Summary Introduction to Response to Intervention (with Cara Shores) (Youtube) www.youtube.com
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n/a Welcome everyone to this webinar. This webinar is an introduction to response to intervention with Carisaurus Shores). Sorry. It is brought to you by ARPDC as a result of a grant from Alberta Education. So we're very lucky to have Carrie here today to share her experience with RTI, a Response to intervention.
n/a She started off as a special education teacher and then worked as director of education. And in the more recent years, has in, publishing books and resources on RTI as well as presenting. And lucky Cara, she's probably somewhere much much warmer than it is for us today. We had a big, dump of snow last night, Cara. So, without any further delay, I'm gonna pass it over to you.
Cara Hi, everyone. I'm very glad to be with you this afternoon. As we're going through, let me know if you have any problems with to sound or, if you have questions, you know, give me the little confused face or raise your hand, if you have a question. I will stop at certain points and let you ask specific questions. I'm not real good about reading your questions and talking at the same time.
Cara I'm not quite coordinated that way. So, I'll pause every once in a while so that you can, certainly ask questions and, and, get all of your questions answered as we go. We are this afternoon talking about response to intervention. I'd like to know, if any of you have attended any of my sessions that I've had in the Alberta area. If you if you have, if you would, click on the smiley face just to let me know.
Cara Okay. Just, maybe Andrea and then Carla and Val. So, Oh, and 1 other person. Okay. Well, great.
Cara Then, hello again to you guys, and, it's nice to have all of you with me this afternoon. As we look at response to intervention, we are looking at it in the Alberta context. And what it means for schools in the Alberta area and, just looking at it in that, overall mode. So You can follow along with me with the slides and, we will begin. Response intervention is not a program.
Cara It's very important for you to go into the process with, the thought in mind that this is a school improvement process. That it is 1 that, we look at individual student learning. We provide very, intensive instruction in the regular classroom, just, our normal Introduction. And then we use assessment to determine if the students are making progress with that instruction. And when students are not making progress, then we put in place Intervention, so that students can come up to the benchmark and come up to grade level, in areas specifically of reading and math, but we also use RTI for behavior.
Cara Now it is technically called response to intervention and looking at how students are responding to interventions in the different tiers that we'll look at, but I really like to think of it as responsive Introduction. When we look at the instruction that's going on in to everyday classrooms, with all students. So there's a large focus on just structure for all student, so you'll see that as we go through today. Now today, because of our time frame, is just a very quick overview. But I will give you some resources where you can look, more in-depth at different areas that we're going to talk about.
Cara RTI, is oftentimes used with behavior as well as academics to address behavioral needs that students have and research has told us that it works best when we include academics and behavior. And so when you're looking at the overall RTI process, how do you know where to focus your attention? It really will vary from school to school. It depends on what the needs of the school, call for. And so as we go through today, we'll look at, okay, we could do this for academics, we could do for behavior and it really, will change depending on the specific needs of your school.
Cara As we're looking at RTI, I think of it as an umbrella under which all of our school improvement initiatives fall. And in Alberta, you have many to different pilots and different programs that are, currently in place in schools. And so I look at it as a way to bring all of that together. Many times when, I speak with individuals in specific school systems and working with with local school systems there. They say, you know, we've done a little bit of this and we focused on differentiated Introduction, We focused on inclusive education, but this really brings it all together to make it 1, total package and that's what we really want as how can we make everything fit together.
Cara So as you're thinking about your school and your school system, think about the things that have been a focus for to you whether it is universal design for learning or differentiated instruction or perhaps, backward design or understanding by design. Perhaps a particular focus for, a reading program that you use. But think about how the aspects and the elements of RTI can work with what you already have. I always encourage districts to look at what you already ongoing and how can we use RTI to bring that together in a framework where it fits very well. So I'd like for you to think about it that way.
