RtI as a Model for Reading Improvement: A Focus on Students Learning English

Rollanda O’ConnorUniversity of California at Riverside

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A “Fact” that began a model:

Phonemic awareness is more strongly associated with reading achievement at the end of first grade than IQ, vocabulary, or SES of the family.Share, Jorm, et al (1984; 1986)Juel (1988)O’Connor & Jenkins (1999)

The Conundrum

Becoming “phonemically aware” is most useful prior to Grade 2

Most students with LD in reading (RD) aren’t identified until after Grade 2

Does phonemic awareness predict RD? Yes But PA “catches” 20-40% of a kindergarten

population

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Notions of Catch and Release

A nimble instructional model that includes instruction AND learning

Catch & Release (Jenkins & O’Connor, 2002)

Consider early intervention interfaced with measurement of progress

Keep intervention flexible to release children mistakenly caught in the RD net

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RTI = A General Education Plan

Practitioners deliver good instruction Screen students for reading difficulty Identify students who perform poorly Problem solve:

What is the problem? What do we do about it?

What we do about it = Tier 2 Are students responding to the intervention?

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RTI: A Layered Model

Professional Development to improve teaching Measurement of children (“Gating”) Feedback to teachers on children’s progress Additional intervention for children who need it Flexible movement across groups and

conditionsO’Connor (2000)

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Which Outcomes are Important?

Silent reading comprehension by Gr 3 Reading fluently by Gr 2 Decoding words by the end of Gr 1 Understanding the alphabetic principle by the

end of K

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Linking Assessment to Instruction Alphabetic principle:

Segmenting sounds in short wordsMatching sounds to alphabet letters

Reading wordsBlending letter soundsLetter combinationsSight words

Fluency and comprehensionOral reading rate and prosody, and ???? [need better

measures of vocabulary and comprehension]

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K-1 Studies in RTI

Small groups unrelated to general class instruction: Vellutino et al., 1996; Torgesen et al., 1999; McMaster,

Fuchs et al., 2005

Small groups interfaced with general class instructionK-1 Studies with Teachers as Tier 1:

O’Connor, 2000; 2005 Blachman et al., 2004 Simmons, Coyne, Kame’enui, 2004

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K-2 Studies in RTI

Kamps & Greenwood, 2004 Vaughn et al., 2004 Tilly, 2003 (Iowa evaluation) O’Connor et al. (2011)

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K-3 Studies in RTI

O’Connor et al., 2005 Simmons et al., 2009 O’Connor et al., current research

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Areas of Agreement Across Studies

Classroom instruction must be adequate Use measures for catch & release Intervention available regardless of student

“category”

A Few Statistics:

30% of 4th grade native English speakers score < Basic

71% of 4th grade ELL score < Basic (NAEP, 2007)

24% of all students in CA are ELL 20-50% of students in Riverside County schools are

ELL

Including English Language Learners in RtI The problem with identifying risk for RD

(Klingner et al., 2006):

Is it reading risk?Is it language risk?

Does it matter?Is our RtI system nimble?

What about Students Who Are ELL?

ELL learn during small group reading instruction in English: Lesaux & Siegel (2003) Linan-Thompson et al. (2006) Lovett et al. (2008) Solari & Gerber (2008) O’Connor et al. (2010)

However--ELL responsiveness was not analyzed in early studies of RtI

Our Current Studies of RtI for ELL

Compare response to intervention between ELL and native English speakers in Grades K-3 on:Overall RtI effects on reading and language

developmentKindergarten vs. Grade 1 startIdentification for Tier 2 and for special education

Moving from Research to Practice

Include the entire K-3 samplePrior researchers identified students in K-1 onlyDid not consider late-emerging RD (Catts et al., 2010;

2012)

Late-emerging RD are more prevalent among ELL (Kieffer, 2010)

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Measures for All Children: Gating

September, January, May: K: Segmenting, letter names, letter sounds Gr 1: Word identification, reading rate in

January, comprehension in May Gr 2-3: Word identification, rate, &

comprehension

Catch and Release for Tier 2

K 1 2 3

Fall Winter Fall Winter Fall Winter Fall Winter

1st Snd <6

Letters <8 <15 <45

Segment <8 <25 <30

NWF <25 <50

WIF <8 <15

Rdg Rate (wcpm) <7 <35 <60 <75 <85

Comprehension (SS) <85 <85 <85

Targets for Tier 2 Intervention Kindergarten

Alphabetic principle Conversation & sentence expansion

First Grade Phonics and decoding words Conversation & restatements

Second grade Affixes and reading fluently Conversation & justifications

Why do you think that…?

Third grade Multisyllable words and morphemes Justifications and evidence in text

Show me where….

