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

1. RtI as a Model for Reading Improvement: A Focus on Students Learning English Rollanda O’Connor University of California at Riverside

2. 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) • O’Connor & Jenkins (1999)

3. The Conundrum Becoming “phonemically aware” is most useful prior to Grade 2 Most students with LD in reading (RD) aren’t identified until after Grade 2

4. Does phonemic awareness predict RD? Yes But PA “catches” 20-40% of a kindergarten population

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

6. 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?

7. RTI: A Layered Model • Professional Development to improve teaching • Measurement of children (“Gating”) • Feedback to teachers on children’s progress • Additional intervention for children who need it • Flexible movement across groups and conditions O’Connor (2000)

8. 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

9. 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]

10. 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: • O’Connor, 2000; 2005 • Blachman et al., 2004 • Simmons, Coyne, Kame’enui, 2004

11. K-2 Studies in RTI • Kamps & Greenwood, 2004 • Vaughn et al., 2004 • Tilly, 2003 (Iowa evaluation) • O’Connor et al. (2011)

12. K-3 Studies in RTI • O’Connor et al., 2005 • Simmons et al., 2009 • O’Connor et al., current research

13. Areas of Agreement Across Studies • Classroom instruction must be adequate • Use measures for catch & release • Intervention available regardless of student “category”

14. A Few Statistics: 30% of 4th grade native English speakers score < Basic 71% of 4th grade ELL score < Basic (NAEP, 2007) 24% of all students in CA are ELL 20-50% of students in Riverside County schools are ELL

15. 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?

16. 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) • O’Connor et al. (2010) • However--ELL responsiveness was not analyzed in early studies of RtI

17. 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

18. 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)

19. 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

20. Catch and Release for Tier 2

21. 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….

22. Interventions in Kindergarten • Segmenting • Blending • Letter Sounds • The alphabetic principle • [and meanings of words]

23. Stretched Blending

24. 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; O’Connor et al., 1995)

25. Ex: Segment to Spell (O’Connor et al., 2005) a m s t i f

26. Interventions in First Grade • Segment to Spell (to ensure the alphabetic principle) • Phonics • High frequency words • [and meanings of words]

27. 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

28. Interventions in Second Grade • Common letter patterns & affixes • Fluency • Conversation & justifications • Why do you think that…?

29. 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

30. Why Bother Building Reading Rate? • One piece of the comprehension puzzle • Minimum fluency requirements (O’Connor 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

31. 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

32. Interventions in Third Grade • Morphemes • BEST • Rules for combining morphemes • Comprehension strategies • [and meanings of words]

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

34. 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)

35. English/Spanish Cognates from Morphemes • Google for lists • Praise student use of cognates • Adult/adulto • Atmosphere/atmosfera • Chimpanzee/chimpancé • Enter/entrar • Intelligence/inteligencia

36. Inter-- means between • What does inter-- mean? • So what does interstate mean? • What’s a word for a highway between states? • What would interperson mean? • So what are interpersonal skills?

37. BEST for Multisyllable Words • Break apart • Examine the stem • Say the parts • Try the whole thing

38. BEST Examples Understandingly International Uncomfortable

39. Changes in 3rd Grade Reading

40. Specific Questions for ELL v. EO • Targeted vs. Packaged Tier 2 Instruction • Kindergarten vs. 1st Grade start • Response to intervention across 3 years

41. 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

42. The cost of waiting…

43. Kindergarten vs. First Grade Initial Treatment… the cost of waiting

44. Same 5 schools Same teachers Same reading curriculum Gr 2 RtI vs. Historical Control

45. Grade 2 Outcomes (ELL + EO at risk)

46. ELL vs. EO Outcomes in Grade 2

47. Year 3 Outcomes: Timing of Special Ed. Identification by Initial Treatment

48. 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