Heartland AEA Literacy Newsletter

This blog (link to complete blog is above) on the CORE website by Dr. Michelle Hosp is timely. The winter screening window closes on February 4, 2022. Dr. Hosp provides thoughts and guiding questions to help shape instruction as we move into 2022:

Data is our friend, not our enemy

"Just because we don’t like what the data says doesn’t mean it is wrong or bad. In fact, data is needed now more than ever so we understand where we are and where we need to go."

Are students reaching benchmarks?

"Universal screening data for reading is vital as it tells us about the reading health of our students. It doesn’t tell us what to teach, we need additional data for this, but it does tell us if our students are reaching benchmarks, meaning they are on track to becoming successful readers. Start by determining the number of students who have reached the winter benchmarks."

What are we looking for in our universal screening data from fall to winter?

"We want to see more students reaching benchmark and fewer students at risk as we move from beginning to middle to end of year. If we don’t see a bump in our data, we need to ask what we are doing for ALL students (Tier 1):

• Are we focusing on high-priority skills that support decoding and language comprehension (Simple View of Reading, Gough & Tunmer, 1986)?
• Does our teaching follow the Science of Reading? Our instruction should be explicit and systematic, providing students with lots of opportunities to respond with immediate corrective feedback to support their learning.
• Have we incorporated enough practice for students to achieve automaticity and mastery (see article below in this newsletter)? Students should have access to practice material in and out of school to help them learn critical reading skills to mastery.

Tier 1 instruction is the primary solution for addressing missed opportunities to learn and for filling in skill gaps due to disrupted instruction. Within our Tier 1 instruction, we need to incorporate ways to support students both in whole group and during small-group differentiated instruction."

What about our students who are at risk? What can we do for them?

"Our universal screening data tells us who needs additional help, but we still need to know what specific skills they need help with and how to help them. Easy? Well, no. It requires time, energy, and thought. As a wise colleague once said, “Thinking is required.”

Reading groups for students who are at risk: What to teach at Tier 2.

"Some students will require additional reading support beyond what is provided in Tier 1. We need to spend intervention time wisely so that every minute is focused on teaching skills that lead to reading success. Therefore, before we jump into teaching, we should conduct further assessments on foundational skills like phonemic awareness and phonics to determine which specific skills students know and still need to learn.

You wouldn’t want your doctor to perform a procedure on you until she diagnosed what was wrong with you? The same is true when helping students acquire reading skills.

Once we know what to teach, we need to know how to teach it.

As we noted above, the Science of Reading informs what our instruction should look like. This is true across tiers of instruction. The science tells us our instruction should be explicit and systematic, providing students with lots of opportunities to respond with immediate corrective feedback to support their learning. More on this below.

Small-group Tier 2 instruction is often about intensity. Students who are at risk need more focused instruction, and small intervention groups can provide this by including the following instructional features:

• Explicit: Provide additional modeling so students can see, hear, and observe what you are asking of them. This increases their chances of doing it right the first time.
• Systematic: Use the same instructional language and routines and only change the skills being taught. This allows students to have a schema of how the lesson will go so they can focus on the skills being taught. Use a structured scope and sequence that systematically moves from easier to more difficult skills.
• Lots of opportunities to respond: Have students respond multiple times, spaced over time, and using various activities. When learning words, typical learners may need up to 12 practice opportunities, while students at risk may require up to 25 opportunities (Lemoine, Levy, & Hutchison, 1993).
• Immediate feedback: Letting students know they got it wrong right away is more important than letting them know they got it right. Practicing a skill incorrectly makes it harder to learn the correct way.
  • For example, have you ever called people by the wrong name, and they did not correct you until after you said it incorrectly a few times? What happened the next time you went to say their name? I bet you faltered because you first retrieved the incorrect name. To recall the correct name, you now must override your first response and work harder to remember their correct name. This happens every time we let students practice a skill incorrectly! We make it harder for them to learn the correct response."

