Phyllis Shlaffly’s July 21 article, posted in the Eagle Forum pieces together a number of undocumented sources commenting on the prospect of a national curriculum and the Common Core State Standards. Following is her article and my responses to her concerns and comments from the perspective of a public school teacher and educational publisher. Read more…
A recent discussion on my favorite site, the English Companion Ning, made me take a critical look at just what has engendered the recent demands for increased accountability in our public schools. Both Democrats and Republicans are playing the blame game and teachers are the easiest targets. As a public school teacher, my initial response has been defensive; however, upon a bit of reflection I’m thinking that teachers may well largely be to blame–not for the “sorry state of public education” as our critics claim, but for the very accountability movement that is being used to attack us. We teachers are often our own worst enemies.
A bit of history helps put things in perspective. Back in the 1970s and early 1980s teachers felt that our norm-referenced testing, such as the ITBS, SAT, CTBS, MAT, provided data that did not measure what we are teaching. We used sophisticated psychometric criticisms such as sampling and measurement error and socio-political criticisms such as bias to largely rid ourselves from the nuisances of these exams. We teachers went wild. Authentic assessments, multiple-measure assessments, and no assessments ruled the educational landscape. I once taught a sophomore world history class for an entire year without giving any traditional tests.
However, with teacher-created assessments, testing manufacturers lost money. Educational Testing Services and others do not like to lose money. So, the test manufacturers changed tactics. They asked for and gave teachers what teachers said they wanted–tests that purport to test what we teach. In other words, criterion-referenced standards tests. And the standards-based movement was born.
Teachers were even asked to develop their own subject area standards. A seemingly bottom-up initiative. How inclusive! Each state department of education, county office of education, and most school districts funded the creation of these subject area content standards documents. I joined other colleagues in spending countless hours developing the English-language Arts Standards for my own school district.
Now the test-makers were happy. They had the basis of a new revenue stream. And, now because the tests ostensibly test what teachers teach, administrators, politicians, and even billionaire do-gooders can hold us accountable and measure teacher/school/district/state performance. The zenith? Our Common Core National Standards.
Teachers helped create this mess. We enabled the accountability movement that is choking teacher creativity, teacher autonomy, and teacher initiative. And our students are the ones who are paying the greatest price. In replacing normed-reference testing with criterion-reference testing, we replaced something bad with something worse. “Meet the new boss.” Not the same as the old boss. Apologies to Pete Townshend.
And now the standards-based movement is so endemic that any challenges to teaching to the test or resisting accountability standards are viewed with wonderment by many in our profession. The standards-based movement with its frame of accountability is fully entrenched. Newer teachers have known nothing else.
A personal example will bring this home. I teach middle school ELA with a bright group of twenty-something colleagues. I am constantly perceived as being the ornery one because I challenge their logical applications of the standards-based accountability status-quo. For example, just recently I’ve questioned their proposals to change our allocation of instructional minutes to reflect the percentage of questions on the California Standards Test. Why shouldn’t we teach structural analysis for six-percent of our instructional minutes, if six-percent of the test consists of structural analysis test questions? they ask. I’ve already lost the battle to save our intervention classes for reading and writing instruction. Now, they are standards-based classes with curriculum designed to remediate instruction in such critical elements as “author’s purpose.” Instruction is limited to the “power standards” found on the California Department of Education website. I did throw a fit last week when one of my colleagues complained that it took her most of an hour to teach the eighth grade ELA theme standard to an EL newcomer who spoke, maybe 100 words of English.
Sigh. More on Valerie Strauss’ Washington Post site.
Response from Maja Wilson, author of Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment (Heinemann, 2006) and the recent article, “First blame the teachers then the parents” in the Washington Post.
Mark,
This is why I argue that trying to get and maintain a “seat at the table” is ultimately counterproductive. The meal served at the table of power is unhealthy, the conversation is stilted (actually, there isn’t much conversation–lots of orders given and followed) and those who partake leave with indigestion. That’s what happened when teachers created standards–following orders at the table–that were then used against them as the basis first for high-stakes standardized tests, and then as a springboard for national standards created by a corporation created by governors and business interests (Achieve Inc).
Instead, we should create, set, and decorate another table, then serve a tasty and healthy meal there. We could invite as many people to join as possible, and then enjoy a rich conversation and lots of laughter together as we dine.
Michael (another poster to Maja’s initial post) may be right that the problem is that we can’t agree on what to serve at that table. But hey, even a potluck would be tastier, healthier, and more socially edifying than the cardboard and nails currently on the Department of Education’s menu.
