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There were 2 'Ah ha' moments that stuck out to me after reading. Unfortunately I don't feel like they were good 'ah-has' rather, disappointed ones. The first is that students who are behind, need 17 minutes a day where they have intentional intervention. Now if I understood this correctly, it's 17 minutes a day for every grade level they are behind. Now I teach third grade, and I often get kids reading at a kindergarten or first grade level which means that's around 51 one minutes of intense intervention. Yikes! I am lucky if these students receive 15-20 minutes a day! The other surprising thing I read what about smaller intervention class size. I think that reading specialists in my build do a nice job of keeping their groups 5 and under. But what about our class sizes? We have 32 students, many of those needing some sort of intervention. We fail them if we don't meet with them in small group in addition to their intervention, but how do we keep those groups small when we have so many other students we need to be meeting with as well? It just seems like a lose-lose situation overall when class sizes are so big.

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I was interested when reading that there is no packaged program that will meet all the needs of struggling adolescent readers equally.  I see schools try to find that one answer or key to success.  In reality, there is not one thing that will work for all students because each student has different needs.

Another Ah Ha moment was when I was reading about how smaller intervention class size contributes to the success of students.  I see so many students that need intervention, and I feel like highly qualified teachers can’t give students sufficient time and attention due to the size of groups.  There are times I feel frustrated because I am trying my best to reach ALL my students at the level each student is at, but it almost feels like a daunting task because I always want to do more than what is realistic.

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I have never thought much about what intervention at the secondary level looks like, but I think it is important to realize that intervention is needed at all levels. The rule for needing 17 minutes a day for every year a student is behind does not go away at a certain age or grade level. The difficult part for reaching the needs of students struggling with reading at any age level is that we are always playing catch up and do not have the resources to provide the interventions that they need. I think it is extremely frustrating that research is telling us what we need to reach the needs of students but we are not given the resources or time to do that for our students. The common struggle for teachers is trying to prioritize skills and topics, I think we can all agree reading is very important. But then what do we cut to make this plan happen? It seems that time will be a constant issue, but my hopes are to learn how to best use the time that I do have for my readers.

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It sounds like I am not the only one who is a bit stuck on the "17 minutes" statistic. No wonder students keep falling further and further behind because we do not have intervention times (or personnel support) for these students. In fact, instead of students getting 17+ minutes of literacy support, they end up in a Special Education classroom where they receive other support (for organization, extra time, etc.) but still lack basic literacy skills. This reading also reminded me how much I wish my district and school brought in more professional development centered on building up reading in all content areas. As it stands, I know some teachers feel that it is the English department’s job to teach students to read, but I think that part of that view is because they have not been taught how to teach reading. My hope is that with bolstering professional development on literacy, our school can work to change teachers’ mindsets about reading so we can infuse all curriculum with reading and reading strategies.

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-  “There are no packaged programs that will meet the needs of struggling adolescent readers equally.”  In bold type!  This places a lot of pressure on the reading teacher to meet individual needs and develop curriculum to meet those needs. Whereas 17 minutes a day may be required for each student to bridge the literacy gap, this will require more than 17 minutes for the teacher each day to prep for each student.

Teaching motivation to under motivated readers.  I’m not real clear on how to teach motivation to students who lack this trait.  The document states that this is the school’s responsibility, motivation, but I’m not sure that that is correct.  It is difficult for me to take responsibility for another person’s motivation.

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I feel like so often once students reach junior high, interventions come to a halt. Students don't get as much of that "extra support" as they did in elementary. I love that this plan integrates what should be done and ideas for when it could be done. Although I think that their ideas like missing electives, lunch, etc are not ideal, I like that their focus is getting more support time for those students who need it. The statistic "Students behind their peers need 17 min/day of intentional, intensive instruction to close gap" really hit home. I am realizing how important and lucky I am to have our reading support class in our junior high. My biggest question is: if we know all of this information...why is it so uncommon to have a reading specialist at the junior high level for interventions? It is like we are saying, if they aren't meeting by now...they never will. It is sad.

