Adoption of RTI and early intervention strategies at a national level is the goal
It was ”very hot” in 2008, and if the heat keeps building, Response to Intervention (RTI) might boil into the “hottest” of the hot range in 2009 in the “What’s hot, what’s not” annual survey of literacy topics. Evidence abounds for its rising heat rate:
RTI and early intervention, another of the “very hot” topics, are closely related. Early intervention often refers to “programs designed to positively influence the course of language and literacy development in children age 0-8),” according to Dorothy S. Strickland in “The Importance of Effective Early Intervention” (2002, IRA). Some of the earliest interventions involve family literacy programs, pre-kindergarten programs such as Head Start (reauthorized by Congress and signed into law in December 2007), and kindergarten programs in which very young children learn the alphabet, something of phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and about the importance of reading, writing, and literature to human culture.
RTI likely is more at the forefront of hot topics today, in part because it is a relatively new concept compared to Head Start and other pre-K and kindergarten programs, which have been around for decades. And there is obvious overlap between them.
According to the U.S. Department of Education’s Q & A on RTI and Early Intervention Services (EIS), when the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was reauthorized, members of Congress realized that a growing body of scientific evidence existed that supported methods such as RTI. Such approaches more accurately distinguished between children with specific learning disabilities and children whose learning problems could be addressed with general education interventions, scientifically based and geared to the individual child.
After the Education of All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (now IDEA) was passed, there was an outpouring of concern and federal dollars for special education services. Escalating numbers of children were identified as having disabilities simply because they struggled with learning to read, Allington said. In No Quick Fix, the authors argue “that American schools have been spending enormous amounts of money on remediation and special education programs with little discernible effect on the achievement of struggling readers.”
When the first version of the book was published in 1995, RTI was not the term generally used to describe programs and concepts that were identified in the book as “early reading intervention” or “remediation.” The RTI usage came later, but the general concept was outlined more than a dozen years ago, when No Quick Fix raised concerns about the deleterious effects of too many students labeled “special ed” and the growing strain on school budgets in providing services to these children.
Now, provisions authorizing RTI allow school districts to set aside as much as 15% of their funding for children with learning disabilities toward general education interventions to serve at-risk children before they are labeled as learning-disabled, Allington said.
For many decades, children could not be identified as having a learning disability until they demonstrated a 50% (two-year below grade level) discrepancy between aptitude (for example, IQ) and achievement, said IRA member Barbara Laster, professor of education and director of Graduate Programs in Literacy at Towson University in Towson, Maryland. “This resulted in many young children (such as in grades K-2) not getting the assistance that they need to progress.”
This model is sometimes called the “wait-to-fail” model. Children trapped in what National Center for Learning Disabilities Public Policy Director Laura Kaloi has called “educational limbo” receive no educational intervention in either general or special education. These children, she said, could be helped by the key components of RTI: evidence-based instruction, effective teaching, targeted interventions, progress monitoring, and support including family involvement.
Laster said she hopes that the RTI movement will be an incentive for the fields of reading instruction and special education “to begin a dialogue” and to understand each other’s specialized vocabulary. The fields of special education and reading have similar goals, said Laster, who has been asked to serve as the IRA representative on the RTI Advisory Council to NCLD.
Implementing RTI on a systemwide basis is very important, said G. Emerson Dickman, president of the International Dyslexia Association Inc. (IDA), and a longtime proponent of evidence-based practices in the teaching of reading. IDA is a nonprofit international organization that concerns itself with issues surrounding dyslexia, a language-based learning disability.
RTI is definitely a “hot topic,” he said, and “incredibly important.” He said using appropriate assessments, children at risk of falling behind in reading could be identified by the middle of the kindergarten year. “If we intervene early enough, these children may never experience failure.”
Changing the system on a national level and implementing the “large-scale adoption of RTI” is the goal of the RTI Action Network, according to Kathleen A. Whitmire, director of the network. Funded by Cisco Systems Foundation, the network aims “to facilitate and support the development, replication, scalability, and sustainability of RTI as a means for systems change to improve educational outcomes for all students.