The writer of this article, Mark Pennington, is an educational author of teaching resources to differentiate instruction in the fields of reading and English-language arts. His comprehensive curricula: Teaching Grammar and Mechanics, Teaching Essay Strategies, Teaching Reading Strategies, and Teaching Spelling and Vocabulary help teachers differentiate instruction with little additional teacher prep and/or specialized training.
Most teachers believe in some form of learning styles or multiple intelligences theories. The notion that each child learns differently, so we should adjust instruction accordingly (learning styles) just seems like such good old-fashion common sense. The theory that each child has different innate abilities (multiple intelligences) just seems to be confirmed by common experience. But common sense and experience are untrustworthy and unreliable guides to good teaching. Despite what the snake oil learning styles and multiple intelligences folk tell us, they are simply wrong. Here are five reasons why.
1. We don’t know enough about how the brain works to change the way we teach. What we do know about the brain suggests that catering instruction to specific modalities can be counter-productive. Knowledge is stored in the form of memories and only 10% of those memories are visual and auditory representations. Meaning-based memories make up the 90% (Willingham on Learning Styles Don’t Exist–TeacherTube). Those impressive-looking illustrations of the brain on the Universal Design for Learning site and interesting graphic organizers on the multiple intelligences sites hopelessly simplify what we know is a far more complex subject. Daniel T. Willingham, cognitive psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Virginia advises districts, schools, and teachers to “save your money” on any brain-based instructional in-services or instructional resources. See Willingham’s excellent YouTube on the fallacy of brain-based instruction.
2. Research does not support adjusting instruction according to learning styles or multiple intelligences theories. To sum up his extensive meta-analysis of modality research, Willingham states “…we can say that the possible effects of matching instructional modality to a student’s modality strength have been extensively studied and have yielded no positive evidence. If there was an effect of any consequence, it is extremely likely that we would know it by now (American Educator 1995).” With respect to research on multiple intelligences, “The fundamental criticism of MI theory is the belief by scholars that each of the seven multiple intelligences is in fact a cognitive style rather than a stand-alone construct (Morgan, 1996). Morgan, (1996) refers to Gardner’s approach of describing the nature of each intelligence with terms such as abilities, sensitivities, skills and abilities as evidence of the fact that the “theory” is really a matter of semantics rather than new thinking on multiple constructs of intelligence (http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/mitheory.shtml),” Frankly, the essential variables of motivation, preference, teacher perception, and the learning tasks themselves probably cannot ever be isolated in an experimental design, thus prohibiting statistically significant conclusions regarding how students learn best and how teachers should teach.
3. Learning styles and multiple intelligences theories beg the question about how students learn. The assumption is that students learn best by receiving instruction in their strongest modality or intelligence. This may make sense for designated hitters in the American League. Allow me to explain. In the American League, pitchers rarely bat; instead, designated hitters bat for them. The designated hitter does not play in the field. It would make sense for the designated hitter to practice according to his modality strength. Developing kinesthetic expertise in slugging home runs will earn him his multi-millions. But exclusive kinesthetic batting practice will not help him become a better fielder. There is no learning transfer. We certainly don’t want designated hitters in our classrooms. We want students to be complete ballplayers. In fact, it makes more sense to practice our relative weaknesses. Why should kinesthetically adept Johnny continue to make project after project rather than practicing in his areas of relative weakness: oral (auditory, aural) and written (visual) communication?
4. By emphasizing the how of instruction, learning styles and multiple intelligences practitioners lose sight of the what of instruction and tend to force square blocks into round holes. For teaching input to be processed and stored in the memory, that input has to match how the information will be stored. Little of what we teach will be stored as visual or auditory representations. This does not mean that good teaching won’t use the visual or auditory domains, but the focus of most all of our instruction is meaning-based. We want our students to know stuff. We have to match the how of instruction to the what of instruction, not the reverse. “All students learn more when content drives the choice of modality (Willingham in American Educator 1995).” It should go without saying that if a child has, for example, an auditory processing disability, the how of instruction should be limited in that modality. Similarly, adapting learning tasks to perceived student intelligences is impractical for the vast majority of our teaching standards. A student with musical intelligence still needs meaning-based practice to understand the roles of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government.
