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Several studies have identified the most effective comprehension strategies; some are taught singly, while others are taught as part of a multicomponent strategy (Dole, Duffy, Roehler, & Pearson, 1991; Hughes, Maccini, & Gagnon, 2003; NRP, 2000; Pressley, Johnson, Symons & McGoldrick, 1989; Solis et al., 2012).

The most effective strategies in these studies were

Summarizing

Self-questioning

Story-structure Instruction

Graphic and semantic organizers

Comprehension monitoring (Dole et al., 1991; Solis et al., 2012)

Direct and explicit teaching of comprehension strategies is recommended for all students, especially for students who struggle and those with disabilities (Duke & Pearson, 2002; Kamil et al., 2008; NRP, 2000; Pressley, 2002).

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Adolescent students with reading disabilities usually require interventions that address word-level decoding and fluency development as well as comprehension (Scammacca, Roberts, Vaughn, & Stuebing, 2013); Vaughn et al., 2010).

Students who struggle with reading comprehension usually struggle with other areas of reading such as lack of knowledge about the basic language structures of English; poor word recognition skills; lack of background knowledge and vocabulary, particularly in the content area; and poor fluency. Thus, the intervention teacher must assess students and determine their areas that need targeted support.

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This document presents recommendations based on the Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework. (Tier 1, Tier 2, and tier 3).

Students in Tiers 2 and 3 must be taught reading comp skills in a targeted, explicit, and systematic way.

Tier 3 instruction focuses on students who struggle most with learning to read.

Extensive intervention instruction (i.e., Tier 3) that focuses on word-level skills, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension seems to have a small but positive impact on student learning (Edmonds et al., 2009), Scammacca et al., 2007); Wanzek et al., 2013).

Accelerating growth, which is necessary for students to meet grade-level standards, is especially challenging.

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This document makes many recommendations for ELA instruction, including the role of assessments:

Assessments should be used to determine how to bring students into grade-level instruction–-not whether to bring them into it.

Center formative practices.

Use sources of information such as exit tickets and student work.

Use these forms of information to inform instructional choices.

Use targeted checks for very specific subject and grade-level instructional purposes (e.g., for phonics, checks for reading fluency).

The point of assessments isn't to collect data about what students get right or wrong; it's to understand how to support students as they work.

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This resource strongly recommends that students in G6–8 read texts at their grade level rather than leveled texts. With proper scaffolding (i.e., chunking of text, targeted questions for comprehension, etc.), students can manage these challenging texts.

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This study found that many students do not have access to 4 key elements: 1. grade-appropriate assignments 2. strong instruction 3. deep engagement 4. teachers who have high expectations. This was particularly true for students of color. They are not being given challenging, engaging material and as a result, are not meeting grade-level standards.

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We can provide at least two of the four elements in our product.

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We can provide at least two of the four elements in our product.

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Of the four key elements (grade-appropriate assignments, strong instruction, deep engagement, and teachers who have high expectations), we can address the first and third of these in our product. By providing grade-appropriate lessons, we can help foster deep engagement. We can also, to a degree, provide strong instruction.

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The challenge is providing grade-appropriate lessons that challenge students who read three grades below their grade level. We can do this by providing scaffolding that helps students access the text while still providing them with thoughtful, engaging questions. BUT, we have to beware of the trap, as noted in the research, where new teachers were trained with ineffective scaffolding practices that gutted the rigor of the research. I would like to know what those practices are. Which scaffolding practices help students access challenging material, and which gut the rigor?

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Vocab-Reinforces what we are seeing elsewhere.

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Vocab-Reinforces what we are seeing elsewhere.

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Explicit instruction

Conceptually related words

Multiple exposures to words in multiple contexts

Teach both Tier 2 and Tier 3 words

Teach multiple-meaning words; morphology

Select words that are morphologically related.

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Authors suggest students need to be exposed to texts they will have “productive struggle” with in order to learn vocabulary that is appropriate for them (and build BK)

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Vocab - Some practical suggestions for instruction

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Vocab - Some practical suggestions for instruction

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Graphic organizers

Semantic (concept/word) maps

Verbal and visual word associations (Frayer Diagrams, i.e. Four Square diagram)

Vocabulary frames (similar to 4 square)

Teach students how to pronounce vocabulary, including syllabic breaks and stressed syllables

Outside-In Strategy

Look Outside the word at context clues

Look inside the word at word parts - prefix, root, suffix

Re-read the entire context keeping the meaningful word parts in mind

Make an inference about the meaning of the word: Does it make sense in the context of the passage?

