The Classroom Teacher as Intervention 'First Responder'

1. RTI: The Classroom Teacher as Intervention ‘First Responder’Jim Wrightwww.interventioncentral.org

2. RTI Overview: What It Is and Why We Do It The Teacher as RTI ‘First Responder’: Defining the Role Examples of Evidence-Based Interventions Examples of Teacher-Friendly Methods of Data Collection Review of Free Online Resources to Help Teachers to Intervene With & Assess Struggling Students Workshop Agenda

3. Workshop PPTs and Handout Available at:http://www.jimwrightonline.com/lakeshore.phpAdditional Intervention and Assessment Resources Available at:http://www.interventioncentral.org

4. School Instructional Time: The Irreplaceable Resource “In the average school system, there are 330 minutes in the instructional day, 1,650 minutes in the instructional week, and 56,700 minutes in the instructional year. Except in unusual circumstances, these are the only minutes we have to provide effective services for students. The number of years we have to apply these minutes is fixed. Therefore, each minute counts and schools cannot afford to support inefficient models of service delivery.” p. 177 Source: Batsche, G. M., Castillo, J. M., Dixon, D. N., & Forde, S. (2008). Best practices in problem analysis. In A. Thomas & J. Grimes (Eds.), Best practices in school psychology V (pp. 177-193).

5. RTI Assumption: Struggling Students Are ‘Typical’ Until Proven Otherwise… RTI logic assumes that: • A student who begins to struggle in general education is typical, and that • It is general education’s responsibility to find the instructional strategies that will unlock the student’s learning potential Only when the student shows through well-documented interventions that he or she has ‘failed to respond to intervention’ does RTI begin to investigate the possibility that the student may have a learning disability or other special education condition.

6. Five Core Components of RTI Service Delivery • Student services are arranged in a multi-tier model • Data are collected to assess student baseline levels and to make decisions about student progress • Interventions are ‘evidence-based’ • The ‘procedural integrity’ of interventions is measured • RTI is implemented and developed at the school- and district-level to be scalable and sustainable over time Source: Glover, T. A., & DiPerna, J. C. (2007). Service delivery for response to intervention: Core components and directions for future research. School Psychology Review, 36, 526-540.

7. NYSED RTI Guidance Memo: April 2008 Source: DeLorenzo, J. P., & Stevens, J. C. (April 2008). Implementation of response to intervention programs. [Memorandum issued by New York State Education Department]. Retrieved November 25, 2008, from http://www.vesid.nysed.gov/specialed/publications/policy/RTI.htm

9. The Regents policy framework for RtI: • Authorizes the use of RtI in the State's criteria to determine learning disabilities (LD) and requires, effective July 1, 2012, that all school districts have an RtI program in place as part of the process to determine if a student in grades K-4 is a student with a learning disability in the area of reading.  “Effective on or after July 1, 2012, a school district shall not use the severe discrepancy criteria to determine that a student in kindergarten through grade four has a learning disability in the area of reading.”    [8 NYCRR section 200.4(j)] Source: DeLorenzo, J. P., & Stevens, J. C. (April 2008). Implementation of response to intervention programs. [Memorandum issued by New York State Education Department]. Retrieved November 25, 2008, from http://www.vesid.nysed.gov/specialed/publications/policy/RTI.htm

10. Tier 3: Intensive interventions. Students who are ‘non-responders’ to Tiers 1 & 2 are referred to the RTI Team for more intensive interventions. Tier 3 Tier 2 Individualized interventions. Subset of students receive interventions targeting specific needs. Tier 2 Tier 1: Universal interventions. Available to all students in a classroom or school. Can consist of whole-group or individual strategies or supports. Tier 1 RTI ‘Pyramid of Interventions’

11. Source: New York State Education Department. (October 2010). Response to Intervention: Guidance for New York State School Districts. Retrieved November 10, 2010, from http://www.p12.nysed.gov/specialed/RTI/guidance-oct10.pdf; p. 12