5. Although learning Styles and multiple intelligences theories seem individual-centered and egalitarian on the surface, the converse is more likely true. The practical applications of these theories tend to pigeon-hole students and assume that nature plays a greater role in learning than does nurture. For example, teachers disproportionately tend to label African-American children, especially boys, as kinesthetic learners and Asian kids are more often classified as visual learners. Being labeled limits options and dissuades effort and exploration. Learning styles and multiple intelligences assessments particularly have this egregious effect. Our students are not stupid. Labeling them as “good at” and “has strengths in” also labels them as “bad at” and “has weaknesses in.” Students “shut down” to learning or “self-limit” their achievement with such labels. If limited to what the students know and don’t yet know, assessments data can be productive. If extended to how students learn, data can be debilitating. Additionally, who is to say that how a student learns remains a constant? Teachers certainly have an important role in nurturing motivation, risk-taking, and exploration. Teachers should be about opening doors, not closing doors.
Unfortunately, the differentiated instruction movement has largely adopted learning style and multiple intelligence theories. Check out why differentiated instruction should be more about the what and less about the how in 23 Myths of Differentiated Instruction. As we move ahead in the Response to Interventionprocess, this subject of how to best serve students with learning challenges is especially relevant. Readers may also wish to check out the author’s introductory article: Learning Styles Teaching Lacks Common Sense.
Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is the author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. Designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight through adult within one year, the curriculum is decidedly un-canned, adaptable to various instructional settings, and simple to use—a perfect choice for Response to Intervention tiered instructional levels. Get multiple choice reading assessments on two CDs, formative assessments, blending and syllabication activities, phonemic awareness and phonics workshops, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages on eight CDs, 390 flashcards, posters, activities, and games. Everything teachers need to teach a diagnostically-based reading intervention program for struggling readers at all reading levels is found in this comprehensive curriculum. Ideal for ESL and Special Education students, who struggle with language/auditory processing challenges. Simple directions and well-crafted activities truly make this an almost no-prep curriculum. Works well as a half-year intensive program or full-year program, with or without paraprofessional assistance. 364 pages
Different strokes for different folks. What works for you doesn’t necessarily work for me. These sayings appeal to our American ideals of individualism and equality, don’t they? And they certainly seem to apply to how we think we should teach. Our assumption is that we all learn differently so good teachers should adjust instruction to how students learn. Specifically, we assume that some students are better auditory (or aural) learners, some are better visual learners, and some are better kinesthetic learners. Or add additional modalities or intelligences to the list, if you wish. All we need to do to maximize learning is to adjust instruction to fit the modality that best matches the students’ learning styles or intelligences. It just seems like good old-fashioned common sense.
However, common sense is not always a trustworthy or reliable guide. Galileo once challenged Aristotle’s wisdom and the popular consensus of two millennia that objects fall at different rates, depending upon their bulk. Galileo climbed to the top of the leaning tower of Pisa and dropped a tiny musket ball and a huge canon ball at the same time. Defying common sense, those objects reached ground at the same time. Even today, ask most people whether a nickel or computer would hit the ground first. Most would still pick the computer.
Leaning Tower of Pisa
Teachers encounter counter-intuitive examples in teaching all the time: a not-so-bright student whose parents both have master’s degrees, a student with high fluency but low comprehension, an administrator who has never taught in a classroom. These anomalies just don’t make sense, but they happen quite frequently. In fact, before recent IDEA legislation, students with demonstrated learning problems could not qualify for special education unless there was an established discrepancy between ability and performance. In other words, unless the student’s learning disability challenged our notions of common sense, the student could not qualify for special education services.
Most teachers will say that they believe in some form of learning style or multiple intelligences theory. Most will say that they attempt to adjust instruction to some degree to how they perceive students learn best. Many use modality assessments to guide their instructional decision-making. This is particularly true within the special education community. Although there probably has been some change, Arter and Jenkins (1979) found that more than 90% of special education teachers believe in modality theory. These assumptions are especially relevant as special education teachers assume lead roles in the expanded Response to Intervention models, especially with respect to the three-tiered instructional model.
But these common sense assumptions are simply wrong for the most part. To understand why, we need to define our terms a bit. When we talk about how our students learn we need to consider three components of the learning process. First, the learner accesses input, that is teaching, through sensory experiences. Next, the learner makes meaning of and connects that new input to existing knowledge and experience. Finally, that learner stores this input into the short and long term memories.
Now, this learning process is not the same as knowledge. Learning (the verb) leads to knowledge (the noun). And knowledge is not how students learn. Knowledge is what students learn. Knowledge is stored in the memory. Knowledge = memory. Memory includes everything and excludes nothing. It even includes learning how to learn. We have no separate data bases.