Cara When we're looking at RTI, we have, a lot embedded into that plan. We need to look at curriculum and Introduction, with assessment and look at it all as 1 big picture. How are we instructing students and how are reassessing to make sure that students are learning what we are learning. And as we look at RTI, we'll be looking at some specific assessment tools that are designed for RTI that complement what you already have, going on in your schools and how do they all work together to drive instruction. You will, probably see a slide I think I included a slide later on that says when you're using your assessment.
Cara If you are not using it to drive instruction, if you're not using the data to make instructional decisions, then your assessment is really not very helpful. So we wanna have all of that play in together. There's a lot of professional learning that needs to go into an RTI plan, for a school. Really looking at how can we use our professional time and resources, to best equip our teachers, to make good instructional decisions for students and to be able to use the data that they have. Most all schools are using RTI with to no additional personnel whatsoever.
Cara Schools right now don't have the money to hire additional personnel in most cases. And, so the schools look at using the resources that they already have and so there is no, no need to, you know, think you've got to hire a a lot of additional staff members. We really look at what do we already have in the school and how can we best use, the personnel and then other resources as well. The materials that you have the time that you have all the resources available. Most schools, find the RTI, implementation When you are looking at your school schedule, it will be a, an issue of we to we need to change the way we run our school day, to make time for instructional strategies and interventions.
Cara So, as you're thinking about how to do this, scheduling changes are oftentimes something that schools really need to, pay attention to and think about do we need to change those, scheduling options. I wanted to just give a a quick overview of the purposes of RTI and how that is most often used at an elementary level and then at a secondary level. And let me just ask a education, if you will, blink on your little smiley face. If you, work with students at the secondary level, basically 6th grade and above. Okay.
Cara We have Andrea and Colleen and Heather. Okay. So as we're looking at secondary, it oftentimes looks very, very different from RTI in the elementary school. In fact, we have many different purposes between the 2 areas. At elementary, basically Response Intervention is an early identification, early Intervention, area.
Cara To Just providing instruction to students as soon as we start to see, deficits. As soon as we start to see students who are struggling, We provide interventions at that point. There is so much research out there that says students to have such a brief window, to learn those reading skills, and we want to make the best of that brief window. So in elementary grades, especially through a second or third grade, we're really looking for what students are not learning to read at grade level, what students are not to doing math at grade level and providing those interventions for that. We can also use some of that information to determine if students aren't learning if perhaps there is a need to investigate if the student might have a disabling, condition that we need to look at.
Cara Once we start moving into really 5th, 6th, 7th grade, the focus of RTI changes from early identification or early intervention to how can we support the student so that they will be successful graduates from school and and go into whatever, post secondary option that they want to pursue. So the shift really becomes what kind of supports in addition to interventions can we put in place for student. And then also looking at the quality of teaching within the school and how do we make sure that our teaching best fits the needs of our students. So we really shift the focus from 1 specific area for elementary student overall how can students be successful in the secondary years. As we're looking at RTI, I want to, point out to you some essential components that are, just kind of the nonnegotiables that have to be in place for RTI to work.
Cara And after we talk about these, then I'll give you a chance, to ask some questions. There are 3 essential components that we always want to make sure are included in our RTI process when we put it in place in a school or within a, division or district. 1st, whenever we to Introduction strategies, interventions, or even our core instruction. We want to use things that are research based, that have good solid research to them that we know are effective with students who are learning, especially students who are struggling to learn. And that we, have evidence that these, instructional strategies and this core instruction, all the areas that we put in place are effective for students.
Cara Secondly, we want to use our data to drive our instruction. As I mentioned earlier, We want to use all the data that we have. And with RTI, we specifically have some tools that were developed for use with RTI, but we to all the data that we have about the student' formative data, summative data, and just see where the student is functioning and what we need to do differently in order to teach that student. So database decision making is our second nonnegotiable. And then the last 1 is implementation fidelity and we'll talk quite a bit about fidelity this afternoon and how do we put that together and make Shores), that we're doing what works best for student.