Purposeful Practice Instructional Routines for Grades 1 and 2

The impact of the pandemic on student’s unfinished learning is evident in the state-wide K-3 universal screening data for 2020-21 and 2021-2022. The data indicates the most unfinished learning occurred in Grades 1 and 2. Based on the Fall 2021 screening data, the AEA system collaborated by having an AEA literacy consultant from each AEA work as a team to identify evidence-based practices to support classroom teachers in accelerating student literacy learning. The focus was on responding to classrooms where fewer than 60% of the students scored at or above benchmark on the fall literacy screening measure.

For classrooms where fewer than 60% of the students it is recommended to provide instruction on:

• grade level standards and;

• prerequisites to all students (accelerated learning) and;

• class-wide interventions

It is critical that the time needed for focus on prerequisites and classwide interventions be in addition to the literacy block for grade level instruction.

The grade 1 and grade 2 purposeful practice routines materials in this packet are intended to provide class-wide practice on unfinished learning for prerequisite foundational decoding and encoding knowledge and skills. These routines should take 15-20 minutes daily. After three weeks of implementation it would be important to analyze student progress monitoring data or formative assessment should indicate whether the classwide purposeful practice routine should shift focus to a decoding or encoding skill closer to grade level or whether there is no longer a need for the class-wide focus on prerequisite skills (potentially only need to target a small group of students).

Practice routines were selected based on areas of high priority knowledge and skills to accelerate student learning. The three areas are:

• Transfer to Text (application of decoding skills to connected text)

• Encoding (impact of spelling on reading skills)

• Monitoring for Meaning

We want to continue to highlight resources to deepen our understanding of the Science of Reading. In January, the Reading League launched the Science of Reading, Defined eBook.

The science of reading has culminated in a preponderance of evidence to inform how proficient reading and writing develop; why some have difficulty; and how we can most effectively assess and teach and, therefore, improve student outcomes through prevention of and intervention for reading difficulties. Although the scientific evidence base for effective reading has existed for decades, the term "science or reading" has misunderstandings. The Science of Reading: Defining Guide provides a firm definition of what the science of reading is, what it is not, and how all stakeholders can understand its potential to transform reading instruction. Click on the header in the purple section above to download your copy of the eBook.

For information on the science of reading from past newsletters click below.

September - Science of Reading Podcast

October - Science of Reading Learning Bit by Bit

November - Reading Rope Learning Bit by Bit

December - Science of Reading Overview

This resource provides practitioners and parents with links to many resources for addressing low literacy levels among adolescents. The following outline indicates the entity providing the resources and the focus of the resources.

Adolescent Literacy Resources to Improve Reading Outcomes of Students With Disabilities

The IRIS Center at Vanderbilt University

• Secondary Reading Instruction, Part and Part 2
• Teaching and Vocabulary and Comprehension in the Content Areas
• PALS (peer tutoring strategy)
• Student Progress Monitoring
• Collaborative Strategic Reading
• Intensive Intervention Part 1 and Part 2
  
• Evidence-based Practices

The Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk

• The Reading Institute
• Response to Intervention Institute
• Middle School Matters Institute
• Dropout Prevention Institute
  

National Center on Intensive Intervention
Center on Response to Intervention

Center on Instruction

• Effective Instruction for Adolescent Struggling Readers
• Bringing Literacy Strategies into Content Instruction
• Online Course
  

Florida Center for Reading Research

• Principal Walk-Through Checklists
  

CEEDAR Center

• Innovation Configurations: Evidence-based Reading Instruction Adolescents: Grades 6-12th grade
  

Selection and Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices

National Center on Intensive Intervention

• Academic Progress Monitoring Tools Chart
• Behavior Progress Monitoring Tools Chart
• Academic Intervention Tools Chart
• Behavior Intervention Tools Chart
  

What Works Clearinghouse
Best Evidence Encyclopedia
Promising Practices Network