So how is knowledge (memory) stored in the brain? According to cognitive scientists, 90% of the memory is meaning-based. Only 10% of the memory consists of visual or auditory representations (Willingham 2009). These percentages do reflect what we teach. Most everything we teach is meaning-based. So, shouldn’t we focus our teaching energies on matching how we teach to how the knowledge is stored?
Auditory Memory
Let’s start with the 10%. If knowledge will be stored as an auditory memory, teaching should emphasize this modality. For example, if band students are learning how to tune their instruments, they need to listen to and practice hearing the sound waves, not necessarily see a spectrograph or understand the complexities of how sound is produced. Or if students are learning to read with inflection, they need to hear good models of inflection and mimic those models. Both sound waves and reading inflection knowledge are stored primarily as auditory memories. To tune their instruments, band students will access their auditory memories of wave sounds and apply this knowledge to raising or lowering the pitch of their instruments. To read with inflection, students will recall the rhythm, emphasis, and altered voices of modeled readings and apply this knowledge to reading in front of the class.
Visual Memory
And now the balance of the 10%. If knowledge will be stored as a visual memory, teaching should emphasize this modality. For example, if art students are learning the color spectrum, they need to see and practice the colors with their various hues, not just memorize ROY G BIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet). Or if students are memorizing the locations of the states, they will need to see and practice their shapes, sizes, and relationships to other states on political and/or physical maps. Both colors and the locations of states are stored primarily as visual memories. To draw an apple from memory, art students will access their visually stored memories of various hues of red and/or other colors and apply this knowledge to their watercolor. To pass the map test, students will recall the images of the political and/or physical maps and correctly label the states.
Meaning-Based Memory
And finally to the 90%. These meaning-based memories are stored independent of any modality-“not in terms of whether you saw, heard, or physically interacted with the information.” (Willingham 2009). If knowledge will be stored in the memory as meaning, teaching should be designed to emphasize this outcome. For example, if history students are learning the three branches of the federal government and the system of checks and balances, they need to understand the meanings of the terms: legislative, executive, and judicial as well as the specific limitations of and checks on powers that the framers of the Constitution designed to ensure balance and prevent abuse. Good teaching would emphasize both rehearsal and application of this information to ensure understanding. This would, of course, necessitate using the auditory (or aural) modality. It would also certainly be appropriate to use the visual modality by drawing the three-branch tree with each branch representing the divisions of government. However, most of the learning process will necessitate memorizing how, what, where, when, and why facts through meaning-storage strategies and techniques (such as repetition), establishing cognitive connections to prior knowledge and experiences with plenty of appropriate examples, and practicing trial and error feedback through class discussion, reading, and writing. Whew! Complex, meaning-based stuff. On the test, students will not access memories of the teacher’s lecture voice or the teacher’s tree drawing to answer the multiple-choice questions. Students will recall meaning-based memories derived from teaching that appropriately matches the content to be learned. If 90% of what our students learn is meaning-based, why waste limited planning and instructional time fixating on the 10%? Now that’s good old-fashioned common sense.
Check out Dr. Daniel Willingham’s YouTube on this subject.
Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is the author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. Designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight through adult within one year, the curriculum is decidedly un-canned, adaptable to various instructional settings, and simple to use—a perfect choice for Response to Intervention tiered instructional levels. Get multiple choice reading assessments on two CDs, formative assessments, blending and syllabication activities, phonemic awareness and phonics workshops, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages on eight CDs, 390 flashcards, posters, activities, and games. Everything teachers need to teach a diagnostically-based reading intervention program for struggling readers at all reading levels is found in this comprehensive curriculum. Ideal for ESL and Special Education students, who struggle with language/auditory processing challenges. Simple directions and well-crafted activities truly make this an almost no-prep curriculum. Works well as a half-year intensive program or full-year program, with or without paraprofessional assistance. 364 pages
Teaching remedial reading is one of the most challenging yet enriching tasks. Reading is the key to learning. With the evolving Response to Intervention (RtI) process, special education and classroom teachers are scurrying to find appropriate resources to differentiate reading instruction. What these teachers are finding is that one-size-fits-all canned reading programs are not matching the needs of all of their students. Additionally, many intervention teachers are feeling that scripted programs are ignoring teacher experience, judgment, and expertise. What is needed are resources that will allow trained professionals to differentiate reading instruction within flexible learning structures. The three-tiered RtI model looks good on paper, but quality resources are essential in these delivery models.
