RtI as a Model for Reading Improvement: A Focus on Students Learning English

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RtI as a Model for Reading Improvement A Focus
on Students Learning English

• Rollanda OConnor
• University of California at Riverside

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A Fact that began a model

• Phonemic awareness is more strongly associated
  with reading achievement at the end of first
  grade than IQ, vocabulary, or SES of the family.
• Share, Jorm, et al (1984 1986)
• Juel (1988)
• OConnor Jenkins (1999)

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The Conundrum

• Becoming phonemically aware is most useful
  prior to Grade 2
• Most students with LD in reading (RD) arent
  identified until after Grade 2

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Does phonemic awareness predict RD?

• Yes
• But PA catches 20-40 of a kindergarten
  population

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Notions of Catch and Release

• A nimble instructional model that includes
  instruction AND learning
• Catch Release (Jenkins OConnor, 2002)
• Consider early intervention interfaced with
  measurement of progress
• Keep intervention flexible to release children
  mistakenly caught in the RD net

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RTI A General Education Plan

• Practitioners deliver good instruction
• Screen students for reading difficulty
• Identify students who perform poorly
• Problem solve
• What is the problem?
• What do we do about it?
• What we do about it Tier 2
• Are students responding to the intervention?

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RTI A Layered Model

• Professional Development to improve teaching
• Measurement of children (Gating)
• Feedback to teachers on childrens progress
• Additional intervention for children who need it
• Flexible movement across groups and conditions
• OConnor (2000)

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Which Outcomes are Important?

• Silent reading comprehension by Gr 3
• Reading fluently by Gr 2
• Decoding words by the end of Gr 1
• Understanding the alphabetic principle by the end
  of K

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Linking Assessment to Instruction

• Alphabetic principle
• Segmenting sounds in short words
• Matching sounds to alphabet letters
• Reading words
• Blending letter sounds
• Letter combinations
• Sight words
• Fluency and comprehension
• Oral reading rate and prosody, and ???? need
  better measures of vocabulary and comprehension

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K-1 Studies in RTI

• Small groups unrelated to general class
  instruction
• Vellutino et al., 1996 Torgesen et al., 1999
  McMaster, Fuchs et al., 2005
• Small groups interfaced with general class
  instruction
• K-1 Studies with Teachers as Tier 1
• OConnor, 2000 2005
• Blachman et al., 2004
• Simmons, Coyne, Kameenui, 2004

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K-2 Studies in RTI

• Kamps Greenwood, 2004
• Vaughn et al., 2004
• Tilly, 2003 (Iowa evaluation)
• OConnor et al. (2011)

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K-3 Studies in RTI

• OConnor et al., 2005
• Simmons et al., 2009
• OConnor et al., current research

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Areas of Agreement Across Studies

• Classroom instruction must be adequate
• Use measures for catch release
• Intervention available regardless of student
  category

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A Few Statistics

• 30 of 4th grade native English speakers score lt
  Basic
• 71 of 4th grade ELL score lt Basic (NAEP, 2007)
• 24 of all students in CA are ELL
• 20-50 of students in Riverside County schools
  are ELL

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Including English Language Learners in RtI

• The problem with identifying risk for RD
  (Klingner et al., 2006)
• Is it reading risk?
• Is it language risk?
• Does it matter?
• Is our RtI system nimble?

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What about Students Who Are ELL?

• ELL learn during small group reading instruction
  in English
• Lesaux Siegel (2003)
• Linan-Thompson et al. (2006)
• Lovett et al. (2008)
• Solari Gerber (2008)
• OConnor et al. (2010)
• However--ELL responsiveness was not analyzed in
  early studies of RtI

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Our Current Studies of RtI for ELL

• Compare response to intervention between ELL and
  native English speakers in Grades K-3 on
• Overall RtI effects on reading and language
  development
• Kindergarten vs. Grade 1 start
• Identification for Tier 2 and for special
  education

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Moving from Research to Practice

• Include the entire K-3 sample
• Prior researchers identified students in K-1 only
• Did not consider late-emerging RD (Catts et al.,
  2010 2012)
• Late-emerging RD are more prevalent among ELL
  (Kieffer, 2010)

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Measures for All Children Gating

• September, January, May
• K Segmenting, letter names, letter sounds
• Gr 1 Word identification, reading rate in
  January, comprehension in May
• Gr 2-3 Word identification, rate, comprehension

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Catch and Release for Tier 2
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Targets for Tier 2 Intervention

• Kindergarten
• Alphabetic principle
• Conversation sentence expansion
• First Grade
• Phonics and decoding words
• Conversation restatements
• Second grade
• Affixes and reading fluently
• Conversation justifications
• Why do you think that?
• Third grade
• Multisyllable words and morphemes
• Justifications and evidence in text
• Show me where.