Cara If we have a research based intervention that we are implementing that the way it was designed and the way it was research so that we are actually following the instructional guidelines that were set forth. So when we We look at implementation fidelity. It is making sure that we're doing everything the way it was designed and the way, it works best with students. Many student often or many schools oftentimes have difficulty, with implementation fidelity, and they believe that it will take care of itself and that there is no need, to pay attention to fidelity, but that really is not true. As we're planning out our process.
Cara We need to keep that in mind as well. As we look at this process, it is often depicted as a 3 tiered, continuum of instruction. We look at, this particular graphic. This is 1 that has been put together specifically for the Alberta context. Many times when you see, this graphic, you will see lines between the tiers.
Cara And in Alberta, we chose not to do that, just to, signify that students can be in multiple places in this continuum at 1 time. And so I'll go through all 3 tiers and then I will try to explain, what I mean by that of being in multiple places. To parents. Tier 1, the RTI pyramid is core instruction that all students receive in the classroom that's available to all students. It is our, our curriculum outcomes.
Cara It is, providing to that instruction in a way that all students can have access. And so it's good, strong, core instruction for all students. We also use universal screening, in tier 1 and that's 1 of our RTI specific terms, that is a type of assessment that lets us know if students are meeting benchmarks at the time that they are supposed to or if they are falling behind with Introduction let us know that we need to start immediately looking at some instructional changes for Shores) student. So it's good instruction and then, screening and and assessment to determine if students are making expected progress. When students are not meeting the, outcomes, when they are not making the progress that we want to see in the benchmarks.
Cara Then we can put in place additional Introduction, and tier 2 is additional instruction. It does not take the place of tier 1 Introduction. It enhances it, and it is in addition to, the instruction that students continue to receive in the core. So targeted Intervention that are put in place at that time. And what we mean by targeted is that when we're looking at, say, reading And we know that students are having difficulty reading.
Cara We need to target specifically what areas of reading students are having difficulty with, such as reading fluency. And then we provide an intervention that is directly designed to address reading fluency. So those Intervention, are designed to provide students with better information so that they can have access to that core instruction. Everything that we do in the intervention tiers, the tier 2 and tier 3, is designed to help students be successful in tier 1. You'll also see there that it says progress monitoring is put in place in tier 2, and this is a type of assessment that is more frequent, that we use to determine if students are on track and are making the progress that they need to make in order to be successful and to attain the goals and be able to be successful in the core instruction.
Cara The tier 2 Introduction, is provided for a student for no specific limit, no specific amount of time. It depends on the response that the student has. When we find that the student is not making appropriate response to not, catching up and not meeting goals. Then we can put in place tier 3, Introduction. And tier 3 is more intensive in both the interventions that we use and the assessment that we use.
Cara It is still progress monitoring, but it is a more intensive form of progress monitoring. Now when we look at these 3 tiers, we see that, there there are no lines between them. We want students to move, throughout student continuum as is appropriate for them. And when I said that students can have principle, levels, at 1 time, here's an example of that. I might need, tier 1 instruction only for math.
Cara I'm a very good math student, and I'm having no trouble in math at all. But I am having trouble in reading, and so I might need tier 2 interventions in addition to my core instruction in reading, so I would have that level of support there. I may Also have some behavioral difficulties that are, are keeping me from being as successful as I need to in the classroom. And those behavioral difficulties could be very significant, so I might receive tier 3 interventions, for behavior. So I would be receiving tier 1 for math, tier 2 for reading, tier 3 for behavior, and anywhere in between that for all different levels.
Cara So that is what meaning we say students can be in different areas at 1 time. It's important to remember this because RTI is not about labeling students. We don't want to create new categories of students called tier 2 kids and tier 3 kids. We just want to look at what level of instruction do students need for specific areas. So I wanna give you an opportunity to, ask some questions at this time, and, I'll be glad to answer a question if anyone has 1.
Cara If you want to do that through your microphone or if you want to type in a question.
n/a So thanks, Kara. I can see we've just, Melissa's chatting in a question as well. I really like the fact that, you know, you really make it clear that RTI, you know, is that umbrella and that's such a nice, analogy because, as, you know, it's not yes, we have to be more focused in what we do, but it's not in addition to what we're already doing. It it combines everything that we're doing together. I just really like that point.