12. Tier 1 Core Instruction Tier I core instruction: • Is universal—available to all students. • Can be delivered within classrooms or throughout the school. • Is an ongoing process of developing strong classroom instructional practices to reach the largest number of struggling learners. All children have access to Tier 1 instruction/interventions. Teachers have the capability to use those strategies without requiring outside assistance. Tier 1 instruction encompasses: • The school’s core curriculum. • All published or teacher-made materials used to deliver that curriculum. • Teacher use of ‘whole-group’ teaching & management strategies. Tier I instruction addresses this question: Are strong classroom instructional strategies sufficient to help the student to achieve academic success?

13. Tier I (Classroom) Intervention Tier 1 intervention: • Targets ‘red flag’ students who are not successful with core instruction alone. • Uses ‘evidence-based’ strategies to address student academic or behavioral concerns. • Must be feasible to implement given the resources available in the classroom. Tier I intervention addresses the question: Does the student make adequate progress when the instructor uses specific academic or behavioral strategies matched to the presenting concern?

14. Source: New York State Education Department. (October 2010). Response to Intervention: Guidance for New York State School Districts. Retrieved November 10, 2010, from http://www.p12.nysed.gov/specialed/RTI/guidance-oct10.pdf; p. 13

15. Tier 2: Supplemental (Group-Based) Interventions(Standard Treatment Protocol) Tier 2 interventions are typically delivered in small-group format. About 5-10% of students in the typical school will require Tier 2/supplemental intervention support. Group size for Tier 2 interventions is limited to 3-5 students. Students placed in Tier 2 interventions should have a shared profile of intervention need. Programs or practices used in Tier 2 interventions should be ‘evidence-based’. The progress of students in Tier 2 interventions are monitored at least 2 times per month. Source: Burns, M. K., & Gibbons, K. A. (2008). Implementing response-to-intervention in elementary and secondary schools. Routledge: New York.

16. Scheduling Elementary Tier 2 Interventions Option 3: ‘Floating RTI’:Gradewide Shared Schedule. Each grade has a scheduled RTI time across classrooms. No two grades share the same RTI time. Advantages are that outside providers can move from grade to grade providing push-in or pull-out services and that students can be grouped by need across different teachers within the grade. Anyplace Elementary School: RTI Daily Schedule Grade K Classroom 1 Classroom 2 Classroom 3 9:00-9:30 Grade 1 Classroom 1 Classroom 2 Classroom 3 9:45-10:15 Grade 2 Classroom 1 Classroom 2 Classroom 3 10:30-11:00 Grade 3 Classroom 1 Classroom 2 Classroom 3 12:30-1:00 Grade 4 Classroom 1 Classroom 2 Classroom 3 1:15-1:45 Grade 5 Classroom 1 Classroom 2 Classroom 3 2:00-2:30 Source: Burns, M. K., & Gibbons, K. A. (2008). Implementing response-to-intervention in elementary and secondary schools: Procedures to assure scientific-based practices. New York: Routledge.

17. Source: New York State Education Department. (October 2010). Response to Intervention: Guidance for New York State School Districts. Retrieved November 10, 2010, from http://www.p12.nysed.gov/specialed/RTI/guidance-oct10.pdf; p. 14

18. Tier 3: Intensive Individualized Interventions(Problem-Solving Protocol) Tier 3 interventions are the most intensive offered in a school setting. Students qualify for Tier 3 interventions because: • they are found to have a large skill gap when compared to their class or grade peers; and/or • They did not respond to interventions provided previously at Tiers 1 & 2. Tier 3 interventions are provided daily for sessions of 30 minutes or more. The student-teacher ratio is flexible but should allow the student to receive intensive, individualized instruction. The reading progress of students in Tier 3 interventions is monitored at least weekly. Source: Burns, M. K., & Gibbons, K. A. (2008). Implementing response-to-intervention in elementary and secondary schools. Routledge: New York.