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Resource suggests that all students should be reading grade-level texts with scaffolding if needed.

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Resource suggests focusing on academic (Tier 2) and domain-specific (Tier 3) words that are critical for understanding the text and part of large-word families (morphologically related).

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Vocab - Content & Topic based vocabulary; Multiple exposures

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Vocab - Content & Topic based vocabulary; Multiple exposures

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Reinforces what we’ve seen elsewhere: The words students learn should come from texts they are reading and should be conceptually related. Assessments should also be conceptually related to the contexts in which students learned the words.
Also reinforces that students need multiple exposures in multiple contexts to learn new vocabulary.

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We have a lot to learn from Large City Schools (LSCs) about how to serve systematically oppressed populations. There's a misconception that these schools aren't helping their students, and in general that is incorrect. Good urban schools do mitigate the effects of poverty.When students aren't succeeding, it's important to consider the context.

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The Council of the Greater City Schools seemed to answer their question: are schools windows of opportunity to escape poverty, or do they mirror society's inequities?

Their study reveals that a number of Large City Schools (the districts) have made gains in the NAEP over the last ten years, and there are a number of shared characteristics that these districts exhibit that could provide an idea of how a district might better serve its students.

Acknowledging that we live in a white supremacy, education is a system that can oppress people, especially BIPOC folks. So, while it is amazing and incredible that some districts are better serving their students, there are other districts not doing what they should for students. All students deserve a rich, engaging, affirming, high-quality education.

How can ALL schools provide this?

Is there anything we can do besides providing CLR and ABAR content, research-based instruction and practices, etc.?

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Consistently give students on grade-level content and instruction, with scaffolding and supports to help them access it even if not reading on grade-level.

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Identify the skills and prior knowledge that are needed to access grade-level content. Make it relevant and related within the context of the content they are learning in that grade (not dumbed down or simplified).

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Also, look for the future knowledge and skills that they'll need to keep up with grade-level content. Look across the S+S to the big picture, not just the in the moment teaching.

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These questions on how to identify essential learning could be useful within our success criteria in choosing texts and topics or something like it as guiding questions:

1. Does the content extend work from earlier units and grade levels?

2. Does the content extend into future content?

3. Does the unit help students deepen conceptual understanding and subject area expertise, such as expertise with mathematical practices or reading comprehension?

4. Is this content that students need to know right now in order to continue learning grade-level subject matter?

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This article raises a lot of important questions related to OSR:

The article opposes removing students from grade-level learning but supports adding additional instruction and support. Is OSR intended to take on the main role or this additional supporting role?

The article strongly recommends using "just-in-time" scaffolding, review, or instruction to allow students to access grade-level texts and skills. How much of this can/should we include for OSR? How can we build on what iReady already does in this area (IF, NIF, popup BK and vocabulary, BSC sentence diagram popups, etc.)?

Another suggestion is shortening grade-level texts to make them more manageable and give students additional needed practice. A related idea is to focus on a "high-value" section of a longer text for more intense focus and practice. These shorter texts may be paired with mini "refresher" lessons. Is that part of we think OSR might provide teachers and students?

The article suggests interventions to deal with certain specific difficulties (a lot of these seem at least somewhat related to approaches in iReady, so we can think about how they can carry over and be strengthened):

providing leading questions or frames to help guide and expand students' responses

identifying and explaining the function of signal words to follow the progression of a text

guidance in taking notes using graphic organizers

using syntax to break up rich or complex sentences (sounds a lot like BSC approach; can we integrate that into OSR?)

Another aspect of unfinished learning is how it is asssessed or diagnosed. This article names some signals of unfinished learning but cautions against using assessments, especially one-time assessments, to diagnose difficulties. How can we find the areas where students truly need help?

Lack of background knowledge, engagement, and motivation are cited as additional potential areas of difficulty for middle school students.

The article discusses multiple tiers or levels of intervention. Which one best represents the students we hope to reach? And again, are we hoping to be the intervention or the supported grade-level work, or some of both?

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Supporting Shanahan and the advice to teach using complex, and on grade-level texts:

"Teachers should under no circumstances set aside the grade-level texts that students might find too difficult to work with on their own." – We should give students the tools to access grade-level texts and content rather than give them the content that they can already work with. (But again, teachers are factored in here.)

explicit instruction that is designed to teach those skills using grade-level complex text….This instruction should be standards-aligned and carefully targeted to prepare students for tackling grade-level reading and writing

should focus on topic texts that build knowledge and employ text-dependent questions that engage students deeply with  the  text  and  build  understanding.