Cara Do we have any questions?
n/a I can see a few coming in on the chat window. So we'll we'll give them a minute as well. But please feel free as well to pick up your microphone. We did do some sound checks so, you know, it's often quicker as well, so if you'd like to pick up your math. Okay.
n/a So we just had a question about, the thoughts on William Brazzo's assertion that RTI programs at the secondary level are rarely successful. And,
Cara well, Melissa, I In working with secondary schools, and I do work with secondary schools quite a bit, in RTI, I find that, to things that oftentimes keep them from being successful, are, things such as, a lack of differentiation in the Shores) education, having, you know, kind of a 1 set way that we do things and really to thinking out of not thinking out of the box. But the the biggest thing I find is that schools try to implement RTI at the secondary level the way it is implemented in the elementary grades, and it's simply a different type of process. It's the same, the same, you know, structure, but it has to be differentiated in so many ways, that are different. So I am starting to see some secondary schools that are being very successful. I worked for a couple of years with a school that was very successful.
Cara Their RTI process and, helped to raise their graduation rate and raise their student achievement Shores). So I think it just, involves finding how RTI is different in in the secondary level and putting in place that way rather than trying to copy what elementary and primary grades you're doing.
n/a Thanks, Kara. We also had
Cara a just if you could give us
n/a a bit more question about the clarification between what sort of 2 tier 2 interventions and support. So, Andrea, I don't know if you wanna add something about that as well. And then the last question It was about, supporting pa well, the PBIS, so pa positive behavior supports. Kathy was just asking about that if that we are including the PBIS interventions.
Cara Okay. Andrea, we will look, at some specific examples of tier 2 interventions and supports in just a few minutes. So if you don't to I hate to put you off that. If you don't mind, I I think I can clarify that for you with some visuals. And then if I don't answer your question about that, then I can come back to it.
Cara And I see your smiley face. Thank you. It is in addition to that core instruction and we'll look at what are some examples are of that. And if that's, if that doesn't answer your question, you let me know and I'll be glad to come back to it. And Kathy's question about looking at the behavior.
Cara It is very much based on the positive behavior Intervention and support systems, that have been put into place in many, many schools and that is, it directly aligns with our academic RTI process. And so, in putting that in place, yes, I'm talking about to PBS, type things in place. Sometimes they're a little bit different, but again, that just goes to the the individuality of the school. So yes, that's, that's very much the same. And, there's a question from Andrea about the difference between supports versus interventions.
Cara We're looking at interventions. We're looking at research based instruction for students to help them learn what they don't know. So if I have a difficulty in reading fluency, then I need an intervention to teach me how to be a more fluent reader and to improve my reading fluency and then ultimately comprehension. When I'm talking about support, sometimes, especially at the secondary level, we do things like putting in place to homework, tutorials, tutorials for different content areas, mentoring, and that's often used at elementary as well. Those are supports that help students be successful in the classroom, but it is not an intervention.
Cara An intervention is actually teaching me what I don't know, and a support gives me, different, types of of access or, just supports to help me access the information. And that's that's really a big thing that we clarify for secondary schools, because many times schools will put in place supports and they'll call them interventions, when they're really not. They're there to give additional help, but they're not teaching students the skill set that they don't have. So when we look at interventions, I'll try to point out to you what some supports might be there as well. Okay.
Cara Well, let's move on then as we're you're talking about this RTI process. And I wanted to give you some just some, additional follow-up on that as a visual. What is the difference between the 3 tiers? Again, tier 1 is that quality instruction available to all students. It's the instruction that goes to every student within the school.
Cara We do put in place, in most schools group interventions for struggling learners. That would be if I have a child in Classroom. Today I taught, I don't know, 2 digit education and the student I have 2 or 3 students who are struggling. I'll put interventions in place for those students within my classroom in order to help them be able to access the information. That is different from a tier 2 targeted intervention in that it's 1 time as needed.
