Recommendation 3 Provide Intensive, Systematic and Explicit Instruction to Below Benchmark Students (Tier 2)

1. Institute Education Sciences K-3 RTI for Reading Practice Guide Recommendation 3Provide Intensive, Systematic and Explicit Instruction to Below Benchmark Students(Tier 2) Level of Evidence: Strong

2. Tier 2 Provide instruction on foundational skills in small groups that meet 3 to 5 times a week. • Instruction can last 20 to 40 minutes. • Instruction can be in homogeneous groups ranging from three to four students. • Groupings and instructional planning should be based on assessment data.

3. Tier 2 Provide instruction on foundational skills in small groups that meet 3 to 5 times a week. • Provide systematic instruction that: • builds skills gradually • introduces skills in isolation first, then integrates them with other skills

4. Tier 2 Provide instruction on foundational skills in small groups that meet 3 to 5 times a week • Provide explicit instruction that involves: • much teacher-student interaction • frequent opportunities for student practice • comprehensive and specific feedback.

5. Six studies showed positive effects on decoding. Four studies showed positive effects on decoding and comprehension. Six studies used one-to-one instruction. Ten used small groups from 2 to 5 students. Small group could be considered as effective and more practical. Research to Support the Recommendation

6. Studies indicate that instruction should emphasize the critical reading skills. Research to Support the Recommendation • The critical reading skills are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary.

7. Research to Support the Recommendation Studies indicate that instruction should emphasize the critical reading skills. • Studies found effects in phonemic awareness, decoding and comprehension. • One study found effects in fluency. • Vocabulary had only one study with effects in vocabulary knowledge.

8. Research to Support the Recommendation Studies indicate that instruction should emphasize the critical reading skills. • The panel concluded that explicit instruction is an effective approach to use in tier 2 intervention.

9. How to Carry Out the Recommendation

10. Carrying Out the Recommendation 1. Use instruction that addresses the critical elements and relates to students’ assessed needs. • Begin tier 2 intervention with Standard Protocols or “one size fits all” interventions. • Use Standard Protocols for at least 5 weeks and monitor progress. • Intervention curricula should be compatible with the core program

11. Carrying Out the Recommendation 1. Use instruction that addresses the critical elements and relates to students’ assessed needs. • Critical elements vary by grade. • Critical elements are highlighted in Table 4 of the Practice Guide on p. 21. • Some of the skills highlighted are validated by research and others are the opinion of the panel. They are noted as one or the other.

12. Carrying Out the Recommendation 1. Use instruction that addresses the critical elements and relates to students’ assessed needs. • Kindergarten Critical Skills • Phoneme Segmentation • Letter Sound Identification • Alphabetic Principle • Beginning Decoding Skills

13. Carrying Out the Recommendation 1. Use instruction that addresses the critical elements and relates to students’ assessed needs. • Grade 1 Critical Skills • • First Semester • Phonics--Decoding one and two syllable words • Fluency in lists • • Second Semester • Passage reading accuracy, fluency, and prosody • • Intervention Students • Accelerated phonemic awareness, phonics and alphabetic principle

14. Carrying Out the Recommendation 1. Use instruction that addresses the critical elements and relates to students’ assessed needs. • Grade 2 Critical Skills • More difficult phonics skills (diagraphs, diphthongs, r-controlled sounds) • More difficult structural analysis skills (prefixes, suffixes, plurals, tenses) • Multi-syllabic word reading • Continued emphasis on fluency

15. Carrying Out the Recommendation 1. Use instruction that addresses the critical elements and relates to students’ assessed needs. • Other Recommended Skills for All Grades • Literal comprehension • Summarizing a passage • Listening comprehension • Spelling • Expressive Writing • Read-Alouds

16. Carrying Out the Recommendation 1. Use instruction that addresses the critical elements and relates to students’ assessed needs. • Critical Skills the panel believes are best developed in whole group rather than intervention group: • Inferential Comprehension • Vocabulary Development

17. Carrying Out the Recommendation 1. Use instruction that addresses the critical elements and relates to students’ assessed needs. The panel believes an intervention curriculum should cover no more than three foundational reading skills.

18. Carrying Out the Recommendation 2. Implement tier 2 interventions intensively and according to student needs. • Interventions Recommendations: • 3 to 5 times per week • 20 to 40 minutes • small groups of 3 to 4 students

19. Carrying Out the Recommendation 2. Implement tier 2 interventions intensively and according to student needs. • Kindergarten students have shown progress with daily 20-minute interventions. • Grade 1 and 2 students need more intervention time because their skill gaps are wider.

20. Carrying Out the Recommendation 2. Implement tier 2 interventions intensively and according to student needs. • Interventions must be designed and targeted to the students’ specific assessed needs.

21. Reading instruction should be systematic. • Build skills gradually. • Introduce skills in isolation. • Integrate skills to provide practice and build generalization. • Provide corrective feedback and cumulative review. Carrying Out the Recommendation 3. Use effective teaching practices.

22. Carrying Out the Recommendation 3. Use effective teaching practices. • Reading instruction should be explicit: • Begin with overt and unambiguous explanations and models. • Provide high level of teacher-student interaction. • frequent opportunities to respond • clear, specific corrective feedback

23. Roadblocks and Suggested Approaches It is difficult to align tier 2 interventions with the core reading program. • Tier 2 interventions work on foundational skills that students haven’t mastered. Core programs work on grade level skills. Lack of alignment should not be a problem. • Ensuring that tier 2 intervention instruction is systematic, explicit, and focuses on critical components is more important than alignment.

24. Roadblocks and suggested approaches Finding time for additional reading instruction can be difficult. • Schools will have to problem solve to find extra intervention time for tier 2 students. They will have to take into consideration their resources and their own school organization and practices.