Reading intervention is intensive or targeted instruction to accelerate the reading skills of students who are struggling. It is delivered in addition to core reading instruction through RTI or MTSS.
Individual reading interventions offer a wide range of benefits for students who are struggling with their literacy skills. These strategies can help students improve their phonics, fluency, and comprehension skills.
Individual interventions
Individual reading interventions are intensive, personalized, and student-centered strategies that help struggling readers gain academic success. These programs can be implemented in school or outside of school. Students with severe reading difficulties need to make accelerated progress in order to meet grade-level expectations. To accomplish this goal, they need more instruction and extended opportunities to practice their reading skills.
Students who are below grade level may have difficulty with letter-sound correspondences, word recognition, decoding words, fluency, and comprehension. They also have a limited vocabulary and weak phonemic awareness. These issues are often associated with low achievement, poverty, and incarceration rates.
Research shows that most students who struggle with reading will improve when they receive more instruction and have increased opportunities to practice. Several studies have evaluated the effects of different instructional groupings, amounts of time in intervention, and different types of treatment. Students who were provided with more intensive instruction saw the most significant gains.
Group interventions
Each child’s literacy journey is unique. However, the needs of many students are similar. These students can benefit from a reading intervention that focuses on group instruction. These intensive instructional sessions are designed to address the five core elements of reading: phonological awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
These groups help students transition from decoding to reading for meaning. This shift empowers students to become independent readers and lifelong learners.
The benefits of a reading intervention include personalized instruction and increased efficiency. In addition, students can develop peer collaboration skills and support one another. These interventions also allow teachers to monitor student progress and provide personalized feedback. They are usually delivered in small-group settings, such as a small group of three or four students. This allows the teacher to offer more individualized instruction and quickly identify learning gaps. The teacher can then re-teach the skill and provide additional practice to the students who need it.
Formative assessments
Formative assessments are an integral component of a classroom because they empower teachers to understand student needs and adjust their instruction. They also enable educators to guide students to the right path of understanding. Formative assessment techniques can range from simple observation to interactive student-centered activities like think-pair-share and collaborative learning.
Unlike summative reading tests that are administered at the end of a unit or term, formative assessments provide continuous feedback throughout the learning process. This allows teachers to adjust their teaching strategies based on student progress, ensuring that students are getting the most out of each lesson.
In a recent meta-analysis of 48 qualified studies, researchers found that the effect size of the formative assessment program on reading achievement was larger when it was integrated with teacher-directed instruction. The analysis also revealed that studies incorporating other-directed formative assessment (educators or computer software programs) had a greater impact than student-directed formative assessment. Other study variables included student characteristics, grade level, and program duration.
Diagnostic assessments
Educators often face a challenge when it comes to diagnosing reading difficulties. There are many reasons why a student may be struggling to make progress. This is why it is important to use diagnostic assessments as part of a comprehensive assessment toolkit.
Using EdTech tools such as Acadience Reading Diagnostic can help teachers untangle the many possible reasons students are struggling to make progress. For example, if a student shows no progress on a phonics screener such as CORE Phonics Survey or 6 Syllable Types Plus!, then that is a good indicator that the student needs further phonics instruction.
Similarly, progress monitoring tests such as i-Ready can help educators see if a student is on-track or not. These tools are essential in the Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework that provides varying levels of support and helps teachers address reading challenges early. Using these diagnostic and progress monitoring tests will provide educators with the insights they need to implement targeted interventions for each student.