A reading publisher has been contacting you for weeks looking for an appointment so that he can demo his reading program. Before you get swept away by the hype and hyperbole of used “everywhere,” ask the account rep these five questions:

1)    What does the post-purchase professional development and training look like? It’s critical that teachers not only understand how to implement the reading program with fidelity but they also need to know how to actually teach reading. You might be surprised by how many teachers don’t know how to teach basic decoding and encoding skills. You will want a reading software publisher to provide affordable and sustainable training for your teachers.

2)    Does the reading software come with non-consumable direct instruction materials? The right reading program offers a complement of direct instruction and individual computer aided programs. Why spend money purchasing new books and instructional materials every year when you should be able to access materials that can copied and re-copied at will? 

3)    Does the reading program align with Common Core State Standards? As budgets get tighter and the scrutiny becomes more acute, administrators are saying no to the quick fix reading programs. 

4)    Is there any kind of guarantee if the reading program does not help students show a significant improvement in their reading skills during the school year? This should be true of both programs that supplement emerging readers and reading software for remediation like RTI and learning disabilities. 

5)    Is the program research based? A proven reading software program should be able to demonstrate how their methodology and rationale is current and effective. Ask for the publisher's research packets to get an idea of whether or not the results are fact or folly.

EdWeek published an article last October about Finding the Right Reading Program. I was drawn to the section that spoke to Clarifying What You Mean by Reading Problem. In essence educators need to be certain that teachers understand why students are struggling readers. Is it fluency, phonemic awareness, comprehension, or combination of these issues that have stymied the students' progress? 

This means that an educator needs to find a reading program that also includes an assessment-guided approach. Whatever decision you make, don’t forget to get input from your teachers. They are at the frontline of education and their opinions and ideas matter more than ever.

What criteria do you use when selecting reading software and programs for your schools?

As efforts to better understand how to implement an effective RTI program escalates, I thought it would be helpful to provide a one-stop-shopping list of websites that can give you current information, tips, and trends.

http://www.fcrr.org/
To conduct basic research on reading, reading growth, reading assessment, and reading instruction that will contribute to the scientific knowledge of reading and benefit students in Florida and throughout the nation.

http://www.ncld.org/
Our Mission: To ensure success for all individuals with learning disabilities in school, at work and in life. Check out their Parents Guide to Response to Intervention and Tiers without Tears documents.

http://www.casecec.org/
CASE is an international professional educational organization which is affiliated with the Council for Exceptional Children whose members are dedicated to the enhancement of the worth, dignity, potential, and uniqueness of each individual in society. Under the resource section of the website, you will find downloadable PDF Response to Intervention Blueprints for Implementation documents, case studies, and PowerPoint presentations.

https://dibels.uoregon.edu/
The University of Oregon is the heart of DIBELS. The use of data in setting education goals for students is the primary mission of this research and support website.

http://www.readinghorizons.com/rti/index.aspx?rti
Happy Tiers: Response to Intervention, a Three-Tiered-Model
View a special documentary highlighting Iron Springs Elementary and their implementation of Discover Intensive Phonics in all three tiers of the RTI model.


Other recommended RTI websites include:

National Center on Response to Intervention

Intervention Central: Your Site for Response to Intervention Resources

RTI Action Network

There are countless tools designed to improve the education system: common core standards, standardized tests, teacher evaluations, etc, etc, etc... But are these strategies effective? Are they really preparing students to be successful, innovative, and productive members of society?

Recently, Rick Roach, a member of Florida’s Orange County Board of Education, decided to take the standardized test required of all 10th grade students in his state, here are some excerpts from his experience:

‘[The chairman] said that by 2013 or 2014, he wanted 50 percent of the 10th graders reading at grade level....I’m thinking, ‘That’s horrible.’ Right now it’s 39 percent of our kids reading at grade level in 10th grade. I have to tell you that I’ve never believed that that many kids can’t read at that level. Never ever believed it. I have five kids of my own. None of them were superstars at school but they could read well, and these kids today can read too.

“So I was thinking, ‘What are they taking that tells them they can’t read? What is this test?”

He asked someone who works at the board to help him take the FCAT but state law only allows it to be taken by students, so it was arranged for him to take a version of it.

On the reading section, he scored 62 percent, a ‘D’ in Orange County. On the math, he said he knew none of the answers but guessed correctly on 10 of the 60.