Cara But when I have a student who is starting to fall behind grade level and I need an, to a consistent intervention for them to learn, then I'll put those in place as tier 2. So this is not saying, okay, we don't need to individualize for students in the classroom. Back to the same just the opposite. We do individualize and then when students need additional support that is more than just, what they need in in the classroom that we put in place our tier 2 interventions. Universal screening is put in place for all students in tier 1, and I will show you some examples of universal screening tools.
Cara And then some schools do go beyond just the universal screening, which is usually done about 3 times a year, to actual progress monitoring of all students within the classroom, which would be more often about 3 once a month or or sometimes even more often than that using the same types of schools or excuse me, using the same types of tools. But, most schools just put in place universal screening for tier 1. And so when we look at the screening tools, I'll give you a little bit more information about that. As we look at tier 2, again, that is for our students who are having difficulty with tier 1. It is in addition to tier 1, not instead of.
Cara It is specific to the deficits such as, reading fluency or reading comprehension. Usually student are in a small group setting, by skill level. When we look at the interventions at tier 2, we want students to be with other students who have the same needs as them, so it really is ability grouping for that small amount of time so that we can provide very targeted Introduction. And then we do use progress monitoring. Tier 3 differs from tier 2 in that it is more inclusive.
Cara And both the instruction and the assessment becomes more intensive as we go up into the higher levels of intervention there. It is really important, to remember that we want students to be successful as close to the bottom of the pyramid as they possibly can be, that we want them to be successful in the core instruction. So we are not trying to see how quickly we can get students into intensive support. We're trying to help them be successful very low in the pyramid and sometimes that's a culture shift for schools. As we look at frameworks for interventions, we are looking at basically 2 types.
Cara And I don't want you to get really, bogged down in this because, it's it's almost like 2 ways of saying the same thing. But if you look at research in RTI, you will see most of the time that researchers use what is called a standard protocol Intervention those, standard protocols are put in place ahead of time, based on the most common needs within the school. So if I am a school principal and I look at my school data and I see that I've got lots and lots of kids who are having difficulty with the concept of fractions, Then I, can first of all look and see is it a core instructional need? And if it is, if it's not that widespread, if I just have a small percentage of students who need that, then I can plan ahead and get that in place before the school ever year, school year ever starts knowing that I'm going to have some interventions for that, and I will, be able to plan for that in my schedule and get everything set up. In, contrast to that, We have what is called a problem solving model where we sit, as a team and plan for every student individually.
Cara And, I like to use the 4 step protocol for problem solving that's listed there where we first define, what the problem is that the student experiencing. We define that in to measurable and observable terms. Not just the student can't read, but the student should be reading 40 words per minute, the student reading 20 words per to something that's very specific. And then we plan an intervention based specifically on the needs that that student has. So we would find on a fluency intervention for that student.
Cara And then we implement that and evaluate that response based on how well the student Response with that specific instruction. Now these really are 2 ways of looking at the same type of of, process to to meet the needs of students. The difference is that standard protocol is set up ahead of time and is standard for all students who have that specific problem. And problem solving is based on the needs of each individual student. We really have to have both within a school.
Cara It's the most efficient use of our time if we set up standard protocols based on, what we need, within the the school. And then we have problem solving for those needs that arise that are out of what we've already planned for. The bottom line is we need to specifically, define the problem based on the data. We need to choose an intervention and develop the goal for that intervention for that student, determine who's going to provide the intervention, how long is it going to be every day. Is it going to be 3 days a week?
Cara How many, minutes in a session? All those, semantics we have to work out and then determine how we're going to assist the progress, and then ultimately, is this intervention working and can we do things, differently. Do we need to do something differently for the student? Or are we, are we, effectively meeting that student's needs at this time. So whether you use standard protocol or problem solving, when we are looking at these, Oh, I just went all the way to the end of the PowerPoint.
Cara Sorry, Carla. I skipped on the wrong slide. Guys, hold on just a second and to I hit the wrong error there. I love live audiences. When we're doing this, making these decisions.
