Fey, Zhang, & Tomblin, 2001; Johnson, Jenkins, Petscher, & Catts, 2009; Schatschneider, 2008). Each of these methods is briefly described below.

Direct Route Models - In the direct route model (Jenkins, 2003), students identified by the screening as at risk are immediately placed into intervention. Typically, the screening measure assesses a single skill (e.g. letter identification) that is highly predictive of later reading performance. Direct route models require high degrees of accuracy from a screening measure, because no further confirmation of assessment results is conducted to correct screening errors (more information on direct route models can be found in "Universal Screening for Reading Problems: Why and How Should We Do This?" by Jenkins & Johnson, 2008).

Progress-Monitoring Models - In the progress-monitoring model, students initially identified as at risk are monitored for a number of weeks to see if they "self-correct." In other words, because many schools conduct screening processes in the beginning of the school year, screening may overidentify students whose reading performance may have decreased during the summer months. Students who may have initially performed poorly on the screening measure may respond positively to the first few weeks of reading instruction and no longer be considered at risk. Progress-monitoring models have resulted in high levels of accuracy in studies examining their use with 1st graders (Compton et al., 2006).

Risk Index Models - In the risk index model, a probability for risk is computed based on a number of variables collected on a student, including not only assessment results but also other related factors such as parent's education level and English language learner (ELL) status. The probability is reported as a percentage of students with similar profiles who later performed poorly on an outcome measure. For example, a student with a risk index of 85% would be considered very at risk for poor reading outcomes, whereas a student with a risk index of 10% would not be considered to be at risk. Risk index models can improve on the accuracy levels of screening processes that rely on a single measure and, unlike single measures, can consider the impact of numerous variables. Catts et al. (2001) and Johnson et al. (2009) found that computing a risk index resulted in greater classification accuracy of a screening process compared with the classification accuracy of single screening measures.

The processes listed above have all been described for use within an RTI framework. An additional approach commonly used to identify students at risk for reading problems is diagnostic assessment of reading ability, in which students are assessed on a wide variety of component skills and processes related to reading. Because the direct route model to screening has been extensively employed in RTI implementation, the use of diagnostic assessments within the context of RTI has not been discussed in great detail, but should be considered as an important part of the RTI process. Diagnostic assessments differ from screening measures. Screening measures are designed to be brief and efficient tools for quickly identifying who might be at risk. Diagnostic assessments are then used to confirm the initial screening results, and to inform intervention by determining a student's particular difficulties.

The use of screening followed by more in-depth diagnostic assessment is similar to the process used when screening for vision problems. A brief screening quickly identifies who may have difficulty seeing without corrective lenses, but those lenses are not prescribed until an in-depth assessment a) confirms that the person does require corrective lenses and b) determines the particular nature of the individual's problem. In some cases, it is determined that no corrective lenses are needed (e.g., correcting false positives). This is an important point that we will revisit later in this article.

What Screening Measures Work Well in Identifying Students in Grades 1 Through 3 Who Are At Risk for Reading Problems?

Regardless of the process chosen to conduct screening, all include the use of measures that are highly predictive of later reading ability. In a recent review of reading screening tools, Jenkins, Hudson, and Johnson (2007) found that screening processes for the various early grade levels tended to focus on the components of reading outlined below.

Grade 1: Word Identification Fluency (WIF), Phonological Awareness, and Letter Knowledge - Of these, WIF has been demonstrated to be one of the strongest predictors of reading ability (Compton, Fuchs, Fuchs & Bryant, 2006; Fuchs, Fuchs, & Compton, 2004).

Grades 2 and 3: Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) and Word Identification Fluency - Not many studies have examined screening measures of 2nd and 3rd grade reading ability, beyond the use of ORF measures. At 2nd grade, WIF remains a strong predictor (Foorman, Francis, Fletcher, Schatschneider, & Mehta, 1998).

The Jenkins et al. (2007) review also reported, however, that with the exception of WIF in 1st grade, current measures and approaches to screening, especially those used in Grades 2 and 3, tend not to result in high levels of classification accuracy. This is especially the case in studies in which ORF measures served as the sole criterion for classification decisions.

