Smart SRBI: Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Prevention

1. Smart SRBI: Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Prevention Doug Fuchs Vanderbilt University 2011 CREC Leadership Network East Windsor, CT

2. I. Two Perspectives on RTI

3. Two Perspectives: An Overview • IDEA and NCLB perspectives with implications for assessment, instruction, and disability identification • IDEA: instruction is evidence-based, standardized, and top-down. LD/BD exist. SE should have a distinctive role in RTI. • NCLB: instruction is bottom-up, driven by problem-solving, and recursive as necessary. LD/BD do not exist. Blur SE.

4. Touchstone of the IDEA View • “In determining whether a child has a specific learning disability, a local ed agency may use a process that determines if [he or she] responds to scientific, research-based intervention as part of the evaluation process” (P.L. 108-446(b) (6) (A and B).

5. IDEA: RTI’s Purpose • RTI should promote both early intervention and more valid methods of disability identification. These two aims are inextricably connected.

6. IDEA: GE Instruction • Evidence-based, explicit, and top-down. • Primary prevention: “research principled” core curricula and evidence-based class-wide instructional programs (e.g., DI, PALS, CIRC). • Secondary prevention: Small-group tutoring with validated standard protocols.

7. IDEA Secondary Prevention: Instruction is the “Test” • Secondary prevention (like primary prevention) should (a) accelerate the progress of at-risk students and (b) identify NRs who are candidates for multi-disciplinary team evaluation for special education. • Small-group tutoring is a test. Like all tests, the tutoring protocol should be standard, replicable, and implemented with fidelity. • Without such standardization comparing students to each other in a school is impossible.

8. Advantages and Disadvantages of the Standard Protocol • Advantages: Standard, tutoring protocols can be research-based and relatively easy to scale up. • Disadvantages: A limited number of them. Spelling? Writing? Algebra? • They can insult teachers’ and specialists’ sense of professionalism because they suggest others know more than they do about instruction. • 2% to 6% of the general population do not respond to evidence-based tutoring in researcher-conducted studies.

9. NCLB View • Uniformally challenging standards for all. • Assessments are aligned with standards. • Virtually all (including most SWD) participate in the assessments. • Student performance is the basis of accountability. • Standards will close the achievement gap and eliminate nearly all high-incidence SWD. • GE and SE need to merge (“blurring” SE).

10. NCLB: Problem Solving • Problem solving is the engine of instruction at the various tiers. • Multiple meanings of problem solving: • Differentiated instruction • Team collaboration (e.g. Teacher Assistance Teams, Instructional Support Teams) • Behavioral Consultation

11. Achilles Heel: Absence of Intensive Instruction • IDEA: Relies on the traditional continuum of SE placements and services; ignores the weakening of SE instruction in schools. • NCLB: SE is blurred in GE and places too much confidence in unvalidated problem solving for children with severe learning problems. I will return to this point.

12. My Bias Is An IDEA Perspective • RTI should stand for both prevention and a more valid method of disability identification. • Fewer tiers of instruction. • Standard protocols over problem solving (except at the most intensive level). • High-incidence disabilities exist • Intensive instruction (SE?) must be part of RTI.

13. II. RTI Framework:Typical Practice

14. Levels of Prevention • Tiers vs. levels of prevention. • Primary, secondary, and tertiary levels.

15. Instruction based on research principles • All children receive the universal, core instruction in the mainstream classroom. • Use of classwide instructional programs. • All children are screened once in early fall. • Students falling below a cut-point are identified as “at-risk” for academic failure and move to secondary prevention. Typical RTI: Primary Prevention

16. Typical RTI: Secondary Prevention Secondary prevention: Research-validated standard treatment (tutoring) protocol. • Students’ progress is monitored during tutoring. • “Dual-discrepancy” criteria, or other criteria, help identify non-responders. • Responders return to classroom instruction with ongoing monitoring.

17. Example of Secondary Prevention in Nashville ~ In 42 First-Grade Classes in 10 Metro-Nashville Schools ~

18. Tutoring Overview • Small groups (groups of two to four students) • 4 times per week outside classrooms • Each session: • 45 min of tutor-led scripted instruction • 10 minutes of sight words practice • 5 minutes of letter sounds practice • 15 minutes of decoding practice • 15 minutes of reading fluency practice

19. Tutoring Lesson • Steps included in the Sounds, Sight Words, and Decodable Words activities: • Introducing new sound or word • Choral practice • Individual practice • 2 opportunities to produce correct sounds or words • Writing practice • Reading activities • Choral reading of previous story • Echoing the tutor, one line at a time • Choral reading of story • Choral reading of new story • Echoing the tutor, one line at a time • Choral reading of story • Individual speed reading • Each student reads new story 3 times, for 30 seconds • Opportunity to earn incentives for increasing reading fluency

