Reading intervention is intensive instruction to accelerate the reading skills of students with a deficit. This instruction is usually delivered within Tier 2 or 3 of RTI or MTSS.
Teachers should utilize a variety of texts for their small group interventions. Letting students choose their own books helps to increase student engagement and motivation.
1. Read Aloud
One of the most important things a teacher can do to help children become readers is to share a good book with them. Reading aloud introduces children to big ideas and themes found in literature. It also exposes children to a wide range of genres and helps them build a vocabulary that supports language development.
During an interactive read-aloud, the fluent reader presents a text at or above the listener’s level and pauses to ask questions. This strategy is often referred to as Shared Reading and Supported Reading.
Some ways teachers engage students in a shared reading experience are by using Readers’ Theater, echo reading (you read a phrase, then they try), and partner reading or alternating paragraphs, sections or pages. Whatever the strategy used, a clear purpose for the read-aloud will help guide decisions like what think-alouds and questions are planned and how to manage students’ stamina.
2. Guided Oral Reading
Students read passages silently while a teacher or peer listens. The passages are at or above the student’s reading level and can be repeated several times to increase fluency.
This strategy is known by a variety of names including: repeated reading, neurological impress, paired or shared reading, and collaborative oral reading. Educators can use this method to increase the stamina of struggling readers for long texts.
Another approach that teachers can use to develop students’ reading stamina is called oral cloze, in which a teacher or peer reads the text aloud while students follow along silently and say the missing words. This approach can also be used with eBooks and audiobooks for students who need assistance accessing grade-level content.
3. Repeated Reading
Timed repeated reading is an effective strategy for improving reading fluency and comprehension. It involves students listening to a passage read aloud by the teacher several times, and the teacher calculating the student’s rate, accuracy, intonation, pacing, and expressiveness and reporting this information to the student along with elapsed time.
Then, the student rereads the passage until reaching a satisfactory level. Repeated reading can be used in small groups or partnerships.
Explain to students that the goal of the strategy is to improve their oral reading fluency, which includes reading accurately and at an appropriate rate. Remind students that improved fluency frees cognitive space from decoding, which allows for better understanding of the ideas in the text. The introductory lesson should also include an explanation of the role of error correction during repeated reading.
4. Paragraph Shrinking
Students who receive reading intervention work on comprehension in addition to phonics and fluency. Comprehension is a child’s ability to understand what they read—to visualize a story, anticipate what will happen next, laugh at a joke, and make inferences.
This strategy pairs students based on their abilities and allows stronger readers to help their weaker peers. Each pair takes turns reading, pausing, and summarizing the main point of each paragraph they read. Students also provide one another feedback as a way to monitor their comprehension.
This video provides a great overview of paragraph shrinking, offers differentiated instructional ideas, and describes how to use the strategy in your classroom. It is a little long, but very informative. You will want to watch all the way through to see how this process works.
5. Discussion
Students who struggle with reading are often reluctant to put in the effort required to improve. Motivating them can be a challenge, but the rewards can be great if they stick with it. Encourage them to keep trying and help them celebrate their successes.
For example, if they have successfully completed an assignment, praise them for it. Identifying their strengths and interests can also boost motivation.
In Ontario, our education system has acknowledged that some students need early intervention to tackle foundational word reading skills. However, schools frequently offer ineffective commercial programs based on instructional approaches that are not evidenced by research. This leaves young students behind their grade-level peers in terms of reading development.