The Jenkins et al. (2007) review has important implications for practice, especially in schools in which the direct route model of screening is in place. If schools overidentify in assessing intervention needs, their intervention resources may be overtaxed and, subsequently, less effective for those students who truly need them. There are other repercussions of the reliance on single skill screening measures. Sufficient evidence exists to show that teachers will teach to the test, especially when those tests are used to make high-stakes decisions (Pearson, 2006).

Teachers and schools may mistakenly conclude that intense instruction on the skill measured by the screening tool (e.g., ORF) will result in improved overall reading ability. While that may be the case for students with deficits in the specific skill, studies have demonstrated that while performance on the single skill can be improved, this doesn't necessarily translate into gains in overall reading ability (Pressley, Hilden, & Shankland, 2005; Samuels, 2007).

These findings have led some to call for more comprehensive screening batteries that include other constructs that are related to reading, such as language and vocabulary. The research on effective screening procedures and measures is growing. In the meantime, how can schools proceed with screening processes that both accurately identify who is at risk and provide helpful insight regarding appropriate intervention?

Toward an Improved Process of Screening and Intervention Planning

Reading is a complex construct that requires the synthesis of many skills, abilities, experiences and many types of knowledge. For example, although learning to read typically begins with a focus on decoding, students who do not also develop large vocabularies and the ability to comprehend what they have read will not become good readers. Additionally, several studies have identified that poor readers demonstrate different profiles of abilities (Pierce, Katzir, Wolf, & Noam, 2007; Valencia & Riddle Buly, 2004; Wise et al., 2007). For example, in a study that examined at-risk readers in Grades 2 and 3, different profiles of reading skills were found (Pierce et al., 2007). Some students had average word reading skills but deficits in vocabulary, whereas some students had low sight word efficiency but average passage reading. This suggests the importance of using a variety of measures to determine who is at risk for poor reading outcomes (Jenkins & O'Connor, 2002; Pierce et al., 2007). Additionally, students respond to the instructional program at different rates, and students who have been progressing well may experience difficulties when more challenging material is presented (Compton, Fuchs, Fuchs, Elleman & Gilbert, 2008). This implies that screening needs to occur more than once during the school year.

Research examining the use of probability indices and other approaches to improving screening are underway, especially for the early elementary grades. Until those processes are developed and ready for implementation, however, schools should consider the following approaches:

Grade 1 - WIF has been found to be one of the strongest predictors of reading outcomes for 1st grade students. Therefore, we suggest at a minimum that a universal screen for 1st graders include measures of WIF. To enhance the accuracy of the screening results, students initially identified by the screen should have their progress monitored for several weeks (the research-based recommendation is 5 weeks) following the initial screen (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2006). Once a pool of students is identified as at risk, continued progress monitoring in WIF can improve the accuracy of the initial screening results.

Grade 2 - In the beginning of the year, assessments of ORF and WIF should be used as screening tools. As with Grade 1, a system for progress monitoring should be in place to help "catch" students who respond adequately to instruction and do not require more intense intervention.

Grade 3 - ORF measures are one of the only screening tools currently described in the literature for this grade level. However, as with Grade 2, classification accuracy is not adequate to warrant its use as a sole criterion for intervention decisions. Additionally, schools will need to examine decision rules for a variety of subpopulations, as research has indicated that higher levels of accuracy can be reached when cut-scores are adjusted for various populations, such as ELLs.

For All Grades - Screening is Step 1ne of the process and does not provide a comprehensive assessment of a student's specific problems. Similarly, focusing on improving the skill targeted by a screening tool (e.g., WIF measures or reading rate) is not by itself an effective intervention. Once the pool of at-risk students is identified, more comprehensive assessments of their reading ability should be conducted to inform appropriate intervention placements. A student whose performance on a screening instrument is extremely low may require a different type and/or intensity of intervention than a student whose screening score is close to the cut-score.