Most special education and classroom teachers are quite prepared to teach the reading and writing content of their courses. Their undergraduate and graduate courses reflect this preparation. However, most are less prepared to teach reading intervention. Most credential programs require only one or two reading strategy courses. Expertise is critical because the research shows that only one-in-six students reading two or more grade levels behind by middle school will ever catch up to grade level reading.
Following are articles, free resources (including reading assessments), and teaching tips regarding how to teach remedial readers and reading intervention from the Pennington Publishing Blog. Bookmark and visit us often. Oh, and don’t forget to copy down the 10% discount code found only on this blog to purchase the quality curricula and resources offered by Pennington Publishing.
Reading Intervention
Free Whole Class Diagnostic ELA/Reading Assessments
http://penningtonpublishing.com/assessments.php
Download free phonemic awareness, vowel sound phonics, consonant sound phonics, sight word, rimes, sight syllables, fluency, grammar, mechanics, and spelling assessments. All with answers and recording matrices. A true gold mine for the teacher committed to differentiated instruction!
How to Teach Reading Intervention
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/how-to-teach-reading-intervention/
Teaching reading intervention is qualitatively different from teaching beginning reading. By definition, the initial reading instruction did not “take” to a sufficient degree, so things must be done differently this time around to improve chances for success. This article defines the key ingredients for a successful reading intervention program and provides an instructional template.
Remedial Reading Intervention Placement: What Does Not and What Does Make Sense
Placing students in remedial reading intervention classes is certainly a challenge. By understanding what does and does not make sense in the selection process, educators will be able to avoid many of the usual pitfalls of these types of programs and have a greater chance at success.
Secondary Reading Program Placement
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/secondary-reading-program-placement/
No matter which school-wide model of reading intervention is used at the middle or high school levels, the problem of proper reading placement is common to all. Here are some helpful suggestions as to how to place students in reading intervention classes. Placement and monitoring are the keys to successful Tier I, II, and III Response to Intervention.
The Problem with Dialectical Journals
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/the-problem-with-dialectical-journals/
Dialectical journals have been teacher favorites since literature-based reading pedagogy was popularized in the 1980s. However, this reader-centered instruction creates more problems than it solves. In lieu of dialectical journals, teachers should help students learn and apply the five types of independent reading strategies that promote internal monitoring of the text.
Community College Remedial Reading Costs
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/community-college-remedial-reading-costs/
Increased enrollment in our community colleges has created an economic double-whammy for both hard-pressed state budgets and for community colleges themselves. An increasingly key factor in this double-whammy has been the cost to remediate the skill set of these new students, especially in reading. Remediation, especially reading remediation, has always been a tough issue for state legislators and community colleges. Some have been reluctant to accept the reality that so many of our high school graduates or drop-outs still cannot read at the levels they need to function in society. Others recognize the problem, but play the blame game by pointing fingers at the failures of K-12 education. While the costs of providing remedial reading education are high to both state and community college budgets, the costs of not providing the resources are incalculable.
Top Ten Reasons to Teach Phonics
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/top-ten-reasons-to-teach-phonics/
Reading is not a developmentally acquired skill. In other words, children and adults do not learn to read by simply being read to or exposed to a literate environment. Learning the sound-spelling system and applying the alphabetic code is what we call phonics instruction. Acquiring this skill will allow readers to attend to the real purpose of reading—understanding what the author says.
Phonics Games
Plenty of phonics-based programs do a fine job of providing that systematic instruction. However, some do the basic job, but will bore both students and teachers to tears. Learning to read is hard work, but it should also be fun. These phonics flashcards, phonics games, and Mp3 phonics songs/raps work with any phonics-based program and are divided into Easy, Medium, and Difficult levels to allow teachers to effectively differentiate instruction.
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/phonics-games/
Should We Teach Phonics to Remedial Readers?
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/should-we-teach-phonics-to-remedial-readers/
Although most students learn to read in their early years of school, some students experience significant reading problems. Almost always, the cause is the same. Struggling readers have not learned the sound-spelling system we call phonics. With the right diagnostic assessments and instruction, remedial readers can make significant gains.
Good Reading Fluency, but Poor Reading Comprehension
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/why-vocabulary-word-lists-don%E2%80%99t-work/
Teachers and parents see it more and more: good reading fluency, but poor reading comprehension. Repeated reading practice to build fluency needs to be balanced with meaningful oral expression and internal self-monitoring comprehension strategies.
