Happy Wednesday everyone!
Kristin here……
So we were on our 6th day of school today and I’m happy to report…all was well! How about you? Is all going well at your school too? Great! ( You are all so fantastic that I knew it would be!)
Questions, questions, questions! Every time I visit another school or sit with teachers from another school…I always get questions about how we “do” our interventions. There was a question about the very same thing on the TPT forum a few weeks ago, too! Guess it is a hot topic. So….I thought I’d share a little about how our school does things.
A little background….we have 800…give or take at any moment…students, grades K-5 at our school. We have a very high population of sweeties who are just learning English. Sooo….as you can imagine….we also have a lot of sweeties who are considered below grade level in reading. Well…of course…..’cause I don’t know about you, but if I were trying to learn a new language….I’d be behind trying to learn to read in that language, too! Right??
We do our best at our school to follow RTI and provide interventions based on the tiers. Each day, our tier one kiddos receive awesome core instruction and guided reading groups in the classroom provided by our fabulous teachers. Our tier two kiddos also receive an additional group with a paraeducator who provides targeted instruction for the groups’ needs. The teacher plans these lessons. Our tier three students receive an additional group each day with a reading intervention teacher. We have 6 reading intervention teachers at our school. Yep…that’s where I fit in. In addition to these groups for reading, the ELL students…again that is most of our sweeties….go for a daily half hour lesson with one of our 4 ELL teachers. Phew! You have probably figured out that scheduling is crazy. Yes, but it all seems to work. Since we have soooo many sweeties to help each day, kindergarten through second grade groups are each 20 minutes long, and third through 5th grade groups are 30 minutes long. The additional ELL groups are another 30 minutes long.
Of course we use wonderful assessments to inform our teaching. Don’t you just love it? Well….maybe you have your doubts some days, but let me tell ya…..I taught in 1902-before-dirt which was before quality assessments and I’m here to say that teaching is sooooooo much better these days now that we don’t have to guess what our kiddos need! I’m sure you have fabulous assessments you use at your school too! One of the areas….if you can believe it….for which we didn’t have a consistent assessment, was phonics! Now though, we have one that is a continuum starting with the kinders and going through the intermediate grades! LOVE it! Teachers can tell where the students are needing help and whether or not they are on grade level. Teachers from other schools that have seen it, have really liked it. Bad News though…we can’t share that exact assessment with you because it doesn’t belong to us. Oh but Good News! There is one that is similar that you can have…and it is the best price of all….FREE! Don’t you love that word? If you are interested….you can grab it here.
Whew….so that was a bit long winded! I’m sure you have a wonderful system in place at your school, but if not…hope this helps you with some ideas.
Hey….have a great rest of your week!
Happy teaching!
