Each layer is important to the whole.
Middle School
Interventions
We are a K-12
district and are revamping our grade 6 through grade 8 instructional supports,
which include
a 40 minute additional session of reading and/or math instruction
anywhere from
3 to 5 days a week. This extra instruction is provided to any student
below the
50th percentile on the MAP assessments ---
roughly 2/3
of our student population in our 5 middle schools.
Where we are
struggling is in determining whether this additional instructional
time
(taught
during later periods in the day by different teachers from the core
instruction)
should be
based on addressing gaps in foundational skills or supporting grade level
curriculum.
In the 4
years we have been using this system of support we have changed our position,
from filling
in holes to supporting core instruction and our results have been inconclusive
on which
method leads to the greatest growth. We are torn between raising the rigor of
instruction to offer students more “time” grappling with the harder material
and using
a Leveled Literacy program that has delivered good results to us in the
primary grades. Help.
What you are
trying to do is terrific for the kids. You see some students who aren’t keeping
up
and you want to
beef up the amount of reading support that they get.
That makes great
sense to me and seems to be very much in line with the research.
Additional
teaching is a great idea.
However, the
1-49%ile span for this group is simply too broad
and too
differentiated a swath of kids with whom to take a single approach.
If I were
calling the shots I’d treat those below the 30th or 35th %iles
differently than
those who are a little bit behind.
I suspect that
as you move down the continuum of kids you’ll start to find those with
substantial gaps in their foundational skills (decoding and fluency basically).
That is much
less likely to be true for those who are almost at the 50th%ile.
In discussions
of learning disability, various experts (e.g., Joe Torgesen, Jack Fletcher,
Reid Lyon) treat the 35%ile as being a dividing point between kids who are
garden variety stragglers
and those who
might have a real learning disability.
This will likely
vary a bit by grade level and test, so rather than giving you a hard-and-fast
rule,
I’m suggesting
that the cut-point be somewhere around the 30-35th%ile.
Above that
cutoff, and I would definitely just give these kids extra time
with the
demanding grade-level materials. Below that line, and I would want to provide
at least some
explicit instruction in foundational skills.
(I don’t know
what assessment information you have on these kids,
but if such data
reveals particular foundation gaps for students reading below the 35th%ile,
I’d be even more
certain that offering such teaching is a good idea.)
What should the
instruction look like for these groups?
For those who
are in that 35-49%ile span, that is kids who are at grade level
to about 2-3
grade levels below level, I would have them doing more work with the grade
level texts they are reading in class. This work should give kids opportunities
to read the material again—
but with greater
or different scaffolding and support.
Students might
read this material before it is read in class (to give them a boost) or after,
to ensure that
they make as much progress with it as possible.
I would consider
activities like repeated reading (that is, oral fluency practice with repetition),
rereading and writing about the ideas in the texts, going through the texts
more thoroughly
trying to
interpret the most complex sentences or to follow the cohesive links among the
ideas.
For the students
below the 30-35th%ile—who are low in decoding (probably the majority of them),
I’d provide a systematic program of instruction that offers at least some
explicit phonics instruction.
I very much like
the idea of using a program that has been found to be effective
by the What
Works Clearinghouse (that won’t guarantee it will work for you,
but that it has
worked elsewhere tells you it is possible to make it work effectively).
As important as
phonics instruction can be to someone who lacks basic decoding skills,
I’d recommend
against overdoing it. The National Reading Panel found that phonics instruction
for poor readers
beyond grade 2 tended to improve their decoding skills (which is good),
but without
commensurate impacts on spelling and reading comprehension (which is not so
good).
I think it is
important to make such decoding instruction part of a larger effort
that addresses
reading comprehension, vocabulary, writing, and oral reading fluency.
How best to
balance this effort will depend a lot on what else the kids are getting.
For example, if
the really low decoders are already being instructed in these skills
in Special
Education, then I wouldn’t double up here.
That would just
free time space for other kinds of reading help.
Another
possibility may be to offer these students some of the same grade level
instruction
noted above, but
in smaller groupings to enable the teachers to offer greater support
to these kids
who are further behind. Beyond beginning reading levels, there is no evidence
students need to
work with low-level texts—at least when there is sufficient scaffolding
to guide them
through such reading. Perhaps these students would work on decoding
and fluency
using a set program part of the time, and working with regular classroom
materials with greater amounts of scaffolding than would be available to the
other, better-performing students.
(One last
thought. It is terrific that the intervention program you have identified is
working well
with your
primary kids. That's great, but it does not mean that I would necessarily adopt
it
for use in my
middle school. I'd go with a program either aimed specifically at these older
students or I'd try out the materials with them to see their reaction.
Often, terrific
decoding programs are too babyish to gain much buy in from the older kids.
It would even be
better if WWC indicated that the program had worked effectively
with
middle-schoolers.)
http://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/
Introduction
to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
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YouTube
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Emotions
when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
Advanced
Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?
Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:
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The more that you learn;
the more places you'll go.”
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