19. RTI Challenge: Defining the Key Role of Classroom Teachers in RTI

20. The Key Role of Classroom Teachers as ‘Interventionists’ in RTI: 6 Steps • The teacher defines the student academic or behavioral problem clearly. • The teacher decides on the best explanation for why the problem is occurring. • The teacher selects ‘evidence-based’ interventions. • The teacher documents the student’s Tier 1 intervention plan. • The teacher monitors the student’s response (progress) to the intervention plan. • The teacher knows what the next steps are when a student fails to make adequate progress with Tier 1 interventions alone.

21. Tier 1 Case Example: Colin: Letter Identification

22. Case Example: Letter Identification The Concern • In a mid-year (Winter) school-wide screening for Letter Naming Fluency, a first-grade student new to the school, Colin, was found have moderate delays when compared to peers. In his school, Colin fell below the 10th percentile compared with peers (easyCBM norms). According to the benchmark norms, a student at the 10th percentile should read at least 34 letters per minute. Colin was able to read only 18 letters per minute. • Screening results, therefore, suggested that Colin has problems with Letter Identification. However, more information is needed to better understand this student academic delay.

23. easyCBM Letter Name Fluency Norms: Gr 110th percentile for Winter Screening: 34 letters per minuteColin’s Performance: 18 letters per minute Source: Interpreting the EasyCBM Progress Monitoring Test Results. (August 2010). Retrieved on August 15, 2011, from http://www.easycbm.com/static/files/pdfs/info/ProgMonScoreInterpretation.pdf

24. Case Example: Letter Identification Instructional Assessment • Colin’s teacher, Ms. Tessia, sat with him and checked his letter knowledge. She discovered that, at baselline, Colin knew 17 lower-case letters and 19 upper-case letters. (Ms. Tessia defined ‘knows a letter” as: “When shown the letter, the student can correctly give the name of the letter within 2 seconds.”) • Based on her findings, Ms. Tessia decided that Colin was just acquiring this letter identification skill. He needed direct-teaching activities to learn to identify all of the letters.

25. Case Example: Letter Identification Created at www.interventioncentral.org

26. Case Example: Letter Identification Intervention • Ms. Tessia decided to use ‘incremental rehearsal’ (Burns, 2005) as an intervention for Colin. This intervention benefits students who are still acquiring their math facts, sight words, or letters. Students start by reviewing a series of ‘known’ cards. Then the instructor adds ‘unknown’ items to the card pile one at a time, so that the student has a high ratio of known to unknown items. This strategy promotes near-errorless learning. • Colin received this intervention daily, for 10 minutes. • NOTE: A paraprofessional, adult volunteer, or other non-instructional personnel can be trained to deliver this intervention. Source: Burns, M. K. (2005). Using incremental rehearsal to increase fluency of single-digit multiplication facts with children identified as learning disabled in mathematics computation. Education and Treatment of Children, 28, 237-249.

27. East Carolina University Evidence-Based Intervention Projecthttp://ebi.missouri.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Incremental-Rehearsal-Intervention-Brief-2.pdfIncremental Rehearsal Guidelines

28. Case Example: Letter Identification Goal-Setting and Data Collection • Ms. Tessia set the goals that, within 4 instructional weeks, Colin would: • identify all upper-case and lower-case letters. • move above the 10th percentile in Letter Naming Fluency when compared to grade-level peers (using the easyCBM norms). • The teacher collected two sources of data on the intervention: • At the end of each tutoring session, the tutor logged any additional formerly unknown letters that were now ‘known’ (that the student could now accurately identify within 2 seconds). • Each week, the teacher administered a one-minute timed Letter Naming Fluency probe and charted the number of correctly identified letters.