20. Topic Mastery/Review • Mastery of the topic was assessed each day. • If every student in the group achieved mastery of sight words on the first day of that set, the group moved to the next set on the following day. • Each student had two trials to master sight words during the session. • The group progressed to the next set regardless of mastery status after two sessions on the same set. • To ensure that the group would be able to cover more words and sounds

21. Sequence of Sounds and Words

22. Sequence of Sounds and Words

23. Sequence of Sounds and Words

24. Tutoring Fidelity Checklist

25. Typical RTI: Tertiary Prevention • NRs to secondary prevention either stay there despite poor progress, or they move to tertiary (SE), which often means back to GE with accomodations/modifications. • NLTS: 40% of teachers of LD students do not know students’ instructional needs; 11% of these students get modifications. • NLTS: Majority of high school LD students 3 or more grade levels behind.

26. III. Challenges to Typical RTI Practice

27. Challenges for Primary Prevention • Curricula are based on principles from research; not research-validated. • Quality control at district level in choice of curricula. • Professional development. • One-stage screening for “at-risk” produces too many false positives.

28. Challenges for Secondary Prevention • Too many children. • Quality control of choice of tutoring protocols. • Professional development for tutors. • Duration of secondary prevention. • Must all students with severe learning problems pass thru secondary or should they proceed directly to tertiary prevention?

29. Challenges for Tertiary Prevention • The “blurring” of special education. • Modifications and accommodations are not intensive enough for children with severe learning problems. • Millions of SWD are not learning. (NLTS-1 and NLTS-2.)

30. IV. A Primer on CBM • Teachers assess students’ academic performance, using brief measures. • Each alternate form of the CBM test assesses performance on a measure of what is expected by end of year. • The CBM score is viewed as an indicator of overall performance. • Major RTI purposes • To designate risk (measured on 1 occasion near beginning of the year) • To describe rate of response to instruction (measured weekly on alternate forms, with a slope of improvement calculated)

31. What We Look For in CBM INCREASING SCORES: Student is responding to the instructional program. FLAT SCORES: Student is not responding to the instruction program.

32. Sarah’s Progress on Words Read Correctly Sarah Smith Reading 2 Words Read Correctly Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May

33. Jessica’s Progress on Words Read Correctly Jessica Jones Reading 2 Words Read Correctly Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May

34. CBM Indicators of Reading Competence • Kindergarten: Letter-Sound Fluency • Grade 1: Word-Identification Fluency • Grades 2-3: Passage Reading Fluency • Grades 4-6: Maze Fluency

35. Teacher: Say the sound that goes with each letter. Time: 1 minute p U z u y i t R e w O a s d f v g j S h k m n b V Y E i c x … KindergartenLetter-Sound Fluency

36. Teacher: Read these words. Time: 1 minute. two for come because last from ... Grade 1Word-Identification Fluency

37. Grades 2-3 Passage Reading Fluency • Number of words read aloud correctly in 1 minute on end-of-year passages

38. Jason Fry ran home from school. He had to pack his clothes. He was going to the beach. He packed a swimsuit and shorts. He packed tennis shoes and his toys. The Fry family was going to the beach in Florida. The next morning Jason woke up early. He helped Mom and Dad pack the car, and his sister, Lonnie, helped too. Mom and Dad sat in the front seat. They had maps of the beach. Jason sat in the middle seat with his dog, Ruffie. Lonnie sat in the back and played with her toys. They had to drive for a long time. Jason looked out the window. He saw farms with animals. Many farms had cows and pigs but some farms had horses. He saw a boy riding a horse. Jason wanted to ride a horse, too. He saw rows of corn growing in the fields. Then Jason saw rows of trees. They were orange trees. He sniffed their yummy smell. Lonnie said she could not wait to taste one. Dad stopped at a fruit market by the side of the road. He bought them each an orange. CBM passage for Correct Words Per Minute

39. CBM Passage Reading Fluency • Not interested in making kids read faster • Interested in kids becoming better readers • The CBM score is an overall indicator of reading competence • Students who score high on CBM • Are better decoders • Are better at sight vocabulary • Are better comprehenders • Correlates highly with high-stakes tests

40. Grades 4-6 Maze Fluency • Number of words replaced correctly in 2.5 minutes on end-of-year passages from which every 7th word has been deleted and replaced with 3 choices

41. Computer Maze

42. CBM Indicators of Math Competence • At each grade level, the items on the test systematically sample the skills expected for mastery at the end of the year.

49. V. Smart Primary and Secondary Prevention

50. Smart Primary Prevention: Identifying At-Risk Students • All students are tested once in the fall. • Students scoring below a cut-score are designated at risk. • For these at-risk students, response to GE is monitored using CBM.