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I found myself reflecting on the options for scheduling time to do the interventions. I believe it is very important to have the necessary literacy skills, but my experience in teaching also knows that sacrificing things like electives or time after school can be a difficult thing to accomplish. I am not sure what the answer is, but I think some sort of whole school approach may be the best way to accomplish the scheduling conflicts that may arise with trying to incorporate the tiered interventions needed to increase literacy skills.

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Time:  It always seems to end up being a problem with time. I agree that pulling struggling readers from electives is not a great idea because, as mentioned below, it's often the only confidence-building class of the day.  And yet, I'm not wild about reducing lunch time either, as school lunches already are so rushed, and that kind of stress creates health problems. But after school activities are important, many adolescent students have after school jobs, etc. etc.
I don't have an answer (other than greatly increasing funding to reduce student/teacher ratios), but lack of time always seems to be at the root of so many problems with getting students the support they need.
Also, I like the authors' disclaimer in the last paragraph on page 4. It's a good reminder that this is intended simply as a guide. While some of the details seem impossible to achieve, it does seem like a comprehensive, thoughtful resource for establishing and guiding reading intervention programs.

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As a school without a reading intervention specialist/teacher, a lot of the work is placed on me to differentiate and reach all students in my 55 minute class period - which is really difficult. I liked that the Model Plan offered suggestions on when to reach students (like lunch or elective time) but I also know that this isn't always an option (I can't pull my students out of PE, and lunch is such a short amount of time). My biggest "ah ha" moment is that I want to share this information with my administration to start a conversation about why we need a reading intervention teacher or how they can provide more support for classroom teachers to help students with this.

I also liked that the Model Plan encourages reading intervention not just as a way to raise test (MCA) scores, but more as lifelong reading support. In my school I feel like a lot of pressure is put on raising test scores and not on encouraging students to use reading strategies in other content classes, which will ultimately help them to be more well rounded readers and students.

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Comprehension p 15
I liked the reminder that we need to keep focusing on interventions in the middle school and high school years. Comprehension strategies are taught but need to be reinforced throughout the student's school career. Today, the high school decided they didn't need intervention time for struggling students. Working on strategies during intervention time would benefit these students.

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Re: Scheduling Considerations for Tiered Interventions: Options for scheduling time (p 11) I really like the idea of having reading interventions at lunch time. I realize that scheduling is an issue, but having raised high school students and then working with them, I know the value of their extra curricular time. A student who struggles in class really needs a place where they can shine. Often that place is either in after school extra curricular activities or in elective classes like art or music.

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“Students of all abilities need sustained and intentional reading instruction through their K-12 schooling” (p 4).  It is just as important to target the struggling learners in the middle and upper grade levels as it is in the lower elementary years.

Triangulation of data is important as it gives a clearer picture of the student as a learner and helps guide further diagnostic assessments to pinpoint specific learning needs.

Having intervention teachers work in collaboration with EL and Special Ed would be a great idea!  Many of our students are EL, and they travel from one teacher to the next – losing their work time in the classroom.

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1. In order to close the gap in reading, students need 17 minutes of intentional, intensive reading intervention for every grade level below their peers. So that means that my sixth graders that are reading at a 1st grade level need to have 85 minutes of intentional, intensive reading interventions per day. How in the world is that possible?
2. If I am understanding the bold bullet statement, Special Education and ESL students are supposed to receive interventions along with their IEP goals...
3. There are no packaged programs that will meet all the needs of struggling adolescent readers equally. Effective systems include attention to professional development, appropriate class size, allocation of resources, and a process for continual evaluation and feedback to ensure students’ needs are met or interventions are modified. (Pg 6)

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1. In the Statement of Purpose, they point out that most focus in schools is on elementary readers but that middle/high school students need to focus n this area ("sustained and intentional reading instruction")  as well in preparation of the work place and higher education. Just because students can read at grade level doesn't mean they can't expand their abilities by learning new vocabulary, deepening their understanding of a text, or learning more in a content area.
2. "Intervention in addition to other services such as special education or limited English proficiency" (p.5).  They need intervention on top of the 120 minutes of reading time and special education services? 3-fold? How would you manage to implement that and do it without causing the student to loathe reading?
3. "The majority of their time should be spent in guided, sustained reading as opposed to discrete skills work" (p.7). Spending time exposing students to text versus skills work makes sense but how do you provide this time in addition to core instruction?