How will this be accomplished? There are several approaches that will be taken, Whitmire said:
Whitmire said the multipronged initiative is designed around four critical components including research, informational resources, professional development, and mentoring. Supporting these will be the RTI Action Network website, forums and conferences, ready access to the nation’s top RTI experts, and best practice sites.
The website, “designed as the ‘go-to’ site for RTI,” Whitmire said, will include articles, FAQs, a glossary, and professional development in user-friendly formats. There will be a discussion board, blogs, Ask the Expert, and success stories from the field.
A National Forum is scheduled for the summer in Washington, DC, that will offer discussions on a comprehensive framework for RTI. Proceedings will be disseminated widely online, onsite, through CDs, and in print.
Key relationships have been formed at various levels of commitment, including the RTI Advisory Council and the Founding Partners, a select group of national associations representing key stakeholders in the effective implementation of RTI. In addition to IRA, Whitmire said Founding Partners include the National Association of School Psychologists, the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the National Association of Secondary School Principals.
Other associations will be invited to join the Network as Implementation Partners to disseminate and provide information and training to multiple constituencies nationwide. Educators and families can sign up now to become part of the RTI Action Network online community at www.ncld.org/rtinetwork.
Alan E. Farstrup, executive director of IRA, is urging IRA members and reading professionals to pay close attention “to the potential of RTI and insist on the meaningful engagement of reading professionals.” If they don’t, he said in the December/January issue of Reading Today, RTI could tend “to become yet another aspect of special education programming without the benefits of student access to the essential expertise of reading teachers and specialists. IRA believes that reading teachers and specialists must be involved with providing and guiding RTI services because they are the best prepared to help make a real difference for the children who struggling with reading.”
Internet sites, newspapers and magazines, street signs and restaurant menus-informational texts surround us each day. They even make up a good chunk of the material on the standardized tests students take. As Sharon Benge Kletzien and Mariam Jean Dreher point out in their IRA book Informational Text in K-3 Classrooms: Helping Children Read and Write, “expectations for children to be able to read, write, and learn from informational text are increasing as society has more access to a greater amount of information.”
Yet go into most elementary classrooms, and the reading instruction and free reading revolve primarily around fiction. A 1998 study by Barbara Moss and Evangeline Newton found that if teachers use a basal series, informational selections provide approximately 16% of the content for second grade.
In a study of 20 first-grade classrooms, Nell Duke discovered that teachers spent approximately 3.6 minutes a day using informational texts with students. “I think we are depriving them of another way to become excited and interested in reading,” she said in a faculty profile appearing on the Michigan State University website. “That’s sort of the first layer where we are missing an opportunity. Then we are missing a long-term opportunity. It stands to reason that if children had more experience with informational texts early on they wouldn’t have such a hard time with them later on.”
IRA’s position statement “Providing Books and Other Print Materials for Classroom and School Libraries” calls for providing a mixture of “picture storybooks, novels, biography, fiction and nonfiction material, magazines, poetry, and a multitude of other types to suit the interests and range of reading abilities of all children.”In their book, Kletzien and Dreher recommend that teachers aim for an equal blend of fiction and informational books in their classroom libraries.
Meanwhile, in her research Duke found that aiming for approximately one third informational texts, one third narrative texts, and one third other genres such as poetry in classroom libraries, classroom activities, and the classroom print environment caused no harm, and had some benefits, for first-grade students in large, low-socioeconomic status school districts. Still, a number of studies that have inventoried primary classroom libraries find them heavily weighted with fiction.
Much of Duke’s research has dealt with helping students develop high levels of competence in reading informational texts, which she believes is vital in helping students succeed in today’s complex world. Her work helps dispel the myth that young children have trouble handling informational text. “Young children can be successful with informational texts and texts other than the traditional narrative,”she says.
Duke notes that research indicates informational text is very important in later schooling. This bolsters the belief that students should be introduced to these types of texts at an early age.