Cara We just need to make sure that we are addressing the needs of the students whether we can do that individually through the problem solving or as a standard protocol. So thank you for your patience there.
n/a No problem, Kara. Judy had just asked earlier about, when to do the tier 2 interventions during school time. Could you provide like an example of how some schools modify their timetable in terms to fit that in? To Sure.
Cara The most common way that schools, provide interventions during the school day, and This is whether it is an elementary setting or all the way through a high school setting, is to set aside a time during the school day where, all students who need interventions. We'll have those at 1 time. So I might have a block of time from 9:30 to 10 AM where all students go into small groups. And, sometimes this is cross grade level, especially in very small schools, when we don't have a lot of resources and we don't have a lot of personnel, then we might cross grade level. In larger schools, it will probably be all within the grade level.
Cara But, basically from 9:30 to 10, Every student who needed intervention would go to an intervention group during that time. And then kids who needed enrichment could receive enrichment during that time in kids who are on grade level. I know at the high school many times they are preparing for for a graduation test they may have to take or preparing a college, application or working on a community based project that they're working on for part of their portfolio. So we look at The most common way that schools provide time for this Introduction, it is to put a block into the school day. And the most common amount of time is about 30 minutes for that.
Cara The the variations on that are just huge depending on what resources your school has, but a good, and and 1 of the reasons that schools like that whole school model is because you can take every adult in the building and give them an instructional group. And your intervention groups are smaller groups and your, enrichment groups are larger groups that every adult has a a group at that time, and therefore, you're able to have much smaller student teacher ratios with that. So that's a very common way of of providing that intervention time, during the day.
n/a Thanks, Carol.
Cara Alright. Let's look at, now what we're talking about with research based instruction and interventions. We're looking at the tier 1 instruction. I recommend that schools always begin with their RTI process by looking taking a very, a very objective look at their school data and at their student performance student determine if students are being successful in their core Introduction. And that may be, to your principle test that you use.
Cara That's certainly a really good source of data for you. It may be ongoing formative assessment or if you have benchmark testing that students take every grading period. All of that data coming together, but to look at is our instruction appropriate for all students within the school. And we'll look at some data in just a minute to kind of illustrate that for you. But we first of
n/a all I first have to
Cara look at is our curriculum appropriate and is it, beneficial for all of our students. Secondly, we need to have good strong differentiated instruction within all of our classrooms. Some teachers are so skillful at differentiating instruction, but many teachers really struggle with it. They struggle with the management of the classroom. They struggle with time management.
Cara And so differentiated instruction is something that I find all schools really have to work on. Using flexible grouping, not always ability grouping, not always interest grouping, but really using small groups for a variety of purposes within the classroom. We also want to make sure that we have appropriate classroom management, and that may include, school wide behavioral supports if we are putting in place a school wide RTI model for behavior. Basically, whatever is important in our tier 1 instruction, are we doing well. And 1 of the questions that I always ask, in my longer workshops and that I encourage administrators especially to think about, but really all leadership within a school, to how do we define core instruction in our school.
Cara If someone comes into a classroom, what what should they see? What's important? What are the to this areas of focus that we want instruction to be within our classroom. And that's a hard thing is when you really start trying to to define that core instruction. What does it mean within your school?
Cara I encourage all schools to do that. So as we're looking at our tier 1 instruction, we We want to make sure that whatever we're doing, we're doing well and that it's meeting the needs of our students. And then we put our universal screening in and we'll come back to universal screening in just a minute. Now this is, an example of school data. This is using DIBELS.
Cara And DIBELS is, that stands for Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills. This is a curriculum based measurement tool that is designed to assess reading. It is, what we call a general outcome measure, which means it measures the big the 5 big areas of reading. It is not a diagnostic. It will not drill down and tell you why students are having difficulty with, say, comprehension.
Cara It will just be a red flag to say this student It's not performing as they should in the areas, of and it it it goes through all 5 of our major areas of reading. So this is some DIBELS data. And thank you, Carla. She's put our resource up there for DIBELS, if you wanna check that This is some data that a school might have, where they have administered DIBELS to all students within their school. And, they have 78% of their students who are at the benchmark.
