Response to Intervention (RtI)

This week I had to post to our online discussion about Response to Intervention (RtI).  I got really into the post and so I thought I would include it here.  This is what the third grade at our school (OC) is doing for RtI, in addition to individual interventions:

Our school is implementing an initiative this year called Walk to Success, or Walk to Intervention.  The goal of this is to work as a grade team to give students the extra help they need with reading and writing, whatever that may be.  The students are divided into groups based on their needs and each teacher in the grade takes a group.  For a half hour on the days of W.T.S., the students go to another classroom with another teacher and the other students from their grade that are at their level.  During this time, teachers do activities with their new group of students to meet their needs.

In our third grade, the teachers divided the students by RtI tiers.  We put all the low-level kids in "Tier 3," the middle-level kids in "Tier 2," and the high-level kids in "Tier 1." 

The students meet for W.T.S. Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 8:15-8:50.  My CT and the other bilingual teacher are taking "Tier 3," which is 24 students.  The other tiers are between 25-35 students, as well. 

Walk to Success started this week for us.  Monday was an introduction day so we did a very basic phonemic awareness activity to gauge the students' levels, participation, behavior, and needs.  I showed the students the letters of the alphabet (uppercase and lowercase) and they had to tell me the name of the letter and the sound it made.  There were a few third graders who could not do this successfully with all 26 letters.  Then we did some activities from Heggerty.  For example, the teacher would say, "base" and then "ball."  The students had to then combine the words and say, "baseball."  Or the teacher would say "baseball" and the students had to separate the compound word.  The students did fairly well with these basic, first- and second grade level activities, but there were some areas where they were completely confused.   

Today was the second day of W.T.S.  We started again with the Heggerty activities and they did much better than Monday.  Then the students were divided into 4 groups by reading level--Group 1 did guided reading with the other dual language teacher, Group 2 did an activity with my CT, Group 3 did an activity with the aid, and Group 4 worked on Moby Max on the computers.  The activity our group did was cut out words and pictures with short vowel sounds and sort them into the short a column, the short i column, or the short u column.  This was a perfect activity for these students because they knew the words and they understood what they were doing, but it was definitely a challenge for them.  Many of the students literally cannot hear the different sounds, so this was a great exercise for them. 

Tier 2 is focusing on finding the main idea in a story.  On Monday they listened to the teacher tell a funny story and the students had to tell him what the main idea of it was.  The teacher reflected with us on Tuesday during lunch to say a lot of the students missed the main idea.  So that sounds like a great place for these kids to start. 

The teacher for Tier 1 is treating the students like 4th graders.  She is giving them 4th grade level reading and comprehension questions, assigning them homework, and holding them very accountable.  This is a great challenge for these higher-level students. 

This is the first year that W.T.S. is being implemented.  Many of the teachers are extremely stressed out because they are having to plan additional activities and find additional resources.  For our group that is doing centers, that means at least 4 activities each day for the students to work on.  Additionally, this cuts into other learning time.  It means we have about half the time we normally spend on math and we do not have time to review the students' morning work.  The students are also very thrown off because of the new routine.  They are walking through the hallways unsupervised to get to their new classroom, and they are being placed in a completely different environment to learn.   

I really think this will prove to be beneficial for the students, though.  Despite the extra work, we have a great team of excellent, hardworking teachers and students.  Each student will be able to work on specifically what he or she needs to move forward, while being taught by someone with a different perspective from their classroom teacher.  They are also with other students at their level.  The low-level students are stepping up their game because they have to.  There is no one ahead of them they can rely on.  I imagine the higher-level students are also stepping up.  They are used to being the smarter kids but now that they are with other kids at their level, there may be more competition.  These students are also being held more accountable.  The middle level kids will also have an opportunity to thrive because they are receiving the attention they need.

Unfortunately I only saw 2 days of the implementation of W.T.S. and now I have to leave to Phase 2.  But I am excited to see the strides the students will have made by the time I come back!

Other students who are receiving individual interventions are using Moby Max, an individualized online program that works with students on math, vocabulary, language, reading, and more.  Some students are doing Moby Max every day instead of morning work or independent reading (specifically PU and JZ), but all students do Moby Max while we have the Chromebooks on Tuesdays.  Students in Tiers 2 and 3 are also working on specific Reading A-Z books, which they take home to read at least 2-3 times.  They also are practicing their sight words on flashcards, which they are supposed to do twice a day ever day.