2) Try out Acadience Reading K-6 or 7/8 with 1 student.

3) See you on October 9th!

• Background in Elementary Ed, Special Ed, Bilingual Ed, and TESOL

• Migrant Educational Outreach Teacher

• Bilingual Educator (Spanish/English)

• Bilingual ICOT (Integrated Co-taught SPED)

• Literacy Coordinator

• Head of Student Support Services

• English as a New Language (ENL)

New York/China

Cheese-maker

Traveler

Pun-lover

3+

-Why do I often see students who seem fluent with decoding but then don’t seem to comprehend anything? How can we assess these kids' needs? How can we help them?

-How can we help create predictable routines as the second teacher in the classroom?

-Is the Acadience assessment also good for math? Would it be useful for me to trial that with middle school math students?

-Would a screener like Acadience that you're suggesting be something that we use for all students, or for students in support?

-What are your opinions on WIDA? It was time consuming but I have always felt something is missing since we got rid of it, since we have such a high population of English learners. How can we monitor their English learning progress and identify students who need support with that?

-Sarah

Questions:

1. How do we balance making info broadly accessible with tailoring it for targeted support students?

2. We assess a lot in reading and writing—how do we decide the right amount/frequency so we can actually act on the results?

-Shiori

2) Try out a diagnostic tool:

--UFLI Placement Test

--CUBED

--Spelling Inventory

--Other from the Assessment column?

3) Check out further learning on the community -->

Password:
ABOAEKC2025

Do you have recommendations of Universal Screeners that allows them to check on students falling between the cracks as well as gather baseline data?

A takeaway from the second session:

I liked what you said about scaffolding up, and that tier 2/3 is an additional opportunity to practice with feedback.

Some questions:

-What diagnostics can we use to help us plan our interventions? I'm particularly looking for ways to get data to help me plan small-group interventions for reading comprehension and math skills. I'm working with middle school but I think many team members were looking for similar things at other grade levels, too. I took a look at the CUBED test, which looked quite good but also overwhelming. I could use some data to help decide what to work on, and then to test if the intervention was effective afterwards.

-How can we use diagnostic data to actually help decide what to do in small group interventions?

-We discussed how running records are not a very reliable data source. However, since the school is already using them, do you have any suggestions for how to use that data to help plan interventions?

-In general, looking for ideas for how to best use a 20-minute pull out time block to work with a small group on reading comprehension or math skills.

Thank you!

-Sarah

2) Explore Tier 1 scaffolds + Intervention Menu & be ready to share (see Literacy Intervention column-->)

3) Let me know if you'd rather discuss writing or math intervention next!

What happens if a student fits multiple categories like accurate but slow and low expression?

How do you expect general teachers vs. support teachers to use this menu?

My takeaway from today has to do with "Intervention Menu" as it's so informative. I have some questions:

1) A personal question: What is the appropriate balance for a support teacher between providing necessary scaffolding and inadvertently engaging in over-support (spoon-feeding)?

2) Given the challenge of parental allowance regarding AI use on personal devices in elementary school, what strategies can educators implement to mitigate students' heavy reliance on real-time translation and translanguage tools, thereby ensuring continued vocabulary development and English language acquisition?

One of our ongoing challenges is that many students are not yet fluent. Without the read-aloud or audiobook support, they struggle to read independently.

Here’s what I’m wondering (please correct me if I’m off!):

In our schoolwide Reading Workshop model, students need to be able to read on their own during class so teachers can hold individual conferences. One option is to pull a small group to focus on accuracy, but in most cases there is only one teacher managing the whole class.

If audiobooks aren’t recommended, what alternatives would you suggest to support students who cannot yet read independently?

- Shiori

Facts On Fire

More Intensive Intervention

-Addition

-Subtraction

-Multiplication

-Division

Our team did a lot of work the last few years to spread the idea that support is a shared responsibility, which is a good thing, but at the same time it means our jobs are not always well defined. Many of us on the Support Team feel that it’s hard to focus on Tier 2 because Tier 1 (UDL) isn’t being supported well by the main teachers. We’re fully integrated in grade-level or subject teams so many different responsibilities fall on us. This is a systemic issue though and not something we can really solve right now—so I think if I had more tools in my repertoire for Tier 2, I might be able to set better boundaries around focusing time on that.

In the MYP math/science team, I’m a co-teacher in several math classes (the ones with a wider range of levels/needs) and at the moment I’m basically being a second regular teacher in those classes. I spend time co-planning and helping prepare materials and grading student work, and having 2 teachers in the classes benefits all students—so I’m spending a lot of my time on Tier 1 support. I pay attention to the students identified as needing support and help them during class, but it’s not in a real “intervention” kind of way. I think because I don’t have a clear idea myself of how to support Tier 2, I continue spending so much time on Tier 1.

• How to decide which students need Tier 2 in math? Our curriculum is not clearly defined so it’s hard to tell how many students are really behind.

• Does Tier 2 math intervention mean extra help working on what we’re learning in class, or catching up other skills? Both?

• Would Tier 2 intervention happen during regular math classes or at a different time, e.g. pulling out of the homeroom? We only have 3 math lessons per week in MYP. I’d rather not pull them out of other classes but it’s hard to find enough time during math lessons, too.

• I also have one identified Tier 3 student who I make modified assignments and tests for. How do I balance my time in class supporting her with supporting other students?

Another question that came from the team is how can we make better use of diagnostics to improve the referral process? E.g. if teachers identify tons of students who “need support,” how can we identify which ones really need it?

-Sarah