Cara They are exactly where they need to the or they're above that that benchmark for their grade level. We have 17% of our students who are struggling. And with DIBELS, these kids who are just below the benchmark are are listed in a category called strategic, and that's what the yellow area indicates. So they have 17% of their students who are just below the benchmark having some difficulty not quite where they need to be. And then they have 5% of their students who are at the lowest level.
Cara They are at the most, needy, as far as being far below the benchmark, and they are categorized as intensive. Now this particular spread here is really what we would want to see within a school. We like to see about 80% of our student, somewhere around 80% being at benchmark, and then we would expect to see about 15% of our kids at strategic and about 5% as inclusive. Now Every school will not fall into that, but it is a good target to shoot for, because in well functioning schools, where core instruction is strong. We would expect to see about our 20 about 20% of our students need additional instruction through to our tier 2 and tier 3 interventions.
Cara So a school that has, data that looks very much like this, who has 78% of their students being successful. This school is ready to put in place tier 2 and tier 3 interventions. Now if we have a school that looks more like this, then we need to take a different focus. This school has 21% of their students who are at benchmark, 20 6 who are just below the benchmark and 53% who are very far below the benchmark and intensive. And this may seem, very exaggerated, but it really isn't.
Cara There are many schools, that this is where they fall when they administer a universal screening tool. What we need to think about with this is that if 53% of our students plus 26, So we have 79% of our students who are not meeting the benchmark.
n/a We don't need to put
Cara in place interventions at this point. We need to work on our core instruction and make core instruction more appropriate for our students. So for a school that we looked at universal screening data and found this type of scenario. I would spend a great deal of time working on the quality of core instruction with the items that we just looked at a couple slides back or, just looking at what does instruction need to be within the school. So This data from DIBELS is very easy to see, that this is phoneme segmentation fluency.
Cara So this is 1 of the skills that kids have to have to be, to be successful with phonemic awareness and phonics. And this would indicate to us that our instruction in this particular skill in our early grades kindergarten specifically It's not strong, and we need to work on that instruction. And it might be a curricular issue. It might be an instructional issue. We would just have to really, drill down and to find out what is going on in the classroom and why our kids are not being successful there.
Cara So as we're looking at our data and we see that, we have students who are being unsuccessful. And we hopefully have a manageable number of students who need Intervention such as the, 20% that we or 22% that we had in school a. Then we begin choosing targeted interventions for those students. So this would be in our tiers 2 and 3. The interventions would be ones that our research base that we know are designed to work and have worked with students with the specific deficits that our students have, and we would implement those the way they were designed.
Cara If I have a research based intervention and I try to implement it in my school, but I I I either don't like the way it was designed or I don't have the resources. And I just changed the procedures, and I change, how I'm teaching to the, the program or the Intervention. Then I'm no longer using a research based intervention. I've watered it down. So I had to be very careful that I implementing the intervention with Fidelity the way it was designed because that's where I can expect to have progress.
Cara And again, we will talk more about, Fidelity a little bit later. As we're looking at interventions, 1 of the most common questions that I'm asked is what kind of Intervention. And we mentioned this earlier, what kind of interventions are we looking at, for putting in place with our students. And I've given you here some resources and you can pull up the copy of the PowerPoint later on and be able to, go through all of these, different websites and look at the resources. But these all give different kinds of intervention strategies as well as intervention programs.
Cara And the difference in in what I'm referring to there, strategies are, just ways of teaching students how to to obtain the skill. A program is built on a strategy, so I can purchase a program, but strategies can be used with whatever materials I may already have. So the resources that you see here have, both programs and strategies. They have reviews, they have recommendations, and some of them have to actual interventions, research based interventions that can be used with students. So, When we look at our interventions, we're just wanting to make sure that whatever we're putting in place is appropriate for the student.
