Planning Needs-Based Instruction

1. Planning Needs-Based Instruction Sharon Walpole Michael C. McKenna Georgia Reading First

2. What have you told us? • 64% report that you need more support in providing intensive intervention • 59% report that you need more support in designing needs-based instruction • We will focus on needs-based instruction first; it may prevent some intensive intervention

3. Goals for the day • Examine data from recent reports of the external evaluation • Build knowledge of SBRR strategies for needs-based instruction • Examine materials for first-grade instruction and establish individual LC goals for improving needs-based instruction

4. Agenda for the day • Time and activities for LC • Needs-based instruction • Strange materials today? • We decided to write a new book • New strategy: Listen, Read, Discuss • Please don’t “go ahead” in the materials; that will spoil some of the activities • We will go slowly and finish what’s left in later sessions

5. Fantasy land What constitutes literacy coaching? How do you define it? Literacy coaching is _________, so literacy coaches __________.

6. Time and activities for LCs • National Reading Conference presentations in December indicated • LCs around the country are doing many, many things not related to coaching • LCs around the country are spending too few hours in direct support of teachers • Discussing data, providing pd, observing with feedback, modeling

7. What’s the problem with that? • Literacy coaches will only be “around to stay” if their efficacy is proven • Literacy coach efficacy will only be established by providing direct causal links between coaching and achievement • Achievement will only be improved if instruction is improved

8. How about in Georgia? The UGA evaluators asked questions about time and activities during the month of October Here’s what they reported

9. GARF LC activities, October

10. New Year’s resolution What can you do to increase the amount of time that you personally spend in direct coaching activities?

11. Program design issues • Select core program materials • Set an instructional schedule • Choose and use a diet of whole-group and small-group instruction • Evaluate and reevaluate the instructional schedule • Observe to provide differentiated support to teachers • Analyze student data to determine effectiveness • Implement intensive interventions

12. Three-Tiered Instruction Tier 3 Intervention Tier 2 Needs-Based Instruction Tier 1 Whole-Group Instruction

13. What’s the evidence? Bursuck et al. describe a successful project, Project PRIDE, where three-tiered instruction promoted student achievement, measured with DIBELS subtests. Bursuck, W. D., Smith, T., Munk, D., Damer, M., Mehlig, L., & Perry, J. (2004). Evaluating the impact of a prevention-based model of reading on children who are at risk. Remedial and Special Education, 25, 303-313.

14. But is it fair? Three-tiered instruction means that some children get different types and amounts of instruction. A recent study indicates that this is not only “fair,” it is effective for children with different profiles at the start of first grade. Connor, C. M., Morrison, F. J., & Katch, L. E. (2004). Beyond the reading wars: Exploring the effect of child-instruction interactions on growth in early reading. Scientific Studies of Reading, 8, 305-336.

15. First grade evidence

16. How can we use that data? We can plan more teacher-directed explicit instruction for our struggling readers; we can provide more practice for our higher-achieving readers.

17. But you told us to be faithful to the core! Think about the core as a road. You can go backwards, forwards, or take a side trip and still be on the same trip.

18. Step One: Gather your resources • Find and examine the scope and sequence of instruction in your core and supplementary materials for phonics skills, high-frequency words, oral vocabulary, and comprehension strategies. • Locate and organize any informal achievement or placement tests that are associated with your materials. • Locate and organize any informal assessments provided in the professional books that your grade level is reading.

19. Step Two: Consider your children’s needs • Review the most recent grade-level data and determine whether additional informal data are needed. • Choose two areas to target for differentiation in a given session (e.g., phonemic awareness and phonics, phonics and fluency, fluency and comprehension, comprehension and vocabulary). • Choose differentiation strategies in those areas. • Gather or make materials for three weeks’ needs-based instruction.

20. Step Three: Try it out! • Pilot your plan for three weeks. • Gather to evaluate and fine-tune, considering the changing needs of children and teachers.

21. 15-minute time out • Please read pages 4-8 of your handout. • Discuss with your colleagues. • Generate questions.