Existing Resources for Further Information

To assist schools in moving forward with this type of process, we have constructed two tables to provide details on select assessments-both screening measures and more comprehensive, diagnostic assessments of reading. These tables are meant as a starting point to identify potential screening measures. Additionally, many of the screening instruments reviewed in "Screening for Reading Problems in Preschool and Kindergarten: An Overview of Select Measures" are also appropriate for use with students in Grades 1-3. A comprehensive database of reading assessments has also been developed by SEDL and is available free of charge. Finally, the National Center on Response to Intervention's Technical Assistance Center provides a more comprehensive technical review of reading screening tools for use in the elementary grades.

Wo odcock-Johnson Diagnostic Reading Battery

Word Identification Fluency

5-10 minutes per test

Reliability Coefficients exceed .90; Norms established with a population > 8800

Oral Reading Fluency

The measure takes 3 minutes of administration time and 1-10 minutes of scoring time

Test-retest coefficient range from .92 - .94; Alternate forms reliability from .89 to .94

Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test-4 th ed. (SDRT4)

Sounds (phonemic awareness); letters (phonics); words (vocabularly); pictures (fluency); stories (comprehension)

85-105 minutes/group administration

Reliability coefficients: .79-.94 for four major components and .95-.98 for total scores; alternate form: .62-.82 for components and .86-.88 for total scores

Validity data not reported but adequate evidence presented that subtests measure what they purport to measure

Diagnostic Assessment of Reading (DAR)

Print awareness, rhyming; segementing words; identifying initial/final consonant sounds; blending; naming and matching letters; matching words

20-30 minutes

Not reported

Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation (Grade)

Prereading, reading readiness, phonological awareness; vocabulary, reading comprehension; listening comprehension

45-90 minutes

Internal consistency: .89-.99; Alternative form: .81-.94; Test/retest: .77-.98

Early Reading Diagnostic Assessment-2 nd ed. (ERDA-2)

Letter recognition; concepts of print; story retell/listening comprehension; rhyming; phonemes; syllables, receptive language; expressive vocabulary; word reading, pseudoword decoding; rimes, comprehension, passage fluency; rapid automatic naming; synonyms; word meanings

60-110 minutes (15-20 minutes for each subtest)

Split-half reliability: .63-.95; Test-retest: .64-.98; Interrater: .88-.96

Validity data not reported but adequate evidence presented taht subtests measure what they purport to measure

STAR Early Literacy

General readiness; graphophonemic knowledge; phonemic awareness; phonics; comprehension; structural analysis; vocabularly

15 minutes per student; 30 minutes for entire classroom

Test-retest: .87; average reliability coefficient across grades: .92

Overall average concurrent validity (with STAR Reading) for 1 st grade: .68, for 2 nd grade: .52, for 3 rd grade: .57

Predictive validity: for 1 st grade: .62, for 2 nd grade: .67, for 3 rd grade: .77

Note. CAT=California Achievement Test; GMRT=Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests; PIAT-R=Peadbody Achievement Test-Revised

Conclusion

Screening within an RTI framework is a high-stakes decision. Sufficient evidence demonstrates that direct route approaches to screening do not result in high levels of classification accuracy. Progress monitoring and further assessment of students initially identified as at risk on screening measures helps improve identification and, subsequently, intervention planning. Numerous screening and diagnostic measures of reading are available, and screening processes will continue to be refined to reach the high levels of accuracy needed to implement an effective RTI process.

References

Catts, H. W., Fey, M. E., Zhang, X., & Tomblin, J. B. (2001). Estimating the risk of future reading difficulties in kindergarten children. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 32, 38-50.

Compton, D. L., Fuchs, D., Fuchs, L. S., & Bryant, J. D. (2006). Selecting at-risk readers in first grade for early intervention: A two-year longitudinal study of decision rules and procedures. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98, 394-409.

Compton, D. L., Fuchs, D., Fuchs, L. S., Elleman, A. M., & Gilbert, J. K. (2008). Tracking children who fly below the radar: Latent transition modeling of students with late- emerging reading disability. Learning and Individual Differences, 18, 329-337.

Davis, G. N., Lindo, E. J., & Compton, D. (2007). Children at-risk for reading failure: Constructing an early screening measure. Teaching Exceptional Children, 39(5), 32-39.