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Some of the Instructional Priorities match up with work that we've done on BSC lessons, particularly helping students parse complex sentences to get student to attend to meaningful parts of a text. Can we pull some BSC lesson design in as part of the unit build or S+S? This would match up with part of Devin Kearn's thoughts on using lots of smaller, but still complex texts.

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Strong instruction and high expectations made the most difference with students who were reading “substantially behind grade level.” One way we might be able to address this is to ask grade-appropriate questions, and use qualitatively complex texts, while simplifying the quantitative complexity of a text.

“Teachers should provide students the support they need to access grade-level work, regardless of their starting point, and do so as quickly as possible during the school year." As noted by the RC team, we'll need to determine what scaffolding we can provide in order to help students to access grade-level texts. This quote is also support for a gradual increase in text complexity across the thematically/topically connected texts in a "unit."

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It’s interesting that most of the things that matter, according to this research, are even outside of the control of teachers, aside from implementing and choosing to be a positive collaborator on the changes handed down to them from administration. The report seems to suggest that the actions of superintendents, principals, and school boards have more power to turn things around than even teachers, parents, or students themselves.

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Prioritize the most necessary skills/content knowledge rather than trying to rapidly accelerate through the entirety of missed learning. Help with only the most critical skills—avoid teaching/reteaching skills that aren't necessary for the task at hand

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Scaffolding should be "just in time"—only what students need in order to understand at point of use—instead of "just in case."

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Make sure learning is socially and emotionally responsive—make sure not to be another source of trauma by perpetuating inequity. OSRs may have an inferiority complex, having endured teasing or stigma.

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As with our findings from Sprint 1, experts are saying that students need to read challenging texts (aka texts at their frustration levels), but students must have teacher support in order for that to be successful.

The research we have found thus far states that teacher intervention is necessary in order to teach students complex texts. For example, before giving students a complex text that requires them to formulate multiple inferences, teachers should teach students the concept of an inference. Introduce the concept using concrete examples with which students are familiar. So, first we need to define what a complex text is.

This article also spoke about technological tools. “To date, there is no computer program that can replace a well-trained teacher, so plugging students into computer programs to teach them to read is not the answer. However, utilizing technology to reinforce learning, provide additional practice opportunities, and motivate students may be appropriate.”

The article also supports the idea that struggling adolescent readers need both explicit instruction in foundational skills and in disciplinary literacy. Without the FS work, we won't be able to get struggling adolescent readers back on track.

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Students should read  a lot of text that are on and off grade level. Text should be a balance of literature and informational text that cover topics in English, science, history, art, music, and technical subjects. These texts should also represent a multicultural view of the world.

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Lessons should be based on an anchor text that can be a longer text or shorter texts that build knowledge of a single topic.

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Vocab - Factors in effective Large City Schools

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Vocab - Factors in effective Large City Schools

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- strong, stable leadership
- high standards
- teacher/leader quality
- professional development
- acting at scale (systemwide change)
- accountability and collaboration
- challenges as opportunities
- support for struggling schools and students
- community investment and engagement
- curriculum shared throughout the district

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Four Key Resources for Growth in Student Daily School Experiences:

Grade Appropriate Assignments

Strong instruction where students do most of the thinking/grappling

Deep Engagement in what is being learned

Teachers with high expectations who believe students can meet them. *

*Strongest relationship to student growth

How can we provide opportunities for the good grappling that yields progress?

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"Differentiated Instruction" and "meeting kids where they are" has unfortunately and damagingly resulted in continued low expectations, and as a continued result, students with gaps get less and never have the chance to catch up.

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Grade appropriate assignments will contribute to high quality academic learning experiences where students are likely to rise to a higher bar even when "behind" or when combatting barriers.

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Keep cultural responsiveness and social-emotional learning in mind while we develop OSR content. Because

Accelerated learning and cultural, social, and emotional responsiveness are not mutually exclusive. If instruction makes students feel invisible or unsafe, accelerated learning can't happen.

Accelerating unfinished learning and instruction should not cause trauma, especially during this pandemic.

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Unfinished learning should not take place in isolation. It should coordinate with the grade-level content knowledge and skills and be available at the moment they're needed. We might need to adapt our scope and sequence to allow the digital supplemental instruction to happen just in time.