Identifying Intervention Road Blocks
During one of my recent coaching calls, a teacher friend shared that she is struggling to see progress with a few students in second grade.
She said "It just seems like something is not clicking for them."
The more we talked (and assessed), the more we realized that one particular student had HUGE learning gaps. We will call him Ben.
Ben left school in February due to COVID and did not return until this year. Of course he had online instruction, but it wasn't an ideal situation for him.
Let's think about this for a minute...
We know that students need direct and explicit phonological awareness and phonics instruction to become successful readers. We also know that the focus on those early literacy skills happens in pk-1.
So, when I say he had gaps in his learning, he really had gaps!
The question is, how do we support students like Ben?
We know how important comprehension is, but we can't support him in that area, IF he is struggling to read.
The first step is to check his foundational skills. Reading is just like building a house. Would you build a house on a shaky foundation? No. So, we can't build strong readers on a shaky foundation either.
After a few coaching calls, and analyzing his data, we were able to set up a reading plan for Ben. We will check back in 6 weeks to monitor his progress. But if I had to guess, he will be well on his way.
I thought I would share with you the four steps we took. These four steps helped us tremendously when it came to making a game plan for Ben.
Here are 4 tips for checking your students' reading foundational skills. Click each one to access the assessments.
Assess decoding and phonics skills (a spelling test and pseudo word assessment is great for this)
Give students a reading interest survey. Sometimes we just need to know how motivated they are to actually read and what ways we can support this.
I have also attached for you the guide that I use when working with a student who I know has some gaps in their literacy knowledge. You can click here to download it.
You see, sometimes we have to take a step back in order to take a step forward. We have to look at our students and make decisions on an individual basis.
As you settle in for the remainder of the year, remember this. You became a teacher for a reason and you are making a difference ever single day. Students just like Ben will learn to read because of you. Happy New Year my friends!
PS- Have you joined the Route2Reading Community yet? I am asking because in January we are going to be diving deep into assessment and we can use data to support our students! I also have some pretty awesome assessments to give you. You can learn more about Route2Reading by clicking here!
