Fivesuggestionsfor Assisting Students Performing Below Their Potential in Elementary Reading

FiveSuggestionsfor Assisting Students Performing Below Their Potential in Elementary Reading

This information is summarized from the report Assisting Students Struggling with Reading: Response to Intervention(RTI) and Multi-Tiered Intervention in Primary Grades(IES Practice Guide – What Works Clearinghouse); Russell Gersten, Donald Compton, Carol M. Connor, Joseph Dimino, Lana Santoro, Sylvia Linan-Thompson, W. David Tilly; 2009.

Suggestion 1: Screen ALL students for potential reading problems at the beginning, middle and end of the year. Regularly monitor the progress of students.

 Select screening measures based on the content they cover, with an emphasis on critical instructional objectives for each grade.

 Use the same screening tool across a district to enable analysis of results across schools.

 Address the potential for false positives – students whose screening scores suggest they need additional assistance, but who would do fine without it.

Suggestion2: Provide time for differentiated CORE instruction for all students based on assessments of students’ current reading level.

 CORE reading instruction is differentiated, delivered through evidence based instructional practices and authentically contextualized.

 CORE instruction addresses all aspects of basic literacy including phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension and writing as delineated in the content standards and objectives.

 Assessment data is utilized to determine the most appropriate instructional targets and to inform decisions about grouping students for instruction.

Suggestion 3: Provide supplemental instruction on up to three foundational reading skills in small groups during CORE to students who score below the benchmark score on universal screening. Typically, these groups meet between three and five times a week, for 20 to 40 minutes.

 Research strongly supports students at the TARGETED level receiving small group instruction in homogeneous groups for 20 to 40 minutes, three to five days a week.

 Instruction should be aligned with CORE objectives, focused, and highly interactive.

 Content focus of TARGETED instruction is determined by students’ needs. Instruction at this level is designed to target phonemic awareness, decoding, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension and/or writing as indicated by ongoing formative assessments.

Suggestion 4: Monitor the progress of TARGETED students at least every three weeks. Use these data to determine whether students still require intervention. For those students still making insufficient progress, school wide teams should design an Intensive
Instructional Plan.

 The purposes of progress monitoring are to inform how a student is doing in general reading proficiency and in improving specific reading skills, as well as to regroup students, accordingly.

 Students who return to CORE instruction should be carefully monitored to ensure that general classroom instruction is adequate to maintain gains made in TARGETED instruction.

Suggestion 5: Provide INTENSIVE supplemental instruction on a daily basis that promotes the development of the various components of reading proficiency to students who show minimal progress after reasonable time in their TARGETED small group instruction.

INTENSIVE instruction should be more explicit than at the TARGETED level with a smaller homogeneous group size, and should include intensive, targeted comprehensive skill instruction in addition to CORE instruction.

 Students in INTENSIVE instruction should be progress monitored more frequently than in TARGETED instruction.

For additional information on WVSPL and Reading, please visit the following websites:

Teach 21 at

The National Center on RTI at

The Center on Instruction at

The RTI Action Network at

The What Works Clearinghouse at