Cara And when that student doesn't respond to tier 2, then we're going to provide, additional instruction in a more intensive fashion with, the tier 3 and just putting more time perhaps, a different to Intervention that is more intensive or, simply giving student, to a different type of instruction than they've had before. Now I see that Carla, Andrea has a question, to clarify strategies versus programs, and I will, try to explain that a little bit, clearer. We look at research based strategies. There are many strategies that have, a specific focus of 1 of the areas of reading in the area of math or even behavioral strategies, and it is a specific, method for teaching students what they do not know. But they are not tied to a specific program.
Cara So 1 of those strategies would be repeated reading. Repeated reading is a very strong strategy, 1 of the strongest that we have for teaching reading fluency. And there is a specific method that you go through in using repeated readings. And so when we keep repeated reading to increase fluency, we would just simply use that strategy with materials that we we have available, or we could purchase a program that is based on the strategy of repeated reading that Already has all of my our materials laid out for us, so that would be a program. A program based on repeating readings is called Read Naturally, and it has everything there already done for you.
Cara It has your assessment built in. Everything is there. So the strategy is what researchers have put in place that they say if you follow this to this step, this step, this step, this strategy, teaching this student this specific strategy and these skills, then students will, be able to understand and will improve their fluency. When you look at, the program read naturally, then they have their materials that you're using. So hopefully that makes it a little, a little bit easier to understand.
Cara Carla has put up a link that I like to use in my workshop so showing repeated reading being used in a classroom, and it it's a very good example of repeated reading. So thank you Carla for putting that up. Sorry, Cara. We are looking, Sorry.
n/a I was sorry to interrupt you.
Cara We're looking at, increasing the intensity for tier 3. We can do that in 1 of 2 ways. We can, change the intervention as I said earlier. We can get more time. We We can put students into smaller groups.
Cara All of that will will, help to increase the the amount of instruction students receive. But we can also increase support by giving additional Intervention. Sometimes we put 2 or 3 interventions together. Or instead of just getting an intervention in reading comprehension, I might need an overall comprehensive reading program. And oftentimes we look at those in tier 3.
Cara So as you're looking at progressing from tier 2 to tier 3, 1 of the signals that students need, more intensive instruction might be that they don't need just a strategy working on 1 or 2 areas of reading that they need an overall reading program. We oftentimes see this with older students, adolescents, to who are having significant reading problems, and they don't need just 1 strategy. They might need many strategies put together for them. And so we might can do that through that increasing intensity. Sometimes, we have students who have been identified as having a disability who are served in this intensive tier here and get, very intensive instruction.
Cara But I don't want you to equate tier 3 with any sort of service of any kind, not special ed, not anything else because it really has nothing to do with labels. Has to do with the level of intensity and support that a student needs. Alright. Any additional questions about research based interventions and that first, essential element there?
n/a So I can see, Heather's just typing in a question. Kara, I was just wondering, did you want to give people time to look at those websites or maybe do build that in at the end of this time.
Cara Yeah. I was kinda looking at the clock and thought we might need to wait until the end, if that's okay.
n/a Okay. That sounds good. And I like likewise to. We can also definitely, I'll put the link into the the Wiki where you can download Cara's PowerPoint. It's just saved as a PDF, which will have all these links on it, so after the webinar today.
n/a And likewise, I can see Heather's just fast as well if we'll be getting the archived recording. So the archived recording will also be housed here on this, erlc. Wikispaces dotcomforward/rtispace. So again, you can watch it back. You can also go to that website.
n/a And at the bottom where it says handouts and resources, you can download, the PDF that says presenter slides. So again, you'll have all those links and you'll have, Kara's presentation there. She's kindly agreed to share it with us. Okay. So I'll pass
Cara it back to you, Kara. Okay. Alright. Now we're going to begin looking at database decision making and the assessment that is specifically designed for RTI. The first being universal screening, and that is what we give to all students within a school.
Cara There are exceptions to this, especially in secondary, and I'll I'll share some, examples of what we do with secondary, in just a minute. What we're looking for is a curriculum based measurement tool that is very quick and easy to administer. And when when we're talking about amount of time for administration. Many of the tools specifically