reading specialist

Best Practices in Planning Interventions for Students With Reading Problems

/ Nancy Ann Creed / Leave a comment
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Before COVID-19, some students struggled with reading. However, in our post-COVID world, we have seen an increase in students who are not meeting grade-level benchmarks and need more intensive reading interventions.

Most students struggle with reading at some point, but the majority respond well to typical classroom instruction and interventions.  “Yet some students with the most severe reading difficulties do not make adequate progress in standard reading interventions and require more intensive interventions to make sufficient growth in reading, (Al Otaiba, McMaster, & Wanzek, 2020). Even though some students need specialized instruction to make significant progress in reading, all students can learn to read. This is important because many students feel that not being able to read well reflects a lack of intelligence, which simply isn’t true.  Students who need extra support can benefit from a more intensive reading program. Such programs provide more time for practice and more frequent teacher feedback, which are both essential components of successful learning.

The first step is for teachers to identify students who need more intensive intervention.  They can achieve this by using the Response to Intervention (RTI) model or a Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS). Most times normal classroom instruction is considered Tier 1 includes high-quality core instruction for all students. Tier 2 provides additional support for students who need it, such as small group instruction or supplemental activities. Tier 3 offers the most intensive support for students who continue to struggle after Tier 1 and Tier 2 interventions. It’s important to implement these steps in order before moving a student to Tier 3.  

 When implementing RTI or MTSS, teachers continuously assess student understanding to determine reading level and pinpoint areas needing improvement. These frequent assessments and progress monitoring are crucial for providing targeted practice, feedback, and placing students in appropriate reading groups with engaging books. Ultimately, this data-driven process guides teachers in selecting the most effective interventions to help students achieve reading success.

 The article “Best Practices in Planning Interventions for Students With Reading Problems” highlights various intensive interventions, while reading groups typically focus on exploring a wider range of reading instruction strategies. Some examples of these intensive interventions include explicit instruction, systematic instruction with specialized and corrective feedback, and cognitive process strategies.

 According to Reading Rockets, two categories of students struggle with reading: those with a discrepancy between their IQ and reading achievement, and those with both low academic ability and low reading achievement. Importantly, regardless of the category, all students can learn to read with the right interventions.

“Poor readers with word recognition difficulties generally over-rely on textual cues such as pictures and other words to identify words in a passage that are unknown to them” (Kim & Goetz, 1994).

 “Overusing textual cues to identify unknown words reduces the likelihood of transforming unknown words into sight words” (Pressley, 1998).  Students with autism sometimes struggle with this as they get used to the repetitive sound of the letters and then have a difficult time transferring those sounds into words.

Once school psychologists and teachers have decided who needs to be in what level of intervention, they then need to look into what type of strategies work the best.   

References

Al Otaiba, S., McMaster, K. L., & Wanzek, J. (2020). Intensive Reading Interventions for the Elementary Grades. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Joseph, L. (n.d.). Best Practices in Planning Interventions for Students with Reading Problems. Reading Rockets. [doi number, if available]

Kim, Y. H., & Goetz, E. T. (1994). Context Effects on Word Recognition and Compensatory Hypothesis. Reading Research Quarterly, 29, 178–188.

Lerner, J. W. (1993). Learning disabilities: Theories, Diagnosis, and Teaching Strategies. Dallas, TX: Houghton Mifflin.

Pressley, M. (1998). Reading instruction that works: The case for balanced teaching. New York: Guilford.

Strategies of Literary Coaches

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Strategies of Literary Coaches 

Many professions use reflection in their practice. This includes the profession of Education. Reflective teaching is “an active desire to listen to more sides than one, to give full attention to alternative possibilities, and to recognize the possibility of error even in beliefs that are dearest to us. Teachers who are open-minded are continually examining the rationales that underlie what is taken as natural and right and take pains to seek out conflicting evidence,” Rodgers & Rodgers, (2007). This type of practice only works if both parties are open to change. The people involved must be open to new research, new technologies, and new teaching practices.  

 In the preview of teaching, many teachers already use reflection as a normal part of their teaching process. When a teacher plans a lesson, they look through the material they need to teach and “transform the material from a text (typically, although not always, a textbook) into something that can be instructed,” Rodgers & Rodgers, (2007). Then the teacher investigates how they can instruct their class, “Instruction requires the teacher to consider how the class, the presentation, and the material will be managed.”  