“On the FCAT, they are reading material they didn’t choose. They are given four possible answers and three out of the four are pretty good. One is the best answer but kids don’t get points for only a pretty good answer. They get zero points, the same for the absolute wrong answer. And then they are given an arbitrary time limit. Those are a number of reasons that I think the test has to be suspect.”

“It seems to me something is seriously wrong. I have a bachelors of science degree, two masters degrees, and 15 credit hours toward a doctorate.

“I help oversee an organization with 22,000 employees and a $3 billion operations and capital budget, and am able to make sense of complex data related to those responsibilities.

“I have a wide circle of friends in various professions. Since taking the test, I’ve detailed its contents as best I can to many of them, particularly the math section, which does more than its share of shoving students in our system out of school and on to the street. Not a single one of them said that the math I described was necessary in their profession.

“It might be argued that I’ve been out of school too long, that if I’d actually been in the 10th grade prior to taking the test, the material would have been fresh. But doesn’t that miss the point? A test that can determine a student’s future life chances should surely relate in some practical way to the requirements of life. I can’t see how that could possibly be true of the test I took.”

Aside from discovering the rants of Rick Roach, I have also run across several articles this past week about the common core standards being unrealistic and leaving little time for what younger students need the most: play, social skills, and the arts.

By increasing the number of standards teachers and students must master perhaps we are actually lowering the standard of education. Suffocating creative thought. Teaching every single child in our nation the same things, the same way of thinking, instead of teaching them to think differently and come up with new ways to solve problems.

Undoubtedly there is foundational knowledge that is important for students to know, but often that knowledge doesn’t compare to the value of creativity, innovation, and problem solving – skills that are difficult to measure by the only measure most education systems use: standardized testing.

As so well put by Annie Profitt (Goldie Hawn) in the 1987 movie, Overboard:

“My children are in need of medical assistance!

And you can sit here and smugly lecture me on the importance of tests?

Tests which exist to pigeonhole children's potential, a thing which cannot possibly be measured!”

With the vast majority of states adopting a uniform set of standards for their students to achieve, how does this effect students with special needs? What are the standards for ELL students and students with learning disabilities?

Here is what the official Common Core State Standards say regarding students with special needs in regards to the language arts:

It is beyond the scope of the Standards to define the full range of supports appropriate for English language learners and for students with special needs. At the same time, all students must have the opportunity to learn and meet the same high standards if they are to access the knowledge and skills necessary in their post–high school lives.

Each grade will include students who are still acquiring English. For those students, it is possible to meet the standards in reading, writing, speaking, and listening without displaying native-like control of conventions and vocabulary.

The Standards should also be read as allowing for the widest possible range of students to participate fully from the outset and as permitting appropriate accommodations to ensure maximum participation of students with special education needs. For example, for students with disabilities reading should allow for the use of Braille, screen-reader technology, or other assistive devices, while writing should include the use of a scribe, computer, or speech-to text technology. In a similar vein, speaking and listening should be interpreted broadly to include sign language.

Try a free 30-day trial of Reading Horizons software to see how it can help students with special needs improve their reading skills! >

Wondering what foundational reading skills your kindergarten students need to know based on the Common Core State Standards? Here are the four areas they need to develop basic skills in and the specific skills they need to develop in each of these areas:

PRINT CONCEPTS

Understand the organization and basic features of printed text.

1. Follow words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page.
2. Recognize that spoken words are represented in written language by specific sequences of letters.
3. Understand that words are separated by spaces in print.
4. Recognize and name all upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet.

PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS

Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).

5. Recognize and produce rhyming words.
6. Count, pronounce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words.
7. Blend and segment onsets and rimes of single-syllable spoken words.
8. Isolate and pronounce the initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in three-phoneme (consonant-vowel-consonant, or CVC) words. (This does not include CVCs ending with /l/, /r/, or /x/.)
9. Add or substitute individual sounds (phonemes) in simple, one-syllable words to make new words.

PHONICS AND WORD RECOGNITION

Know and apply grade-appropriate phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.

10. Demonstrate basic knowledge of one-to-one letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary or many of the most frequent sound for each consonant.
11. Associate the long and short sounds with common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels.
12. Read common high-frequency sight words (e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does).
13. Distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ.

FLUENCY

14. Read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding.

Learn strategies for teaching these foundational reading skills with Reading Horizons Free 30-Day Online Workshop >