Notably, children may be getting more exposure to informational text at home than at school. For example, Duke and Victoria Purcell-Gates found a number of informational genres in the homes of low-SES children (The Reading Teacher, Vol. 57, No. 1, September 2003).
There is also at least some research to suggest that informational texts may represent a way to draw in young males, who are sometimes reluctant readers. The same boys who spurn fiction may be eager to read about sharks, volcanoes, or sports.
The increased attention to the importance of informational texts is encouraging, Duke says, “But we will have to be vigilant to make sure progress continues, and that it does not come at the expense of literary reading ability, also critically important to our future.”
Literacy coaching again is a “very hot” topic in this year’s annual survey. There is bountiful evidence that it is an area that is receiving a great deal of attention in theory and practice and, according to Nancy L. Shanklin, director of the Literacy Coaching Clearinghouse (LCC), will continue to be “very hot.”
LCC (www.literacycoachingonline.org), a joint project of the International Reading Association (IRA) and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), recently marked its one-year anniversary. LCC is an online portal where anyone with an interest in literacy coaching can find a host of resources, including a library, blog, and forums moderated by national experts. Designed to help districts, schools, and coaches develop excellent coaching programs, LCC makes it easy for busy teachers to find the resources, research, and discussions teachers need to stay abreast of current developments in the field.
Further evidence of the heat in literacy coaching can be seen in a variety of arenas. Shanklin said the number of sessions on literacy coaching at IRA, NCTE, and the National Reading Conference (NRC) over the past year “have been very well attended and contained much useful information and energizing dialog. School districts, literacy/instructional coaches themselves, and principals want to learn how to implement coaching programs that will be successful.”
More sessions on literacy coaching are planned for upcoming meetings and conventions-the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and IRA in the spring-she said. And in May, 2007, IRA published Coaching for Balance: How to Meet the Challenges of Literacy Coaching by Jan Miller Burkins and has more publications on coaching on the way in 2008.
“Data on the effects of literacy coaching are starting to emerge and are positive,” Shanklin said. As the research accumulates, “these studies are just beginning to move into publication; the LCC is trying to review and post them as soon as they are available in the public domain. There are now over 30 books and 120 pieces on literacy coaching reviewed in the LCC electronic library.
“Literacy coaches help teachers move new, evidence-based literacy strategies into actual implementation in their classrooms,” she said. “They also help teachers examine assessment data and student work to plan next teaching steps that are differentiated for various students’ needs.”
Coaching has received a big boost through Reading First, the federal program that seeks to enable children to become successful readers, and targets kindergarten through third grade. A major part of the program involves providing professional development for teachers using scientifically based reading programs. “Job-embedded” professional development is seen as key, and as Reading First was being implemented about five years ago a “first wave” of reading coaches was sent into schools.
Now Shanklin believes that “Even if funding for literacy coaches through Reading First lessens, the concept of literacy coaches will remain strong. Districts will find other ways to fund these positions because they are seen as effective in helping to improve teacher instruction and student literacy and content learning.”
In other words, literacy coaching can be said to be evolving beyond being a methodology adopted by districts as a requisite end in itself and toward becoming a sought-after tool for educators and districts seeking to improve reading achievement in their schools-and not just in the primary grades.
“As more emphasis is placed on improving graduation rates and the quality of students’ abilities in math and science, the need for literacy/instructional coaches at the middle and high school level will continue to grow as well,” Shanklin said. “Regardless of whether NCLB is soon reauthorized or a new law takes its place, educators will need to continue to work hard to close student achievement gaps. Literacy coaches play an important role in helping teachers meet these challenges. For all of these reasons, literacy coaching will remain a ‘very hot topic’ for the foreseeable future.”
To reach the Literacy Coaching Clearinghouse, go to www.literacycoachingonline.org. For other resources, visit IRA’s website at www.reading.org/resources/issues/focus_coaching.html.
What’s hot focus topics. (February 2008). Reading Today, 25(4), 12, 13.
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