Teach Your Child to Read
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/teach-your-child-to-read/
One of the true joys and responsibilities of parenthood is teaching your child to read. But wait… isn’t that the teacher’s job? Of course it is, but the best approach is always an effective and complementary home-school partnership. Whether your child is in pre-school, kindergarten, or first grade he or she can and will learn to read with your help. As an MA Reading Specialist and educational author, I’ve done all of the “prep” work necessary for parents to hold up their end of the home-school partnership in these Teach Your Child to Read tools and resources. You don’t have to be a reading expert; you’ve got back-up 
Should We Teach Phonemic Awareness to Remedial Readers?
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/should-we-teach-phonemic-awareness-to-remedial-readers/
Phonemic awareness is the key predictor of reading success. Many students with reading problems have not acquired this ability. This article suggests that phonemic awareness should be taught, not just caught, and provides the how’s and when’s to inform remedial reading instruction.
How and When to Teach Phonemic Awareness
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/how-and-when-to-teach-phonemic-awareness/
Phonemic awareness is the key predictor of reading success. However, is it a pre-requisite skill or a by-product of reading? This article suggests that phonemic awareness should be taught, not caught, and provides the how’s and when’s to inform instruction.
How to Teach Sight Words
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/how-to-teach-sight-words/
Although not a substitute for systematic phonics instruction, memorizing key sight words does makes sense to promote reading automaticity. In fact, many of the high frequency words are not phonetically decodable and must be memorized as sight words. This article details who should learn sight words and how to best teach them.
How to Teach the Alphabet
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/how-to-teach-the-alphabet/
The alphabet is the key to reading. These twenty-six symbols combine to form a rich lexicon of 800,000 English words. The key to learning the alphabet has been the traditional “Alphabet Song.” However beneficial, this song has created significant problems for young readers and English-language learners. A few twists eliminates these issues.
How to Do Sound-by-Sound Spelling Blending
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/how-to-do-sound-by-sound-spelling-blending/
Help your students to read in the most efficient way possible. This article gives the reading teacher or parent the exact sequence of sounds to introduce to help students learn to read. A step-by-step blending model is demonstrated with clear examples.
Reading Intervention: How to Beat the Odds
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/reading-intervention-how-to-beat-the-odds/
To beat the odds indicating that only one-in-six remedial readers will ever “catch up” to grade level, we need to analyze what has not worked and what will work. As we move in the direction of affirming teacher professionalism with the evolving RtI process, we emphasize a collaborative approach to determine how to best meet student needs. Here’s hoping that we reduce the odds of failure and increase the odds of success.
Four Critical Components to Successful Reading Intervention
According to research, only one of six remedial reading students will ever progress to grade-level reading ability. However, the odds can increase dramatically when the critical components for a successful literacy intervention are addressed. How schools plan reading intervention programs is just as important as what program they use.
What Remedial Reading Teachers Want (A Manifesto)
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/what-remedial-reading-teachers-want-a-manifesto/
Remedial reading (reading intervention) teachers of upper elementary, middle school, high school, and adult students all share the same instructional goal: help their students become fluent readers who understand what they read. Teachers want to achieve this goal in the shortest amount of instructional time. A Remedial Reading Teacher’s Manifesto will help teachers teach students, as opposed to teaching a “canned program.”
Reading Readiness
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/reading-readiness/
The following big picture advice on getting students ready to read applies equally to teachers of four-year-olds, fourteen-year-olds, and forty-year-olds. Of course, there are differences that need to be considered for each age group. Preschool/kinder/first grade teachers, intermediate and middle school reading intervention (RtI) teachers, and adult education teachers know how to teach to their clients’ developmental learning characteristics. Similarly, English-language development teachers and special education teachers know their student populations and are adept at how to differentiate instruction accordingly. But, my point is that the what of reading readiness instruction is much the same across the age and experience spectrum.
How to Teach the Voiced and Unvoiced “th”
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/how-to-teach-the-voiced-and-unvoiced-th/
Teaching the voiced and unvoiced consonant digraphs in the context of beginning and remedial reading instruction can be tricky. Speech therapists and ESL teachers insist that the differences are critically important; reading specialists and special education teachers tend to ignore these as “distinctions without differences.” As a reading specialist, I usually stay on the practical “whatever works” side of the ledger. However, with respect to this one issue, I think my speech therapist and ESL friends have won me over. Without getting over-technical (Please… if I see one more diagram of the vocal cords or hear the word fricative, I will not be held responsible for my actions), here are a few instructional tools that will help us all teach the voiced and unvoiced “th” consonant digraph.