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Interventions in Kindergarten

• Segmenting
• Blending
• Letter Sounds
• The alphabetic principle
• and meanings of words

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Stretched Blending
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Teaching Letter Sounds

• Avoid alphabetical order (Carnine et al., 1998)
• Use cumulative introduction
• Teach short vowels in kindergarten
• Start teaching letter sounds as soon as possible
• Integrate letter sounds with phonological
  awareness activities (Ball Blachman, 1991
  OConnor et al., 1995)

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Ex Segment to Spell (OConnor et al., 2005)

• a m s t i f

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Interventions in First Grade

• Segment to Spell (to ensure the alphabetic
  principle)
• Phonics
• High frequency words
• and meanings of words

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Patterns in the 100 Most Common Words

• th that, than, this
• or for, or, more
• ch much, which
• wh when, which, what
• ee see, three
• al all, call, also
• ou out, around
• er her, after
• ar are, part

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Interventions in Second Grade

• Common letter patterns affixes
• Fluency
• Conversation justifications
• Why do you think that?

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Most Common Affixes

• Inflected endings -ed, -ing, -s, -es
• Prefixes
• Un-, re-, in-, dis- account for 58 of words with
  prefixes (White et al., 1989)
• Suffixes
• -ly, -er/or, -sion/tion, -ible/able, -al, -y,
  -ness, -less

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Why Bother Building Reading Rate?

• One piece of the comprehension puzzle
• Minimum fluency requirements (OConnor et al.,
  2007, 2009, 2010)
• Silent reading is NOT effective in improving
  fluency (NRP, 2000)
• Building rate requires frequent, long-term
  practice
• Improving rate improves comprehension

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2 Methods of Partner Reading

• Modeled reading (PALS)
• Each student reads in 5 minute intervals
• Strongest partner reads first
• Allows a model for the poorer reader
• Sentence-by-sentence (CWPT)
• Partners take turns reading sentence by sentence
• Reread with other student starting first
• Encourages attention and error correction

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Interventions in Third Grade

• Morphemes
• BEST
• Rules for combining morphemes
• Comprehension strategies
• and meanings of words

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Morphemes

• The meaningful parts of words
• Improves decoding
• Improves with spelling
• Reinforces word meanings

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Teaching Morphemes

• (The meaningful parts of words)
• not
• Un, dis, in, im (disloyal, unaware, invisible,
  imperfect)
• excess
• Out, over, super (outlive, overflow, superhuman)
• number
• Uni, mono, bi, semi (uniform, monofilament,
  bicolor, semiarid)
• in the direction of
• Ward (skyward, northward)
• full of
• Ful (merciful, beautiful)

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English/Spanish Cognates from Morphemes

• Google for lists
• Praise student use of cognates
• Adult/adulto
• Atmosphere/atmosfera
• Chimpanzee/chimpancé
• Enter/entrar
• Intelligence/inteligencia

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Inter-- means between

• What does inter-- mean?
• So what does interstate mean?
• Whats a word for a highway between states?
• What would interperson mean?
• So what are interpersonal skills?

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BEST for Multisyllable Words

• Break apart
• Examine the stem
• Say the parts
• Try the whole thing

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BEST Examples

• Understandingly
• International
• Uncomfortable

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Changes in 3rd Grade Reading
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Specific Questions for ELL v. EO

• Targeted vs. Packaged Tier 2 Instruction
• Kindergarten vs. 1st Grade start
• Response to intervention across 3 years

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Differentiating Instruction, Gr 2-3

• Differentiation between skills fluency, and
  only fluency
• Children with slow rate but high skills were not
  identified for SpEd by the end of Gr 3
• Rate is less important for predicting RD for ELL
• Consider skills with and without speeded tasks

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The cost of waiting
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Kindergarten vs. First Grade Initial Treatment
the cost of waiting
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Gr 2 RtI vs. Historical Control

• Same 5 schools
• Same teachers
• Same reading curriculum

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Grade 2 Outcomes (ELL EO at risk)
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ELL vs. EO Outcomes in Grade 2
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Year 3 Outcomes Timing of Special Ed.
Identification by Initial Treatment
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Conclusions

• Students strong in K-1 were identified in later
  grades with a higher of ELL identified late
• Including ELL in RtI reduced risk
• Including ELL improved comprehension