Reading intervention helps students with foundational word-reading and spelling skills. However, survey responses from many school boards indicate that the availability of these programs is limited.
Access to these programs often depends on unreliable or invalid assessments such as book-reading tests. Using these criteria excludes students who are far below their same-age peers in important word-reading skills.
Targeted Instruction
It is important to understand what reading skills students are weak in so that a program can be matched to their needs. This includes understanding that a child who struggles with phonics often has difficulties with word decoding and encoding; children who struggle with fluency often have weak comprehension; and weak vocabulary impacts comprehension as well.
Reading intervention programs provide explicit instruction in a variety of areas, including phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding, word reading and fluency. The program teaches students foundational reading skills through teacher-led, interactive instruction with clear explanations of target instruction and modeling followed by ample practice using aligned student materials.
Programs may be used to teach individual skills or in a multi-tiered system of support framework (MTSS) where they are grouped by student need. Many inquiry schools have implemented a MTSS model, providing universal Tier 1 instruction, targeted intervention in Tier 2 for smaller groups of students who require additional support and intensive interventions in Tier 3 for a few students with the most significant needs.
Individualized Attention
Students who don’t make enough progress in reading at the universal tier may need more intensive intervention. This is called targeted instruction, and it works best in small groups of three or four students. In a small school, educators can take the time to get to know students as individuals and understand their unique strengths and challenges. This helps to motivate students and create a sense of belonging among them.
Personalized attention also allows teachers to develop strong relationships with their students, which is essential for a healthy learning environment. It also encourages students to seek clarification on concepts they don’t understand, which enhances their overall learning experience and fosters a proactive, inquisitive mindset.
Individualized attention can help every student overcome the hurdles in their path and showcase absolute brilliance. However, it requires an open and positive atmosphere in which students can share their emotions with their teacher. The bond between them needs to be stronger than ever.
Feedback
Feedback that is perceptually salient can help learners make the connection between their performance and what needs to improve. For example, in some studies, feedback was supplemented with audio information (e.g., ascending tone for correct answer) and physical components (e.g., observing a researcher manually re-sort cards into the correct stack).
Research on feedback also suggests that it can be tailored to age. For instance, for younger children ages three to seven, feedback was often supplemented with additional prompts to guide students to the correct answer or with explanations of the correct answer. In contrast, these types of features were rarely used for the oldest group of participants (ages 10 to 11).
Most inquiry school boards rely partly on unreliable or invalid assessments (e.g., PM Benchmarks) and teacher observations to determine who receives reading intervention and which program they receive. This approach is inefficient, as it leaves too many students behind in their foundational word-reading and fluency skills.
Support
Reading intervention is an intensive or targeted reading instruction that provides students with additional, individualized support. Whether they are struggling readers or just need a little extra help to reach grade level, children who participate in reading intervention gain confidence in their skills and experience success. They acquire knowledge and strategies that are a part of our school district curriculum and units of study. Reading intervention takes place in small group settings with a certified reading specialist and offers students an opportunity to practice decoding, comprehension, writing and test taking strategies. Students read books that dovetail with classroom curricula and are at their instructional level.
The inquiry found that few board leaders could provide evidence that the reading interventions they used were aligned with the research. Educators who carry out reading interventions need thorough and effective training in program delivery, including initial and ongoing coaching. They also need resources for their work, and the ability to track student progress over time.