Vera Lin

SPED 444
May 6, 2015
Response to Intervention
Part I
The class I work with is a military based fourth grade class. There are twenty six
students in the class with fifteen boys and eleven girls. All instructional programs that
Webling Elementary school uses are research based. The math program that they
currently use is Mathematics published by Scott Foresman in 2008. Each day an hour
and fifteen minutes is devoted to math each day. Our math class is grouped according to
skill level. Students take a test in the beginning of the year and are observed throughout
the year to determine where they should be placed. My classroom is the advanced skill
level of the fourth graders. Most of the students are able to catch on to math concepts
very quickly which makes the pacing of the class much faster than the lower level math
classes. The school also uses an online profession resource called IXL for mathematic
instruction.
The language arts program that we currently use is Reading Wonders and the
publisher is McGraw Hill which was published in 2014. Wonders is a new literacy text
that the school began to use. An hour and forty five minutes is devoted to literacy

instruction in the classroom everyday. Wonders program includes reading/writing

workshops, literature anthologies, leveled readers, grammar/spelling books, teachers
edition, practice books and assessments. In the teachers edition everything is mapped
out for the teacher, all the standards are listed along with the strategies. The teachers
edition includes step by step instruction easy enough for a substitute to follow. Included
are essential questions to ask students, a weekly overview, mini lessons, lessons for
small group instructions, assessments and many more.
Response to Intervention is not just about students who are struggling, it is about
all students. There are three tiers the first tier is an enrichment activity which enhances
what theyre learning. Tier two strategic interventions which is a program that involves
comprehension, fluency building, and/or other programs to help with their needs. Tier
three, intensive interventions which is smaller groups with more intensive work and are
for kids who are failing academically. Data driven decisions are useful to see where the
students are at and where the students need to be. The data will help determine the
goals they want to set and if they are responding to the interventions. The key is the
response, how well the students respond to the intervention.
Throughout this semester Ive seen several effective teaching practices. My
mentor teacher gives instruction following the I do, we do, you do method. The I do
phase is when the teacher gives instruction and modeling for the students. My mentor

teacher uses this opportunity to demonstrate what she want students to know and what
the students need to be able to do. The teacher provides models, support and structure.
The more modeling you do the less chances of errors when theyre practicing on their
own. The we do phase is the guided practice. The teacher works collaboratively with
the students. My mentor teacher will ensures that the students have mastered the skills
or content that was presented. Teachers may do several we do lessons to ensure
mastery. During this time she the teacher can make sure that the students are all
involved. In the you do phase is the independent practice.They need to master the skill
first before they do it independently. There is always an continuous assessment
ensuring that students have mastered the content. Good direct instruction will lead
students to mastery.
Some effective teaching strategies I would like to implement in my own classroom
is providing differentiated instruction. Providing a variety of ways for students to get
engaged and motivated to learn. When teaching a lesson I can create an effective
lesson by stating the objectives to the students so they know the purpose and the goal
of the lesson. Allow students to have hands on activities, using groups or partnered
work, giving students feedback and using graphic organizers.
I decided to use the reading assessment from KidBiz which collects data of
students lexile scores, dates/month and how many assessments/activities theyve taken

for the month. KidBiz is administered to the students at the beginning of the year to
determine the students reading levels. Throughout the year the students are required to
take four passing assessments through KidBiz every month. KidBiz is accessible to the
students online at home or at school. After discussing with my mentor teacher which
student is struggling with reading she mentioned student A, whose data also shows a
low reading lexile which meant that student A is a struggling reader. When looking at the
data it shows that in the beginning of the year student A was placed in the 90 lexile
range. According to the lexile table (shown below) an average fourth grade student
should be placed between 740L-940L.
Student A didnt show any progress in his reading assessment by looking at his
data, his reading lexile level stayed at 90L for four months. You can see student A
beginning to make progress in December because his lexile score went up to 265L, and
slowly continues to improve. In April he was placed at 390L level, his growth in the lexile
level has grown 300L. What student A struggles most in is reading fluency and
comprehension. When he reads he focuses on reading word by word rather than
reading fluently and understanding the text. Since he is struggling in reading fluently and
comprehension my mentor teacher and I thought it would be a good idea to do a
running record and check his KidBiz lexile scores go up.

