Douglas Fuchs, Devin Kearns, and Laura Magnuson

1. Addressing the Needs of Students With Persistent Reading Difficulties Through Intensive Intervention • Douglas Fuchs, Devin Kearns, and Laura Magnuson • Vanderbilt University, Boston University, and American Institutes for Research • April 11, 2014 This document was produced under U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, Award No. H326Q110005. Celia Rosenquist serves as the project officer. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the positions or policies of the U.S. Department of Education. No official endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education of any product, commodity, service or enterprise mentioned in this document is intended or should be inferred.

2. Session Overview • The intensive intervention framework (5 min.) • Overview of Data-Based Individualization (DBI) in reading (10 min.) • Critical elements of DBI in reading (25 min.) • Important considerations for making DBI work (5 min.) • Group discussion (15 min.)

3. The Intensive Intervention Framework

4. What Is Intensive intervention? Intensive intervention addresses severe and persistent learning or behavior difficulties. Intensive intervention should be: • Driven by data • Characterized by increased intensity (e.g., smaller group, expanded time) and individualization of academic instruction and/or behavioral supports

5. Five DBI Steps • Secondary intervention program, delivered with greater intensity • Progress monitoring • Informal diagnostic assessment • Adaptation • Continued progress monitoring, with adaptations occurring whenever needed to ensure adequate progress

6. A Bird’s Eye View of DBI

7. Overview of DBI in Reading: Why Do We Do DBI?

8. Why? Many Students With Disabilities Are Struggling in School U.S. elementary-age children with learning disabilities (LD) below 20th percentile on comprehension 64% High school students with LD years below grade level in reading 3.4 years Fraction of high school students with LD who drop out ¼ Percentage of students with LD with paid employment, two years postsecondary 46%

9. Why? Unfounded and Naïve Beliefs About Teaching Kids with LD “Virtually all children and youth with disabilities, including those with very serious learning problems, are helped sufficiently by the core curriculum with co-teaching, modifications to the core instructional program, or other such supports.” Unfounded and naïve belief Fuchs, Fuchs, & Vaughn, 2014, p. 14

10. Why? Primary and Secondary Prevention Often Are Not Enough The Medical Analogy: High Blood Pressure Treatment Intensive intervention Beta-blockers ACE inhibitors Other novel, patient-specific treatments Secondary prevention Primary prevention Inexpensive diuretics Low-salt diet Stress reduction

11. A Case Study: Kelsey In fourth grade Reads at a second-grade level Participated in a secondary intervention using a research-validated program Group of six 30 minutes, 4 times a week, for 7 weeks Explicit instruction Led by knowledgeable paraprofessional

12. Kelsey’s Secondary Intervention Progress Progress monitored on a measure of passage reading fluency Her aim/goal line (where we want her weekly scores to be) Her progress (her actual scores)

13. Kelsey Is Not Responding to Secondary Prevention • Kelsey is exactly the type of child who needs intensive intervention. • Kelsey received good instruction. • Kelsey needs a more intensive instructional program. Many children in intensive intervention participated in good programs. Their problems are not anyone’s “fault.” Some children just need more time structure practice clarity teacher attention different methods of explanation content

14. After Secondary Prevention: What Do We Do for Kelsey Now?

15. Data-Based Individualization Improving Skills for Students With Intensive Needs

16. Steps of DBI in Reading 1 • Secondary prevention with greater intensity • Progress monitoring • Diagnostic assessment • Adaptation of the intervention • Iterations • 5A. Progress monitoring • 5B. Analysis • 5C. Adaptation 2 x 3 4 + 5 Danielson & Rosenquist, 2014; Lemons, Kearns, & Davidson, 2014

17. Secondary Prevention With Greater Intensity

18. Secondary Prevention With Greater Intensity • Secondary prevention program • Not an approach or a loosely structured set of activities • Research-validated program (tested by researchers) • Clear sequence of lessons • Explicit instruction (I do, we do, you do) approach (Archer & Hughes, 2011) • Fidelity of implementation • Greater intensity (quantitative changes) • Greater frequency, length of sessions, or duration • Smaller group size • Less heterogeneity in the group (students more similar in level)