Interventions in Kindergarten

Segmenting Blending Letter Sounds The alphabetic principle [and meanings of words]

Stretched Blending

Teaching Letter Sounds

Avoid alphabetical order (Carnine et al., 1998) Use cumulative introduction Teach short vowels in kindergarten Start teaching letter sounds as soon as possible Integrate letter sounds with phonological awareness

activities (Ball & Blachman, 1991; O’Connor et al., 1995)

Ex: Segment to Spell (O’Connor et al., 2005)

a m s t i f

Interventions in First Grade

Segment to Spell (to ensure the alphabetic principle) Phonics High frequency words [and meanings of words]

Patterns in the 100 Most Common Words

th: that, than, this or: for, or, more ch: much, [which] wh: when, which, what ee: see, three al: all, call, also ou: out, around er: her, after ar: are, part

Interventions in Second Grade

Common letter patterns & affixes Fluency Conversation & justifications

Why do you think that…?

Most Common Affixes

Inflected endings: -ed, -ing, -s, -es Prefixes

Un-, re-, in-, dis- account for 58% of words with prefixes (White et al., 1989)

Suffixes-ly, -er/or, -sion/tion, -ible/able, -al, -y, -ness, -less

Why Bother Building Reading Rate?

One piece of the comprehension puzzle Minimum fluency requirements (O’Connor et al., 2007,

2009, 2010)

Silent reading is NOT effective in improving fluency (NRP, 2000)

Building rate requires frequent, long-term practice Improving rate improves comprehension

2 Methods of Partner Reading

Modeled reading (PALS)

Each student reads in 5 minute intervalsStrongest partner reads first Allows a model for the poorer reader

Sentence-by-sentence (CWPT)

Partners take turns reading sentence by sentence Reread with other student starting firstEncourages attention and error correction

Interventions in Third Grade

Morphemes BEST Rules for combining morphemes Comprehension strategies [and meanings of words]

Morphemes

The meaningful parts of wordsImproves decodingImproves with spellingReinforces word meanings

Teaching Morphemes…

(The meaningful parts of words) “not”

Un, dis, in, im (disloyal, unaware, invisible, imperfect) “excess”

Out, over, super (outlive, overflow, superhuman) “number”

Uni, mono, bi, semi (uniform, monofilament, bicolor, semiarid) “in the direction of”

Ward (skyward, northward) “full of”

Ful (merciful, beautiful)

English/Spanish Cognates from Morphemes Google for lists Praise student use of cognates

Adult/adultoAtmosphere/atmosferaChimpanzee/chimpancéEnter/entrarIntelligence/inteligencia

Inter-- means between

What does inter-- mean? So what does interstate mean? What’s a word for a highway between states? What would interperson mean? So what are interpersonal skills?

BEST for Multisyllable Words

Break apart Examine the stem Say the parts Try the whole thing

BEST Examples

Understandingly International Uncomfortable

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Changes in 3rd Grade Reading

After Before0

50

100

150

200

Results of Early Intervention

Ora

l R

ead

ing

Flu

en

cy

Specific Questions for ELL v. EO

Targeted vs. Packaged Tier 2 Instruction Kindergarten vs. 1st Grade start Response to intervention across 3 years

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Differentiating Instruction, Gr 2-3

Differentiation between skills + fluency, and only fluency

Children with slow rate but high skills were not identified for SpEd by the end of Gr 3Rate is less important for predicting RD for ELLConsider skills with and without speeded tasks

English Only and ELL Outcomes Over Timeby Kindergarten Risk Status and K vs. 1st Grade Intervention

10.00

20.00

30.00

40.00

50.00

60.00

70.00

1st grade FallNWF

1st grade SpringORF

2nd grade FallORF

2nd grade SpringORF

Co

rrec

t u

nit

s p

er

min

ute

ELL Kindergarten AtRisk and Treated asK's

EO Kindergarten AtRisk and Treated asK's

ELL Kindergarten AtRisk and TreatedInitially in First Grade

EO Kindergarten AtRisk and TreatedInitially in First Grade

The cost of waiting…

Kindergarten vs. First Grade Initial Treatment… the cost of waiting

Gr 2 RtI vs. Historical Control

Same 5 schools Same teachers Same reading curriculum

Grade 2 Outcomes (ELL + EO at risk)

Gr 2 ORF Fall

Gr 2 ORF Spr

WRMT GORT-4

RtI 31.99 63.19 101.42 87.4

Control 24.59 53.54 93.59 70.1

ELL vs. EO Outcomes in Grade 2

ELL at Risk ELL No Risk

K Start Gr 1 Start Control

Rdg Rate 63.8 60.5 49.6 100.7

WRMT 101.4 98.1 93.7 109.1

Compre. 99.0 97.4 92.7 104.9

GORT-4 88.5 86.4 68.6

Year 3 Outcomes: Timing of Special Ed. Identification by Initial Treatment

Grade

K Start 1st Grade Start

Total

First 1 0 1Second 1 3 4Third 4 4 8Fourth 0 3 3

Total 6 10 16

Conclusions

Students strong in K-1 were identified in later grades [with a higher % of ELL identified late]

Including ELL in RtI reduced risk Including ELL improved comprehension