Foorman, B. R., Francis, D. J., Fletcher, J. M., Schatschneider, C., & Mehta, P. (1998). The role of instruction in learning to read: Preventing reading failure in at-risk children. Jour nal of Educational Psychology, 90, 37-55.

Fuchs, L. S., & Fuchs, D. (2006). Implementing responsiveness-to-intervention to identify learning disabilities. Perspectives on Dyslexia, 32(1), 39-43.

Fuchs, L. S, Fuchs, D., & Compton, D. L. (2004). Monitoring early reading development in first grade: Word identification fluency versus nonsense word fluency. Exceptional Children, 71, 7-21.

Jenkins, J. R. (2003, December). Candidate measures for screening at-risk students. Paper presented at the National Research Center on Learning Disabilities Responsiveness-to-Intervention Symposium, Kansas City, MO. Retrieved April 3, 2006.

Jenkins, J. R., Hudson, R. F., & Johnson, E. S. (2007). Screening for service delivery in an RTI framework: Candidate measures. School Psychology Review, 36, 582-599.

Jenkins, J. R., & Johnson, E. S. (2008). Universal screening for reading problems: Why and how should we do this? Retrieved April 16, 2008.

Jenkins, J. R., & O'Connor, R. E. (2002). Early identification and intervention for young children with reading/learning disabilities. In R. Bradley, L. Danielson, & D. Hallahan (Eds.), Identification of learning disabilities: Research to practice (pp. 99-149). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Johnson, E. S., Jenkins, J. R., Petscher, Y., & Catts, H. W. (2009). How can we improve the accuracy of screening instruments? Learning Disabilities Research & Practice.

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Reports of the subgroups. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

O'Connor, R. E., & Jenkins, J. R. (1999). Prediction of reading disabilities in kindergarten and first grade. Scientific Studies of Reading, 3(2), 159-197.

Pearson, P. D. (2006). Foreword. In K. S. Goodman (Ed), The truth about DIBELS: What it is, what it does. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Pierce, M. E., Katzir, T., Wolf, M. & Noam, G. G. (2007). Clusters of second and third grade dysfluent urban readers. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 20, 885-907.

Pressley, M., Hilden, K., & Shankland, R. (2005). An evaluation of end-grade-3 Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS): Speed reading without comprehension, predicting little (Technical Report). East Lansing, MI: Literacy Achievement Research Center.

Samuels, S. J. (2007). The DIBELS tests: Is speed of barking at print what we mean by reading fluency? Reading Research Quarterly, 42, 563-566.

Schatschneider, C. (November, 2008). Classification in context. Paper presented at the International Dyslexia Association, Seattle, WA.

Snow, C. , Burns, M. S., & Griffin, P. (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Spear-Swerling, L., & Sternberg, R. J. (1994). The road not taken: An integrative theoretical model of reading disability. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 27, 91-103.

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

Valencia, S. W., & Riddle Buly, M. R. (2004). What struggling readers really need. The Reading Teacher, 57, 520-533.

Wise, J. C., Sevcik, R. A., Morris, R. D., Lovett, M. W., & Wolf, M. (2007). The relationship among receptive and expressive vocabulary, listening comprehension, pre-reading skills, word identification skills, and reading comprehension by children with reading disabilities. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 50, 1093-1109.

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Screening for Reading Problems in Grades 1 Through 3

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Learning to read is arguably the most important work of students in the early elementary grades. Learning to read lays the foundation for future learning and understanding across all areas of the curriculum. Without this foundation, students will struggle to achieve academically in not only reading and writing, but also in areas such as math, science, and social studies.

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This is a great way for reteaching something if a student had previously struggled with retaining the content. You want to make sure that you go over step by step in detail to ensure they understand what is being asked of them and what they need to retain.

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Remedial programs are designed to close learning gaps and help students catch up to their peers. See how remedial classes can address COVID learning loss.

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Sometimes we move so quickly throughout some instruction that we do not sit back and think about if every student is retaining what is being asked of them. Going at the students pace is a great way to reteach something you have already tried to teach. Learning from past mistakes is essential.

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Maybe the first time we tried to explain the assignment or key details they did not comprehend because of the teaching strategy. When reteaching the same information be mindful to use another way of teaching that lesson.