19. Kelsey’s Secondary Prevention Program Research-Based (Fuchs, Kearns et al., 2012) Focused on Foundational Skills Systematic Explicit Sight words Sound-symbol correspondence Decoding Spelling Reading level-appropriate texts

20. Kelsey’s Progress After Secondary Prevention Slight improvement in oral reading fluency rate, and accuracy Oral reading fluency (accuracy; %) Oral reading fluency (rate) MAZE

21. Intensifying Secondary Prevention: Quantitative Changes Time 4 days  5 days  Group 4 students 3 students

22. Progress Monitoring

23. Choose a Progress Monitoring (PM) Measure • Reliable and valid measure (evaluated by researchers) • Use “Academic Progress Monitoring Tools Chart” available at intensiveintervention.org • Easy-to-administer measure • Takes little teacher and student time • Easy to score • Measure can be given weekly • Enough parallel forms • Designed for regular administration

24. Collect Initial Data and Create an Aimline • Determine the correct level • Student’s instructional level • Not student’s grade level • Determine student’s aim and plot it • Kelsey is doing second-grade oral reading fluency • Using second-grade benchmark (85) • or • Using second-grade expected rate of improvement (to 72)

25. Collect Data Through Initial DBI • Collect data weekly • After seven weeks (8 data points), evaluate progress • Is student tracking the aimline? • Yes—stay on target • Above—increase the goal or stay on target • Below—diagnose and adapt instruction

26. Diagnostic Assessment

27. Informal Diagnostic Assessment Error analysis of PM data Standardized assessments (if possible) Classroom assessments and work samples

28. Using the Assessment Results • Review the diagnostic assessments • Come up with a theory about what might be causing the student’s academic difficulty • Start considering adaptations Spellings include all sounds Replaces nonwords with real words Kelsey tends to guess and needs strategies to decode polysyllabic words. bunny vu… IDK knife twin Good sight word knowledge PM errors are mainly for polysyllabic words spin … IDK count?

29. Adaptation

30. Adaptation for Kelsey:Quantitative Changes • 20 minutes with teacher in small group, rather than 15 minutes • 5 minutes of one-to-one time with teacher • 15 minutes of partner practice, rather than whole-group reading activities in general education

31. Adaptation for Kelsey:Qualitative Changes Skip ahead in the scope and sequence to the polysyllabic lessons Supplement with polysyllabic strategies …

32. Polysyllabic Strategy Options Lovett, Lacarenza, & Borden, 2000 Archer, Gleason, & Vachon, 2002 Vowel alert Peeling off “First, I will try /first pronunciation/, then I will try /second pronunciation/, and see which gives me a real word.” (p. 469) “I peel off (affix) at the beginning (or end) of the word. The root is ____. The word is ____.” (p. 468) Overt strategy Covert strategy 32

33. Polysyllabic Strategy Options DISSECT Lenz & Hughes, 1990 BEST O’Connor et al., 2002; O’Connor, Fulmer, Harty, & Bell, 2005; O’Connor & Bell, 2004 Break the word apart Examine each part Say each part Try the whole thing in context • Discover the context • Isolate the word’s prefix • Separate the word’s suffix • Say the word’s stem or base word • Examine the word’s stem • Check with another person • Try to find the word in the dictionary Mnemonic strategies

34. Polysyllabic Strategy Options Wilson, 2002 Lindamood & Lindamood, 1998 Syllable marking Tracking with syllables

35. Polysyllabic Strategy Chosen • How to decide: • Think about the principles for intensive intervention • Which strategies have small steps? • Which strategies have precise language (3Cs language: clear, concise, consistent)? • Which strategies lend themselves to modeling real reading behavior? • Choices • Peeling off • Vowel alert • Overt and covert strategies

36. Results of Adaptation

37. Iterations

38. Check Progress Weekly: Are the Adaptations Still Working?

39. After Four Points Below the Line, Diagnose and Adapt Again • What should we do now? • Diagnose: What is the source of the problem? • Adapt: How can we change the program again to produce greater growth?