22. Question: Should phonemic awareness instruction connect oral blending and segmenting to letter name instruction? Odeans, M. K., Sr. (2003). Integration of letter-sound correspondences and phonological awareness skills of blending and segmenting: A pilot study examining the effects of instructional sequence on word reading for kindergarten children with low phonological awareness. Learning Disability Quarterly, 26, 258-280. Phonemic Awareness

23. Answer Read pages 9 and 10 to find the answer. Given the design of the study, how powerful are the findings?

24. 15-minute tryout Let’s review the developmental sequence for phonological awareness. The sequence comes from the Kame’enui and Simmons curriculum maps (http://reading.uoregon.edu/appendices/maps.php) Check yourself on page 11; read page 12.

25. Instructional Strategies for PA Read pages 13-18. Then we’ll try them. • Initial sound sorting • Oral segmenting and blending • Say it and move it Please keep the manipulatives together; we’ll post a set if you want to make them for your teachers.

26. Video Examples Watch Sara work to build phonemic awareness in needs-based groups.

27. Roberts, T. (2003). Effects of alphabet-letter instruction on young children’s word recognition. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 41-51. Question: How do letter-name instruction and finger-point reading influence word recognition strategies for emergent readers? Building Word Recognition

28. Fry, E. (2004). Phonics: A large phoneme-grapheme frequency count revised. Journal of Literacy Research, 36, 85-98. Question: What are the most frequently-represented consonant and vowel spelling patterns? Building Word Recognition

29. Heibert, E. H., & Martin, L. A. (2002). The texts of beginning reading instruction. In S. B. Neuman & D. K. Dickinson (Eds.), Handbook of early literacy research (pp. 361-376). New York: Guilford. Question: If emergent readers read only in predictable materials, are their fluency and word learning increased? Building Word Recognition

30. Question: Can books leveled for Reading Recovery (which teaches children to use context for word recognition) be used to teach children to rely on phonetic cues? Cunningham, J. W., Spadorcia, S. A., Erickson, K. A., Koppenhaver, D. A., Sturm, J. M., & Yoder, D. E. (2005). Investigating the instructional supportiveness of leveled texts. Reading Research Quarterly, 40, 410-427. Building Word Recognition

31. Question: If you first implement high-quality Tier 1 instruction, what do we know about the relative effectiveness of different interventions? Mathes, P., Denton, C., &Fletcher, J. (2005). The effects of theoretically different instruction and student characteristics on the skills of struggling readers. Reading Research Quarterly, 40, 148-82. Building Word Recognition

32. Answers? Read pages 19-22 to find out. We’ll start with 15 minutes.

33. 15-minute tryout Let’s review the developmental sequence for phonics and spelling. The sequence comes from the Kame’enui and Simmons curriculum maps (http://reading.uoregon.edu/appendices/maps.php) Check yourself on page 23; Review the phonic elements on page 24.

34. Which of these HF words are hardest ?

35. When they get to a new word Ideally, teachers should coach them to apply knowledge and strategies. Read page 27 and consider the extent to which your first-grade teachers are able to coach word recognition. Clark, K. F. (2004). What can I say besides “sound it out”? Coaching word recognition in beginning reading. Reading Teacher, 57, 440-449.

36. Instructional Strategies for Word Recognition Read pages 28-37. Then we’ll try them. • Teaching letter names and sounds • Teaching sounding and blending • Teaching letter patterns • Teaching high-frequency words • Teaching decoding by analogy Please keep the manipulatives together; we’ll post a set if you want to make them for your teachers.

37. Example of a Benchmark Word Wall

40. Child encounters: shrill

41. Video Examples Watch Sara work to build word recognition in needs-based groups.

42. Step One: Gather your resources • Find and examine the scope and sequence of instruction in your core and supplementary materials for phonics skills, high-frequency words, oral vocabulary, and comprehension strategies. • Locate and organize any informal achievement or placement tests that are associated with your materials. • Locate and organize any informal assessments provided in the professional books that your grade level is reading.

43. Step Two: Consider your children’s needs • Review the most recent grade-level data and determine whether additional informal data are needed. • Choose two areas to target for differentiation (e.g., phonemic awareness and phonics, phonics and fluency, fluency and comprehension, comprehension and vocabulary). • Choose differentiation strategies in those areas. • Gather or make materials for three weeks’ needs-based instruction.

44. Step Three: Try it out! • Pilot your plan for three weeks. • Gather to evaluate and fine-tune, considering the changing needs of children and teachers.