More Articles, Free Resources, and Teaching Tips from the Pennington Publishing Blog
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is the author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. Designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight through adult within one year, the curriculum is decidedly un-canned, adaptable to various instructional settings, and simple to use. Get multiple choice reading assessments on two CDs, formative assessments, blending and syllabication activities, phonemic awareness and phonics workshops, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages on eight CDs, 390 flashcards, posters, activities, and games. Everything teachers need to teach a diagnostically-based reading intervention program for struggling readers at all reading levels is found in this comprehensive curriculum. Perfect for Response to Intervention (RtI). ESL and Special Education students, who struggle with language/auditory processing challenges will particularly benefit. Simple directions and well-crafted activities truly make this an almost no-prep curriculum. Works well as a half-year intensive program or full-year program, with or without paraprofessional assistance. 364 pages
As the mandates of the Response to Intervention (RtI) process continue to transfer to public schools, special education and classroom teachers are hurrying to find appropriate resources to differentiate literacy instruction for their students. What these teachers find is that one-size-fits-all canned reading, writing, and math programs simply do not match the needs of all of their students. Additionally, many intervention teachers find that scripted programs tend to ignore teacher experience, judgment, and expertise. Instead, RtI teachers need the resources that will allow them to differentiate literacy instruction without becoming robots. The three-tiered RtI model looks good in the triangle diagram, but quality resources are essential to make these delivery models address the needs of their students.
Most special education and classroom teachers are very prepared to teach the reading and writing content of their courses. They know how to teach. Their undergraduate and graduate courses have adequately prepared them for these tasks. However, most teachers are less prepared to teach reading, writing, and math intervention classes. For example, most credential programs require only one or two reading strategy courses. So, choosing appropriate instructional resources that will facilitate differentiated instruction, according to diagnostic and formative data are critically important.
Following are articles, free resources (including reading assessments), and teaching tips regarding how to teach reading and writing intervention within the RtI process from the Pennington Publishing Blog. Bookmark and visit us often. Oh, and don’t forget to copy down the 10% discount code found only on this blog to purchase the quality curricula and resources offered by Pennington Publishing.
Response to Intervention
Free Whole Class Diagnostic ELA/Reading Assessments
http://penningtonpublishing.com/assessments.php
Download free phonemic awareness, vowel sound phonics, consonant sound phonics, sight word, rimes, sight syllables, fluency, grammar, mechanics, and spelling assessments. All with answers and recording matrices. A true gold mine for the teacher committed to differentiated instruction!
Word Families (Rimes) Activities
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/rimes-word-families-activities/
Learning the common word families (rimes) can help beginning or remedial readers recognize common chunks of letters within words. For example, if students learn to recognize the “ack” rime, they will be able to use that chunk to learn words with different single consonant onsets, to form “back,” “hack,” “jack,” “lack,” “rack,” “sack,” “tack,” as well as words with different consonant blend onsets, such as “black,” “crack,” and “stack.” Check out the most common rimes and some fun rimes activities to use at home or in the classroom.
Sight Word Activities
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/sight-word-activities/
Most every reading teacher places some value on sight words instruction; however, just what teachers mean by sight words varies more than the flavors at the local ice cream parlor. Reading specialists describe two methods of “word attack”: word identification and word recognition. Sight words are the word recognition side of the coin. These words break the law, that is they break the rules of the alphabet code and are non-phonetic. Words such as the and love are Outlaw Words because readers can’t sound them out. Unfortunately, many of our high frequency and high utility words happen to be non-decodable, so they need to be memorized. Here is a list of the essential Outlaw Words with some fun practice activities and an Outlaw Words reading fluency to assess mastery in the reading context.
Phonemic Awareness Activities
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/phonemic-awareness-activities/
Phonemic awareness is the basic understanding that spoken words are made up of individual speech sounds. We call these speech sounds phonemes. Both beginning and remedial readers may need to learn these phonemic awareness skills: rhyme, alphabet, syllable, phonemic isolation, blending, and segmenting. Check out the list of phonemes, six whole-class phonemic awareness assessments, and six corresponding activities to teach phonemic awareness in the home or in the classroom.
How to Teach Phonics
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/how-to-teach-phonics/
Teaching phonics is an essential ingredient to effective reading instruction. Learning the phonetic code teaches the beginning or remedial reader to make efficient and automatic judgments about how words are constructed. Mastery of the basic sound-spelling correspondences will also pay significant dividends once the student begins reading multisyllabic expository text. Check out the colorful Animal Sound-Spelling Cards, the Names, Sounds, and Spelling Rap (Mp3 file), the Consonant Blend Cards, whole-class phonemic awareness and phonics diagnostic assessments, the Sound by Sound Spelling Blending Instructional Sequence with accompanying teaching script, and some great phonics games ALL FREE in this article.