40. Important Considerations for Making DBI Work Tips From Our Work in Schools

41. Make Sure You Choose a Valid and Reliable PM System X X Running records Program-specific mastery measures

42. The Instructional Platform Is a PROGRAM X An adequate resource but not an instructional platform: Not systematic and explicit

43. The Instructional Platform Is a PROGRAM X An adequate website with actual lesson plans, but it is not a program that is tightly and carefully designed

44. The Adaptations Make Sense X Brain workouts To date, few scientific studies suggest these “cognitive” approaches work: Stick to academics Neurofeedback training Working memory treatment Balance training Kearns & Fuchs (2013)

45. Monitor Progress Enough • Every other week is not enough during DBI. • Weekly monitoring is needed to show small changes.

46. Make Sure All Key Individuals Come to DBI Meetings • Do not forget to loop them in early in the process. • Make sure the entire staff knows about DBI and basically what will happen. • Include other service providers, such as speech pathologists, who may have insight and ideas.

47. NCII Resources • Tools Charts • Academic Intervention: http://www.intensiveintervention.org/chart/instructional-intervention-tools • Progress Monitoring: http://www.intensiveintervention.org/chart/progress-monitoring

48. NCII Resources • DBI Training Series http://www.intensiveintervention.org/content/dbi-training-series • Webinars http://www.intensiveintervention.org/resources/webinars • Register now for our April 29th webinar: “So What do I do Now? Strategies for Intensifying Intervention when Standard Approaches Don’t Work”

49. Group Discussion

50. References Archer, A. L., Gleason, M.,,& Vachon, V. (2002). REWARDS (Reading Excellence: Word Attack & Rate Development Strategies). Longmont, CO: Sopris West. Archer, A. L., & Hughes, C. A. (2011). Explicit instruction: Effective and efficient teaching. New York, NY: Guilford. Danielson, L., & Rosenquist, C. (2014). Introduction to the TEC special issue on data-based individualization. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 46, 6–12. Fuchs, D., Fuchs, L. S., & Vaughn, S. (2014). What is intensive instruction and why is it important?. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 46, 14. Lemons, C. J., Kearns, D. M., & Davidson, K. A. (2014). Data-based individualization in reading: Intensifying interventions for students with significant reading disabilities. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 46,20–29. Lenz, B. K., & Hughes, C. A. (1990). A word identification strategy for adolescents with learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 23,149–158, 163. Lindamood, P., & Lindamood, P. (l998). The Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing program for reading, spelling, and speech, Austin, TX: PRO-ED, Inc. Lovett, M. W., Lacerenza, L., & Borden, S. L. (2000). Putting struggling readers on the PHAST track: A program to integrate phonological and strategy-based remedial reading instruction and maximize outcomes. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 33, 458–476. O’Connor, R. E., Bell, K. M., Harty, K. R., Larkin, L. K., Sackor, S., & Zigmond, N. (2002). Teaching reading to poor readers in the intermediate grades: A comparison of text difficulty. Journal of Educational Psychology, 94, 474–485. O’Connor, R. E., & Bell, K. M. (2004). Teaching students with reading disability to read words. In A. Stone, E. Silliman, B. Ehren, & K. Apel (Eds.), Handbook of language and literacy: Development and disorders (pp. 479–496). New York, NY: Guilford Press. O’Connor, R. E., Fulmer, D., Harty, K., & Bell, K. (2005). Layers of reading intervention in kindergarten through third grade: Changes in teaching and child outcomes. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 38, 440–455. Wilson, B. (2002). The Wilson Reading System. Millbury, MA: Wilson Language Training.