29. Case Example: Letter Identification Outcome • Ms. Tessia discovered that Colin attained the first goal (‘able to identify all upper-case and lower-case letters’) within 2 weeks. • Colin attained the second goal (‘move above the 10th percentile in Letter Naming Fluency when compared to grade-level peers’) within the expected four instructional weeks. • Ms. Tessia then set another letter naming fluency goal for Colin of 42 letters per minute (25th percentile on the easyCBM norms) and predicted that the student would attain that goal within 3 additional instructional weeks.

30. RTI: What Are Your Questions? At your tables: • Discuss the key questions that you still have about the RTI model. • Write down the TOP 1-2 questions that you would like to have answered (or discussed) at today’s workshop.

31. RTI Challenge: Defining and Finding ‘Evidence-Based’ Interventions

32. RTI Interventions: What If There is No Commercial Intervention Package or Program Available? “Although commercially prepared programs and the subsequent manuals and materials are inviting, they are not necessary. … A recent review of research suggests that interventions are research based and likely to be successful, if they are correctly targeted and provide explicit instruction in the skill, an appropriate level of challenge, sufficient opportunities to respond to and practice the skill, and immediate feedback on performance…Thus, these [elements] could be used as criteria with which to judge potential tier 2 interventions.” p. 88 Source: Burns, M. K., & Gibbons, K. A. (2008). Implementing response-to-intervention in elementary and secondary schools. Routledge: New York.

33. Research-Based Elements of Effective Academic Interventions • ‘Correctly targeted’: The intervention is appropriately matched to the student’s academic or behavioral needs. • ‘Explicit instruction’: Student skills have been broken down “into manageable and deliberately sequenced steps and providing overt strategies for students to learn and practice new skills” p.1153 • ‘Appropriate level of challenge’: The student experiences adequate success with the instructional task. • ‘High opportunity to respond’: The student actively responds at a rate frequent enough to promote effective learning. • ‘Feedback’: The student receives prompt performance feedback about the work completed. Source: Burns, M. K., VanDerHeyden, A. M., & Boice, C. H. (2008). Best practices in intensive academic interventions. In A. Thomas & J. Grimes (Eds.), Best practices in school psychology V (pp.1151-1162). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.

34. Sample Reading Interventions

35. Interventions for…Increasing Reading Fluency • Assisted Reading Practice • Listening Passage Preview (‘ListeningWhile Reading’) • Paired Reading • Repeated Reading

36. The student reads aloud in tandem with an accomplished reader. At a student signal, the helping reader stops reading, while the student continues on. When the student commits a reading error, the helping reader resumes reading in tandem. Paired Reading pp. 10-11

38. Promoting Student Reading Comprehension ‘Fix-Up’ Skills pp. 12-13Jim Wrightwww.interventioncentral.org

39. Reading Comprehension ‘Fix-Up’ Skills: A Toolkit Good readers continuously monitor their understanding of informational text. When necessary, they also take steps to improve their understanding of text through use of reading comprehension ‘fix-up’ skills. Presented here are a series of fix-up skill strategies that can help struggling students to better understand difficult reading assignments…

40. Reading Comprehension ‘Fix-Up’ Skills: A Toolkit (Cont.) • [Student Strategy] Promoting Understanding & Building Endurance throughReading-Reflection Pauses (Hedin & Conderman, 2010).The student decides on a reading interval (e.g., every four sentences; every 3 minutes; at the end of each paragraph). At the end of each interval, the student pauses briefly to recall the main points of the reading. If the student has questions or is uncertain about the content, the student rereads part or all of the section just read. This strategy is useful both for students who need to monitor their understanding as well as those who benefit from brief breaks when engaging in intensive reading as a means to build up endurance as attentive readers.

41. Reading Comprehension ‘Fix-Up’ Skills: A Toolkit (Cont.) • [Student Strategy] Identifying or Constructing Main Idea Sentences (Davey & McBride, 1986; Rosenshine, Meister & Chapman, 1996).For each paragraph in an assigned reading, the student either (a) highlights the main idea sentence or (b) highlights key details and uses them to write a ‘gist’ sentence. The student then writes the main idea of that paragraph on an index card. On the other side of the card, the student writes a question whose answer is that paragraph’s main idea sentence. This stack of ‘main idea’ cards becomes a useful tool to review assigned readings.

