Reading Interventions in a Three Tier Model

Catherine ChristoCalifornia State University,

SacramentoChristo@csus.edu 916 278-6649

Questions to Consider

• What do successful interventions look like?– In general – Within each tier

• What can we expect from these interventions?

• How do we know who to serve at each tier?

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

Learning Is Training the Brain• Recognizing printed words with fluency• Keep brain-based principles of learning in

mind when designing interventions• Accurate practice is critical • “Signature” neural characteristics of dyslexia• Neural plasticity indicates that it is easier to

create new connections than reconfigure old ones

• Learning requires novelty

Reading Interventions• Explicit, systematic instruction

– Currently adopted California curriculums

• Target areas of need (five components of skilled reading)

• Provide intense intervention• Opportunities for guided practice of

new skills in context• Skill development

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

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 • Dual Discrepancy

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

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

Basic RLA/ELD Programs – Adopted by CDE

• SRA/Open Court Reading--Grades K-6

• Reading: A Legacy of Literacy--Grades K-6

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

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

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

Tier III Interventions

• Intensive• Targeted with thorough assessment • Generally given later than first and

second tier• Special education or “special-

education”like• Problems in reading rate remain for

most children who require this level of intervention

Reading Intervention Programs Adopted Grades 4 - 8

• Language! A Literacy Intervention Curriculum

• High Point• Read 180• SRA/Reach Program• Fast Track Reading Program

Adopted Reading Programs - English Language Learners

• Hampton Brown, High Point, Grades 4-8

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

Successful 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

Questions to Consider

• What do successful interventions look like?– In general – Within each tier

• What can we expect from these interventions?

• How do we know who to serve at each tier?

Expected Growth in Fluency• Typical students in first grade gain @ 2 words

per week in oral reading fluency (ORF)• Grade two students gain about 1.66

decreasing to about .6 in fifth and sixth grade• Special education students is about ½ that of

regular education students• High quality interventions was about 1.5 • Benchmark for interventions

– 2 words per week to level of 30 CWM– Approximately 1 word per week thereafter

How Long Does It Take?• Rate of progress in intervention predicts

future reading• Three types of responses to intervention

– Rapid responders– Responders: Meet rate goals with more

prolonged intervention– Need intensive intervention beyond

traditional • Both word reading and comprehension are low• Word reading lower than comprehension

Expectations for Upper Grades • Older children around 30th percentile can bring

phonemic decoding, text reading accuracy and fluency into average range (60 hours)

• Those around 10th percentile can bring phonemic decoding, accuracy and comprehension into average range. Fluency increases but still low (100 hours)

• Those at 2nd percentile can bring phonemic decoding into average and increase accuracy and comprehension but little relative change in fluency

Projected growth in “sight vocabulary” of normal readers and disabled children before and after remediation. Torgeson, 2003. Orton Lecture, International Dyslexia Association Annual Meeting

Normal

InterventionSiz

e o

f “s

igh

t voca

bu

lary

Grade in School

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Dyslexic

2nd Year follow-up

Persistent Fluency Deficits• As children learn to read they increase their

store of “sight words”• Average readers are doing so from 1st grade

on and continue to do so • Delayed readers fall behind early• Gap continues to widen without intervention• Effects of early delay are both direct and

indirect– Text support– Vocabulary

Difficulties For Older Children

• Low entering word reading scores reflect underlying deficits

• Deficit makes it impossible to close the gap

• May have additional deficit in ability to form orthographic representations

Questions to Consider

• What do successful interventions look like?– In general – Within each tier

• What can we expect from these interventions?

• How do we know who to serve at each tier?

Criteria to Determine Need for Tier I Intervention

• Poor performance on screening tests

• Bottom portion of students • Mid K screening • Response to instruction• Identify those not at risk

DIBELS Progression

Oral Fluency Rates

Grade level Correct Words per Minute

Significantly at risk

Spring, 1st grade

40-60 10

Spring, 2nd grade

80-100 50

Spring, 3rd grade

100-120 50

4th grade and above

120-180 70

Criteria To Determine Need for Tier II 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

Curriculum Based Measurement

• Fluency based measures• Have capacity for providing growth

trajectory• Easy, quick to administer• Psychometrically sound

Guidelines for Monitoring Progress

• “10 week” rule • How much progress is enough?

– Expected amount of growth– Expected trajectory

• Benchmarks

Measuring Progress

GORT Rate Baseline 3 months 6 months Standard Score 3 3 4 Percentile <1st <1st <1st

Growth in Correct Words per Minute

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Basline 3 months 6 months

4th

5th

6th

7th

Sample Interventions

• Auditory Discrimination in Depth (LIPS)

• Proactive Beginning Reading• Optimize Intervention• Spell, Read P.A.T.• Read Write Type• Berninger PAL aligned • Phono-Graphix

Sample Interventions contin.

• Wilson Reading System• Reading Mastery • Words (Marcia Henry)• Corrective Reading

Swanson Meta-analysis

• Large analysis of studies on interventions for LD students

• Considered multiple characteristics of instruction

• For reading looked primarily at word recognition and comprehension

Word Recognition

• Direct instruction with drill, repetition and practice

• Sequencing• Segmentation• Advance organizers• Orienting to task • Small groups

Fluency

• Good indicator of reading skill• Correlates highly with

comprehension measures• Multiple reading processes may

become automatic

Fluency• Importance of prosody as well as rate• Repeated silent readings

– No consistent results– Perhaps some value in using higher level text

• Assisted reading– With another person– With tape– May have more promise than repeated readings

• Guided repeated oral reading • Pronouncing word aloud helps create

neural representation

Fluency continued• Tend to improve comprehension and prosody

but not word recognition • Increasing word recognition

– Preteaching vocabulary aids comprehension

• Segmenting text– Augmented text may be particularly useful for slow

readers

• Increases in fluency lead to increases in comprehension

• Important to assure that component skills are in place

• Importance of motivation

Reading Comprehension

• Greater number of components than for word recognition

• Direct instruction• Strategy instruction• Directed response• Sequencing• Elaboration• Teacher modeling

Vocabulary

• More words ready to develop neural representations

• Get to understanding of words in multiple ways– Contextualize – Morphology

• Vocabulary increase of 3,000 words per year

Swanson’s Conclusions• Growth doesn’t always mean

significant effect sizes• Phonics instruction alone doesn’t

always generalize to real word reading• LD students need more than just

phonics in order to transfer their skills to real words

• General language deficit (higher order) and its effect on learning to read

References• Foorman, B. R. 2003. Preventing and remediating

reading difficulties; Bringing science to scale. York Press, Baltimore.

• Kame'enui, E., Simmons, D., Good III, R., & Harn, B. 2001. The use of fluency based measures in early identification and evaluation of intervention efficacy in the schools. In M. Wolf (ed.), Dyslexia,Fluency and the Brain. York Press, Timonium, MD.

• National Research Council on Learning Disabilities, 2003. Responsiveness to Intervention Synposium. www.nrcld.org/html/symposium2003/

• Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000. Report of the National Reading Panel: Teachin Children to Read. www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/nrp

• Swanson, L. 1999. Interventions for students with learning disabilities: A meta-analysis of outcomes. Guilford, New York.