IDEA and Strategies for Literacy Instruction

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IDEA and Strategies for Literacy Instruction

• Catherine Christo
• California State University, Sacramento
• Christo_at_csus.edu 916 278-6649

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Influences on Reauthorized IDEA

• NCLB
• Presidents Commission on Excellence in Special
  Education
• Learning Disabilities Roundtable

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Outline Key Changes in IDEA Relevant to Reading

• Identification
• Response to Intervention Model
• Scientific Research based interventions
• Determining service delivery
• Progress monitoring

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IDEA 2004

• Disorder in a basic psychological process may
  manifest itself in the imperfect ability to
  listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do
  mathematical calculations
• Includes conditions such as perceptual
  disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain
  dysfunction, dyslexia and developmental aphasia
• Does not include learning problem due to visual,
  hearing, motor disabilities, mental retardation,
  emotional disturbance, environmental, cultural or
  economic disadvantage

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IDEA 2004

• When determining whether a child has a disability
  a local educational agency shall not be
  required to take into consideration whether a
  child has a severe discrepancy between
  achievement and intellectual ability
• ..a local education agency may use a process that
  determines if the child responds to scientific,
  research-based intervention as a part of the
  evaluation procedures

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Outline

• Identification
• Response to Intervention Model
• Scientific Research based interventions
• Determining service delivery
• Progress monitoring

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Three Tiered Model

• Assessment by response to intervention
• Tier 1
• Provide classroom support
• Tier 2
• Provide more intensive support
• Tier 3
• Consider special education
• Monitor and evaluate at all stages

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What Is Good About RTI

• Discrepancy model doesnt work
• Provides a framework for provision of
  interventions
• Is useful diagnostically
• Encourages progress monitoring and response to
  student progress
• Can eliminate unnecessary assessments
• Fosters early intervention

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What Is Not Good About RTI?

• Difficult to implement
• Determining scientific, research based practice
• Training teachers
• Ensuring fidelity
• Ensuring consistency

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Critical Factors in Implementing Response to
Intervention Models

• Determine whether child has been given
  scientific, research based intervention
• Determine if child has responded or made
  adequate progress

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National Reading Panel Identified Five Component
Skills

• Three are critical to the development of
  automatic word identification
• Phonemic Awareness
• Phonics
• Fluency
• Two are critical to reading comprehension
• Vocabulary
• Comprehension strategies
• There is interaction/additive effects among these
  five skills

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Scientific, Research Based Interventions

• Explicit, systematic instruction
• Currently adopted California curriculums
• Target areas of need (five components of skilled
  reading)
• Provide intense intervention
• Skill development
• Implemented by trained personnel
• Research studies are empirical, scientific

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Tier I Interventions

• Within classroom
• May target groups of students
• Measurable goals for all
• Instituted early for identified and at-risk
  students
• Individualized and flexible grouping
• Base on ongoing assessment
• Will be extensions of curriculum

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Tier II Supplemental Reading Instruction

• May go beyond classroom instruction
• Provided in small group or one to one
• Systematic, integrated program
• Provided by trained persons
• Frequent, intense
• Measuring progress related to curriculum

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Who Does It Most Readily Help?

• Those without underlying processing disorders
  (phonological and naming speed)
• Those who respond quickest
• Those whose reading problems are a result of
  limited exposure
• Those with better foundational literacy skills
• IQ does not differentiate those who will be helped

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Group Size and Composition

• Same ability grouping
• Small groups within classrooms
• Small groups equal to or better than one on one
• Up to three to four students

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How Long Does It Take?

• Rate of progress in intervention predicts future
  reading success
• Early intervention in phonemic awareness and
  phonics has long lasting effects and requires
  least amount of time
• Depends on age, severity of deficit
• For children with mild deficits 50-100 hours may
  be sufficient

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Early Intervention Makes a Difference

• Can significantly reduce number of children
  performing below criterion (Foorman, 2003)
• Tier 1 interventions can result in reducing at
  risk readers from 25 of population to 6
• Tier 2 interventions can further reduce to 3 to
  4
• Increase scores on standardized tests
• Results are long lasting for most children
• Largest gains are made in first part of
  intervention
• Brain functioning more normalized

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Why Is Early Intervention Important?

