Interventions that Work: Literacy Interventions for Grades 6 - 12

Format

Individual Presentation

First Presenter's Institution

Colquitt County Schools

Second Presenter's Institution

NA

Third Presenter's Institution

NA

Fourth Presenter's Institution

NA

Fifth Presenter's Institution

NA

Strand #1

Academic Achievement & School Leadership

Relevance

This session is directly related to strand 1, “Head”: Academic Achievement and Leadership – Closing achievement gaps and promoting learning for all children and youth. The session will focus on the exact evidence-based strategies three Title I secondary schools are using during Extended Learning Time (ELT) within the school day to improve the literacy skills of ALL students. Outcomes after two years of implementation indicate students are making more than one year’s growth in Lexile (a measure for reading comprehension), which is imperative to closing achievement gaps for students performing below grade level. Participants will leave with a full understanding of how to implement three evidence-based strategies/interventions.

Brief Program Description

In this interactive session, participants will learn three evidence-based literacy strategies/interventions that are free, easy to implement, and are currently being used successfully in grades 6 – 12 in a Title I school district in rural South Georgia. Participants will leave with the skills to implement these strategies immediately in their own classrooms.

Summary

The newly signed ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) defines a Multi-Tier System of Supports as “a comprehensive continuum of evidence-based, systemic practices to support a rapid response to students’ needs.”

However, Secondary schools are often overwhelmed by the sheer number of students performing below grade level. Being tied to a massive master schedule in which the slightest tweak could cause a detrimental domino effect, large secondary schools are often left with the options of either ignoring the problem all together, or intervening with just a very small number of students. Most approaches to intervention at the secondary level are extremely costly and require students to be scheduled into remedial classes, which means they lose access to electives and other classes that may peek their interest in a career pathway. In addition, students may quickly become disengaged when their schedule is filled with “double blocks” of reading and math.

In this session, the Director of Response to Intervention (RtI) for a Title I School District in Rural South Geogia will share the exact evidence-based strategies and interventions her schools are currently implementing successfully in grades 6 – 12. Participants will leave with the skills to implement these strategies immediately in their own classrooms.

The presenter will present a separate session on the Extended Learning Time framework, in which participants will learn how to set up a rapid response systemic approach to meeting the needs of all students.

This school district is home to the largest migrant population in the state, highest population of English Language Learners in its part of the state, and all schools within the district are Title I schools. Despite these barriers, this district is using the Multi-Tier System of Support/Response to Intervention framework as a means to overall school improvement, and finding positive outcomes after only two years of implementation.

This session is a follow-up to the session presented at the 2017 National Youth at Risk Conferences. In 2017, only 2 of the 4 secondary schools were implementing ELT. Participants were begging to know more about the actual interventions being utilized.

Evidence

The language of using a student’s response to intervention to make educational decisions can be found in the 2004 Reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and more recently the Every Student Succeeds Act refers to a Multi-Tier System of Supports as “a comprehensive continuum of evidence-based, systemic practices to support a rapid response to students’ needs.”

This presentation takes these theoretical approaches to improving student outcomes and provides a practical approach for large (or small) secondary schools.

In this session, participants will learn the following three evidence-based strategies/interventions: Peer Assisted Learning Strategies (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2008), The Fluency Development Lesson (Rasinski, 2010), and Magnet Summaries, (Buel, 1993).

Possibly even more significant, is evidence of effectiveness we have found in our student outcome data at the local level. After only one year of implementation, the mean Lexile (measure of student reading comprehension) increased by 78 Lexile points in 6th and 7th grade. Whereas, expected growth for these groups of students based on the fall mean Lexile was only 52 – 60 points (a difference of 18 Lexile points). In year 2, these results were not only duplicated, but better with 6 – 9th grade students beating the expected growth by up to 33 Lexile points. These data indicate students made more than a year’s growth, which is vital in closing the achievement gap for students who are performing below grade level.

Biographical Sketch

Dr. Tabathia Baldy has over 15 years of experience in public education. She currently serves as the Director for Response to Intervention (RtI) and Positive Behavioral Interventions/Supports (PBIS) in the Colquitt County School System in rural South Georgia. Prior to this, she served as a Special Education Director in Durham, North Carolina, and a RtI Coach & Coordinator, PBIS Coordinator, and Special Education Program Specialist in Stuart, Florida. She has also served as a special education teacher for students with severe emotional/behavioral disabilities in Georgia and Florida. She specializes in building and sustaining a Multi-Tiered System of Supports Framework that meets the needs of ALL students.

Keyword Descriptors

RtI/MTSS, literacy, reading, writing, intervention, secondary, high school, middle school

Presentation Year

March 2018

Start Date

3-5-2018 10:30 AM

End Date

3-5-2018 11:45 AM

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Mar 5th, 10:30 AM Mar 5th, 11:45 AM

Interventions that Work: Literacy Interventions for Grades 6 - 12

In this interactive session, participants will learn three evidence-based literacy strategies/interventions that are free, easy to implement, and are currently being used successfully in grades 6 – 12 in a Title I school district in rural South Georgia. Participants will leave with the skills to implement these strategies immediately in their own classrooms.