Once this lesson is complete, the teacher then evaluates the lesson. Teachers review the lesson and how students responded to it. “…the teacher reflects on the whole experience thus far. Reflection can change the way the teacher conceived of the teaching along each stage of the process, form comprehending through transforming teaching and then evaluation,” Rodgers & Rodgers, (2007). Reflection is not an extra task, but a necessary part of the teaching process. 

How can a Reading Specialist help teachers with this process? They can help teachers in many ways. First, they can “support the teacher in new comprehensions about instruction along each phase withing the model. It is in this last phase that literacy coaches may be able to take the reflections of teachers and support them in developing new possibilities as to how they might teach their students,” Rodgers & Rodgers, (2007). This is a team effort and both parties must be willing to cooperate and have a shared ownership for improvement. “A final rational for coaching reflection is that it is the kind of work that lends itself to exploration through conservation; reflection…,” Rodgers & Rodgers, (2007). 

While observing a lesson, coaches should take multiple notes that will help them in the conference with the teacher. These notes have been categorized into five different categories: Hypothetical, Procedural, Methodical, Observational, and Theoretical notes. Using these notes, the coach can refer to things that happened in the lesson. By using open ended questions, they can promote a conversation with the teacher such as, “What evidence do we have that…and do you think…?” Rodgers & Rodgers, (2007). Why did that happen? How can we improve on this? “These (questions) gave teachers tacit permission to open up and theorize on the evidence before them as well as their own practices based on their theories.” Rodgers & Rodgers, (2007). 

It is important to look at coaching and reflection to improve and not a way to investigate what the teacher did wrong. Each teacher should approach this process with an open mind so they can improve their profession; no matter how many years they have been teaching or how many certifications they have. The coaches’ job is to help facilitate this growth and empower teachers to want to improve and explore new research, new technologies and new teaching practices. 

References 

Rodgers, A., & Rodgers, E. M. (2007). The Effective Literacy Coach: Using Inquiry to Support Teaching and Learning. Teachers College, Columbia University. 

The Expertise of a Reading Specialist 

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Bean and Goatley (2021), present three areas, or roles of expertise required for Reading Specialists. These roles are instruction, assessment, and leadership. “This role requires the specialist to have expertise with reading assessment, instruction, and to possess the leadership skills that enable them to work with other adults, such as classroom teachers, other professionals, and the community,” (Bean & Goatley, 2021). This has led me to think about how each of these areas affect my role as a reading specialist. What are my strengths and where do I need to gain more knowledge and experience? 

The first area I would like to explore is the instructor role. This role seems to be the one most people are familiar with. I had always assumed a Reading Specialist’s main focus was on helping individual students learn how to read and just pulled students out to work with them one on one. During my personal education journey, I didn’t see any Reading Specialists or have any knowledge that they even existed.  However, I did graduate high school in 1996 and as was discussed in the class, the role of the Reading Specialist has changed over time due to many different legislations and policies according to Bean and Goatley (2021). 

The second area is that of assessment. I do need to gain more knowledge in this area as Reading Specialist need to keep up with all current and constantly changing assessments. Assessments are critical in instruction decision-making. I work for a school that hosts all the grades through high school and all students are special needs. I teach 6th grade through 12th grade English. We assess all our students in reading and math at the beginning of each school year using KTA. These assessments help teachers understand what types of modifications they need for each individual student. We do not employ a Reading Specialist, however, as the English teacher, I have been working with other teachers to come up with ideas to help their students in their content areas.  

Finally, the last area I am interested in gaining more knowledge is leadership. Reading Specialists have always had a leadership role in school. “What has not changed is that Literacy Specialist have always had to serve in a dual role the required them to teach students and support teachers” (Bean & Goatley, 2021). This could be a difficult role for a newly hired Reading Specialist. You need to build a repertoire with both the teachers and the students, and this is done over time. These are many skills someone needs to be a good and effective leader.  

I acknowledge that I need to work on learning new assessments, how to administer them and score them. I also need to learn how to take this knowledge and transfer it into new modifications and accommodations. This newfound knowledge will enable me to create stronger and more interesting lessons plans that will strengthen my English teacher skills.  

When I started teaching 6 years ago, I didn’t see myself as a leader at first. I was still learning how to be a teacher and how to relate to my coworkers and students. I was unaware of the amount of learning and personal education that went into becoming a Reading Specialist. These roles of instruction, assessment, and leadership take an exceptional person. It is my desire to be able to take on all of those roles to become the Reading Specialist that I know I can be.   

References 

Bean, R. M., Goatley, V.J. (2021).  The Literacy Specialist. Leadership and coaching for the classroom, school, and community.  4th ed (374 pgs) Guildford Press.