• Establishes basic early skills
• Puts children on growth trajectory
• Response to early intervention shows growth curve
  in basic skills to be greater than normal for
  those receiving intervention

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Tier III Interventions

• Intensive
• Targeted with thorough assessment
• Generally given later than first and second tier
• Special education or special-educationlike
• Problems in reading rate remain for most
  children who require this level of intervention

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Reading Intervention Programs Adopted Grades 4 - 8

• Language! A Literacy Intervention Curriculum
• High Point
• Read 180
• SRA/Reach Program
• Fast Track Reading Program

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Upper Grade Interventions

• Often lack intensity
• Little direct instruction or guided practice in
  phonics
• Lack of comprehension strategy instruction
• Typical special education during 4th and 5th
  grade increases reading by only .04 SD over what
  would occur in classroom
• Issues of language ability

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Research Based Upper Grade Interventions

• Teach phonemic decoding explicitly
• Provide opportunities for supervised practice
• Intensive
• Small group
• Related to entry level skills
• Provide all NRP elements of reading instruction
• Teach morphology as need more than phonics at
  upper grades to read words

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Outline

• Identification
• Response to Intervention Model
• Scientific Research based interventions
• Determining service delivery
• Progress monitoring

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What is Progress Monitoring?

• Use to measure student progress
• Has student responded to intervention?
• Use to evaluate effectiveness of instruction
• Individual students
• Instructional approaches
• Use to determine appropriate instructional
  placement

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Curriculum Based Measurement

• Fluency based measures
• Have capacity for providing growth trajectory
• Easy, quick to administer
• Psychometrically sound
• Local norms
• DIBELS
• Aimsweb

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DIBELS Progression
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Aimsweb
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Criteria To Determine Need for Further
Intervention

• Advancing toward benchmarks
• District developed benchmarks
• Within curriculum
• Prepared benchmarks (e.g. DIBELS)
• Set at-risk or not at risk criteria
• Monitoring progress
• Those not making adequate progress are referred
  on
• Dual discrepancy

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Questions

• Will RTI lead to fewer students in special
  education or more?
• How will progress monitoring be implemented?
• How will research based interventions be assured
  in schools?

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Questions continued

• Where does due process start?
• How do parents become effective partners in
  literacy intervention?
• What will be required in teacher training?

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References

• McCardle, P Chhabra, V. (2004). The voice of
  evidence in reading research. Baltimore Paul
  Brooks Publishing
• Deno, S. , Fuchs, L., Marston, D., Shin, J.
  (2001). Using curriculum based measurement to
  establish growth standards for students with
  learning disabilities. School Psychology Review,
  30 (4). 507-524.
• Foorman, B. R. 2003. Preventing and remediating
  reading difficulties Bringing science to scale.
  Baltimore York Press,.

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• National Research Council on Learning
  Disabilities, 2003. Responsiveness to
  Intervention Symposium. www.nrcld.org/html/symposi
  um2003/
• Shaywitz, 2003. Overcoming dyslexia. New York
  Random House.
• Swanson, L. 1999. Interventions for students with
  learning disabilities A meta-analysis of
  outcomes. Guilford, New York.

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Resources Websites

• www.cbmnow.com
• www.aimsweb.com
• www.interventioncentral.com
• www.dibels.uoregon.edu
• Institute of Child Health and Human Development,
  2000. Report of the National Reading Panel
  Teaching Children to Read. www.nichd.nih.gov/publi
  cations/nrp
• www.nasponline.org

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Resources

• www.fcrr.org Florida Center for Reading Research
• www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ies/index.html
  Institute for Education Sciences
• www.w-w-c.org/ What Works Clearinghouse