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Sound It Out
Along with her background as a researcher, writer, and teacher, Joanne Meier is a mom. Join Joanne every week as she shares her experiences raising her own young readers, and guides parents and teachers on the best practices in reading.
Strong intervention outcomes: what does it take?
Summertime always gives me a chance to reread some of the articles and reports that I can only skim through during busier times. This week, I revisited Teaching All Students to Read: Practices from Reading First Schools with Strong Intervention Outcomes from the Florida Center for Reading Research.
What's it take to get strong outcomes from your work with at risk readers? This report details seven common traits across the schools:
- Strong Leadership
- Positive Belief and Teacher Dedication
- Data Utilization and Analysis
- Effective Scheduling
- Professional Development
- Scientifically Based Intervention Programs
- Parent Involvement
No surprises, but some important reminders. And two findings I'd like to highlight.
First, successful schools offered differentiated professional development. All teachers don't need the same training at the same time. Some veteran teachers need advanced training in some areas, while other teachers need support in developing a skill.
Second, successful schools planned the 30-45 minute intervention time to be in addition to (rather than part of) the 90-minute reading block. A school-wide decision to do that means fewer interruptions and transitions during the reading block. It can also help stagger intervention and specialist times, and pave the way for grade-level planning.
Good information to mull over on these hot summer days.
I completely agree with differentiating instruction for teacher staff development. I've been trying to convince my middle school principal to require compensatory reading intervention in addition to our 85 minute reading block to no avail. I blogged on this at http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/four-critical-components-to-successful-reading-intervention/ .
Posted by: Mark Pennington | July 02, 2009 12:40 PMI'm going to be thinking a lot more about differentiated professional development - it's a great concept but one that sounds really difficult to pull off (just as Not Hopeful wrote). How can schools offer it in a cost and time effective way?
Posted by: Joanne | July 07, 2009 01:08 PM
Comments
Offering differentiated professional development seems like a pipedream. Most schools can't even offer half-way decent homogenous PD. These kinds of reports make me think there really is no hope for struggling schools. This stuff just sounds impossible to achieve!
Posted by: Not hopeful | June 30, 2009 03:48 PM