42. Reading Comprehension ‘Fix-Up’ Skills: A Toolkit (Cont.) • [Student Strategy] Restructuring Paragraphs with Main Idea First to Strengthen ‘Rereads’ (Hedin & Conderman, 2010). The student highlights or creates a main idea sentence for each paragraph in the assigned reading. When rereading each paragraph of the selection, the student (1) reads the main idea sentence or student-generated ‘gist’ sentence first (irrespective of where that sentence actually falls in the paragraph); (2) reads the remainder of the paragraph, and (3) reflects on how the main idea relates to the paragraph content.

43. Reading Comprehension ‘Fix-Up’ Skills: A Toolkit (Cont.) • [Student Strategy] Reading Actively Through Text Annotation (Harris, 1990; Sarkisian et al., 2003). Students are likely to increase their retention of information when they interact actively with their reading by jotting comments in the margin of the text. Using photocopies, the student is taught to engage in an ongoing 'conversation' with the writer by recording a running series of brief comments in the margins of the text. The student may write annotations to record opinions about points raised by the writer, questions triggered by the reading, or unknown vocabulary words.

44. HELPS Program: Reading Fluencywww.helpsprogram.org • HELPS (Helping Early Literacy with Practice Strategies) is a free tutoring program that targets student reading fluency skills. Developed by Dr. John Begeny of North Carolina State University, the program is an evidence-based intervention package that includes: • adult modeling of fluent reading, • repeated reading of passages by the student, • phrase-drill error correction, • verbal cueing and retell check to encourage student reading comprehension, • reward procedures to engage and encourage the student reader.

45. Sample Math Interventions

46. Math Intervention: Tier I or II:: Math Computation: Increase Accuracy and ProductivityRates Via Self-Monitoring and Performance Feedback (p. 21) • The student is given a math computation worksheet of a specific problem type, along with an answer key [Academic Opportunity to Respond]. • The student consults his or her performance chart and notes previous performance. The student is encouraged to try to ‘beat’ his or her most recent score. • The student is given a pre-selected amount of time (e.g., 5 minutes) to complete as many problems as possible. The student sets a timer and works on the computation sheet until the timer rings. [Active Student Responding] • The student checks his or her work, giving credit for each correct digit (digit of correct value appearing in the correct place-position in the answer). [Performance Feedback] • The student records the day’s score of TOTAL number of correct digits on his or her personal performance chart. • The student receives praise or a reward if he or she exceeds the most recently posted number of correct digits. Application of ‘Learn Unit’ framework from : Heward, W.L. (1996). Three low-tech strategies for increasing the frequency of active student response during group instruction. In R. Gardner, D. M.S ainato, J. O. Cooper, T. E. Heron, W. L. Heward, J. W. Eshleman,& T. A. Grossi (Eds.), Behavior analysis in education: Focus on measurably superior instruction (pp.283-320). Pacific Grove, CA:Brooks/Cole.

47. Self-Administered Arithmetic Combination Drills:Examples of Student Worksheet and Answer Key Worksheets created using Math Worksheet Generator. Available online at:http://www.interventioncentral.org/htmdocs/tools/mathprobe/addsing.php

48. Reward Given Reward Given Reward Given Reward Given No Reward No Reward No Reward Self-Administered Arithmetic Combination Drills…

49. Peer Tutoring in Math Computation with Constant Time Delay

50. Peer Tutoring in Math Computation with Constant Time Delay • DESCRIPTION: This intervention employs students as reciprocal peer tutors to target acquisition of basic math facts (math computation) using constant time delay (Menesses & Gresham, 2009; Telecsan, Slaton, & Stevens, 1999). Each tutoring ‘session’ is brief and includes its own progress-monitoring component--making this a convenient and time-efficient math intervention for busy classrooms.