*(I will attach PDF of the class universal screening assessment)

(https://lexile.com/about-lexile/grade-equivalent/grade-equivalent-chart/)

Part II

In order to support student A in reading fluency and comprehension my mentor

teacher and I thought it would be best if I worked with him by doing running records. I
got my running record assessments from Wonders. On each assessment I asked
student A to read the passage to me fluently, by reading clearly and with expression.
The distinguishing characteristics of fluent readers is that they read words accurately,
rapidly, and expressively (Tompkins). I also mentioned to student A that Ill be asking
him comprehension questions to check if he understood the main concept of the story.
Then I would ask student A to retell the story to me as detailed as possible. Fluent
readers comprehension is stronger, and they think more deeply about their reading than
emergent and beginning readers do. So, as children become fluent, they use less
energy for word identification and have more cognitive resources available for
comprehending what they read (Tompkins). For student A to be where we want him to
be he needs to be able to read fluently so he has the resources to comprehend what
hes reading. The reason why we felt running records would work best because itll be a
one on one session with the student and well be able to identify where hes struggling
the most and it also allows him to practice reading.
We wanted to make sure that student A wasnt missing any lessons in class and
that my running records would be there to only support student A in the skill area that he
needs help on. In tier two I used the pull-out method where I would pull him out during

study hall, after school or during any class free time. During my intervention with student
A I would instruct him to read the passage, discuss and go over terms he didnt
understand and give him feedback about the running record. I would refer back to the
passage and reread a sentence he struggled with and modeled how to read fluently.
After I ask student A the comprehension questions listed in the running record and write
down his response word for word. Lastly, I would ask him to retell the story to me and he
would give me his response.
I worked with student A for four weeks total of four running records. I thought his
progress was improving at week three but it could of been an easier passage for him or
the text might of been a story that interests him; but as I did week four with him his
errors went back up and when I asked him to retell me the story he took a while before
giving me a simple sentence. Instead of retelling me the whole story be gives a very
simple and broad sentence that would describe the whole story.
Errors

Self Correction

Retelling Rubric (1-4)

1=incorrect - 4=accurate

Test 1

2-limited info., few if any details

Test 2

11

2-limited info., few if any details

Test 3

2-limited info., few if any details

Test 4

2-limited info., few if any details

Part III

If tier two did not work, then I would incorporate multi sensory teaching
techniques. Multi sensory teaching techniques and strategies stimulate learning by
engaging students on multiple levels. They encourage students to use some or all of
their senses to gather information about a task, make text-to-self, text-to-world, and textto-text connections, understand relationships between concepts, and/or store
information.
Multi sensory techniques that I could use to assist student A for the visual
component is by providing him graphic organizers and providing him color for
highlighting which can help him organize information with the use of colors. If student A
needed strengthening in the auditorial area he could listen to books on tapes to practice
fluency, peer assisted reading, paired reading, video or film with accompanying audio,
music, song, instruments, speaking, rhymes or language games all can help. If he
needs more hands on lessons I could have a graphic organizer prepared for him and
passages cut out and ready for him to place into the correct area. Then if hes more into
using body movements I could provide him with activities that involve dancing, academic
competition such as quizzes, flash card races or rhythmic recall which would be best for
him to retell stories.
Pat Cunningham, in The Teachers Guide to the Four Blocks (1999) describes a
Guess the Covered Word activity that can be used to explore onset and rime, use

context clues for comprehension building and strengthen vocabulary. There are cloze
activities that I could use with him in which words are removed from a passage and the
student will need to fill in the missing words. The words may or may not be provided in a
word bank. This activity will help student A make use of context clues to help him find
the missing words.

Works Cited
"Term Not Found: Cloze." LEARN NC: Education Reference. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
Tompkins, Gail E. "The Youngest Readers and Writers." Literacy for the 21st Century: A
Balanced Approach. Sixth ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, 2014.
Print.
"What Is Multisensory Teaching Techniques? | Learning Center for Children Who Learn
Differently, Their Teachers and Parents in Dubai, Middle East." Learning Center
for Children Who Learn Differently Their Teachers and Parents in Dubai Middle
East What Is Multisensory Teaching Techniques Comments. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.