Answering your Questions!
Answering your Questions!
Hey there friends!
We wanted to jump in this week because we just wrapped up our Thriving Not Just Surviving in Literacy Intervention training earlier this week and were BLOWN away by the response and the incredible interventionists, SLPs, ELA educators that joined us. There were SO MANY questions that we weren’t able to address in the time we had allotted for the LIVE training, so we wanted to take this opportunity to answer the questions in more depth because we promised that we would following the online training!
Hopefully, some of these Q&As can help you too as we move into our next academic year!
What is the Science of Reading?
Short answer: Research-based practices of using explicit and systematic instruction to help give emerging readers the tools they need.
Longer answer: The science of reading is a methodology that incorporates explicit, systematic, cumulative, and diagnostic-prescriptive teaching of concepts aligned with the 5 Core Components of Literacy (Phonological Awareness, Phonics, Vocabulary (Including instruction in Morphology), Reading Fluency, and Comprehension.
There is some controversy on this approach because of the very heavy focus on systematic phonics instruction that, at times, appears to come at the cost of language development and comprehension skills. That being said, there can be a very happy marriage of systematic phonics instruction and systematic comprehension instruction designed to help students bridge the gap between foundational reading skills and higher-level reading skills.
When we consider ALL the research-based practices, the Science of Reading approach can be a very effective way to give ALL readers the tools they need to be effective, including students with reading disabilities such as dyslexia, English Language Learners, students with language disorders, students with ADHD, and beyond.
Then we were asked - how does the SMARTER Reading & Writing intervention program align with the Science of Reading and the Common Core Standards?
We put together a systematic framework that follows a Science of Reading approach that builds from foundational skills to higher-level skills in parallel, so essentially using one Phonics based concept to teach phonological awareness, phonics rules (such as when to use -ck versus c or k in words), vocabulary and language support, reading fluency, reading comprehension, spelling, sentence syntax and structure, and writing development. We built-in assessment tools to help understand where each student needs the most focus in order to best utilize the time you have with each student.
You can check out the lesson standards from our program here!
How do you maximize your reading intervention time with students? - I only have 30 minutes with them!
Oh man — we get it! From our perspective, there are three ways to manage this!
Effective data collection so you can target your student's individual needs in the shortest amount of time possible
Breaking your lessons up to target different skills in shorter time frames
Making sure EVERY single activity packs a punch by hitting on multiple different areas of need
So let’s break this down a little - we truly believe in data-driven instruction. This is a key hallmark of research-based practices. Students make the most growth when you focus on their areas of difficulty. But if you don’t know where they’re struggling it can be extremely difficult to target effectively.
We use a 3-part assessment system to make sure we’re targeting needs effectively and that students are in fact making growth. We get that this takes TIME, yes - and you can use your data collection period as instructional time but I guarantee the time you put into assessment will be WELL-WORTH the time you save by allowing students to get what they need and graduate out of intervention.
In terms of breaking your lessons up, we’ve put together a lesson outline that helps us to see where we’re at within one lesson (keep in mind one lesson can take more than one meeting with students). Here’s an example of what that lesson breakdown looks like for us. So if we only have 30 minutes we may spend one session focusing on Phonological Awareness and Phonics for that particular pattern, another session focusing on Vocabulary and Comprehension, another lesson on fluency building, etc.
Then we want to make sure that EACH activity packs a punch! So for example we talked about using One Activity to Support Multiple Literacy Targets here!
Do you assess students even when you know an area is solid?
Short Answer: It depends, always use your professional judgment!
Longer Answer: Depending on the time we have available, we still often like to check in on areas that we thought were solid because sometimes holes and gaps pop up that we weren’t aware of. Sometimes we think an area is solid when really a student is just really good at compensating or covering up issues that are in fact present.
By giving a full battery, we’re able to make sure we aren’t missing anything. That being said, if you have standardized assessment data from a Psychoeducational evaluation or IEP data that is RECENT (let’s say within the last 3-6 months) you can weigh on that data to help inform your intervention planning!
How long do you spend on one lesson?
Short Answer: We move as quickly as we can but take as long as we need to solidify concepts!
Longer Answer: We make sure we’ve hit on every piece of the lesson, so using the Lesson Breakdown we shared above, we make sure we’ve hit on EVERY PIECE of that lesson. For some students or groups, this takes an hour with a home practice component (for example sending home the reading passage to answer comprehension questions and the writing paragraph for review in the next session). For other students, we may need to spend several sessions to get through all the lesson components.
Once we’ve hit or checked off all the boxes on the Lesson Breakdown, we move on - this doesn’t mean we’re DONE teaching that concept, it just means that we’re going to move on to a new concept and keep building in a structured and systematic review with the concepts that aren’t solid. This why data tracking is CRITICAL so we know where students are doing well and where they need continued support!
This is also why we LOVE GAMES - it allows us to reinforce and solidify concepts that aren’t totally sticking as often as we need without losing buy-in from our students.
How does your program work?
We follow a comprehensive Literacy Intervention system that uses a 3-part approach. Assess - Design - Implement.
We start by assessing a student’s strengths and weaknesses in Phonological Awareness, Phonics, Vocabulary, Reading Fluency, Reading Comprehension, and Writing. From there we determine which skills are going to be most important to focus on. Then we use the done-for-you lessons (in which there are print and digital versions) to target students’ needs. No guesswork, no lesson creation, just delivery of lessons that WORK!
We’ve been able to move students who were performing well below grade level to grade level and beyond in six months, averaging 8-10 Standard Score points of growth on standardized assessments such as the Word Identification and Spelling Test, the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test, and others to know that not only are students improving but they are in fact, closing the gap.
It’s a one-time purchase, we have both a payment plan and a one-time purchase and then you have LIFETIME access, so no ongoing annual fees or anything like that, plus you get access to all of our future updates!
How is your program different than Barton, Wilson, Spire, etc.?
The biggest difference is the 3-part system of assess - design - implement. While we do have “done-for-you” lessons, this isn’t a canned program AT ALL. This program is meant to allow you to individualize and differentiate within a framework + you get access to our COMMUNITY so you aren’t trying to figure this out alone when you have questions or things pop up we’re here for you and you have access to tons of professionals doing this right alongside you to troubleshoot. We follow the same structured format as these other programs for the lessons but the lessons are only a tiny part of this comprehensive system of resources and support!
Whew! These were answers to some of our most common questions, we have MORE that we will work on answering over the coming week as well - but hopefully, you got some good insight into our process and our thoughts on navigating effective literacy intervention!!! If you are interested in joining us, learn more about the SMARTER Reading & Writing System >>>here<<<