What Effective and Ineffective RtI Look Like
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/what-effective-and-ineffective-rti-look-like/
Response to Intervention (RtI) is a K-12 site-level decision-making process designed to facilitate and coordinate early and flexible responses to student’s learning and behavioral difficulties. RtI promotes data-based decision-making with respect to service placement and on-going progress monitoring. Following are a few indicators of what effective and ineffective RtI can look like.
Eight RtI-Reading Intervention Models
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/eight-rti-reading-intervention-models/
As administrators, special education teachers, EL coordinators, reading specialists, and teachers are scrambling to see how new Response to Intervention (RtI) guidelines will work with resources, personnel, schedules, and student populations, it may be helpful to examine eight of the many intervention models with proven track records. After all, why re-invent the wheel? Each of the following models is described and analyzed in pro-con format.
Response to Intervention: What Just Won’t Work
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/response-to-intervention-what-just-wont-work/
With the newly released RtI document and as states and districts scramble to conform to Race to the Top carrots and sticks, voices of experience need to begin shouting quickly and boldly to be heard. Although I commend the International Reading Association (IRA) for assigning reading assessment a prominent role in their Response to Intervention (RtI) document, the language of the document betrays certain pedagogical presuppositions and is, at points, flat unrealistic.
More Articles, Free Resources, and Teaching Tips from the Pennington Publishing Blog
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is the author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. Designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight through adult within one year, the curriculum is decidedly un-canned, adaptable to various instructional settings, and simple to use. Get multiple choice reading assessments on two CDs, formative assessments, blending and syllabication activities, phonemic awareness and phonics workshops, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages on eight CDs, 390 flashcards, posters, activities, and games. Everything teachers need to teach a diagnostically-based reading intervention program for struggling readers at all reading levels is found in this comprehensive curriculum. Perfect for Response to Intervention (RtI). ESL and Special Education students, who struggle with language/auditory processing challenges will particularly benefit. Simple directions and well-crafted activities truly make this an almost no-prep curriculum. Works well as a half-year intensive program or full-year program, with or without paraprofessional assistance. 364 pages
Overview
Response to Intervention (RtI) is a K-12 site-level decision-making process designed to facilitate and coordinate early and flexible responses to student’s learning and behavioral difficulties. RtI promotes data-based decision-making with respect to service placement and on-going progress monitoring. RtI was introduced as special education policy in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA 2004). It is the law of the land. However, how that law is implemented at school sites will differ widely. Following are a few indicators of what effective and ineffective RtI can look like.
What Effective RtI Looks Like
An RtI team meets regularly at a school site. Composed of resource specialists (special education, reading specialist, EL coordinator), teachers, counselors, psychologists, and administration, most teams designate (or hire at large schools) an RtI coordinator. Typical responsibilities include the following:
Gatekeeping/Decision-Making- The RtI team may review recommendations of Student Study Teams (SST), or replace the SST as program gatekeepers. The team attempts to reduce unnecessary referrals to special education by ensuring that all students in the general education setting have access to appropriate curriculum and instruction at their own levels of need.
Diagnostic Assessment- The RtI team approves appropriate academic and behavioral diagnostic assessments and develops a process for efficient implementation and evaluation of the diagnostic data.
Placement- The RtI team typically follows a three-tiered approach to service placement akin to the Pyramid Model (Fox, Dunlap, Hemmeter, Joseph, & Strain, 2003): Tier 3 includes students requiring intensive instruction; Tier 2 includes at-risk students requiring strategic small group instruction; Tier 1 includes students requiring differentiated instruction within the core class.
Progress Monitoring-RtI requires specific procedures for regular documentation of progress at each assigned level of placement. The RtI team approves appropriate formative assessments and develops a process for efficient implementation and evaluation of the formative data. The RtI team applies this data to adjust tiered placement of students and recommends specific interventions and/or instructional practices to service providers.
Instructional Materials-The RtI team recommends the purchase of instructional materials suitable to the three-tiered instructional design.
Instructional Coaching-The RtI team works with site and district administration to coordinate professional development to ensure that service providers are equipped to deliver the research-based interventions appropriate to student needs.
What Ineffective RtI Looks Like
RtI can certainly look like “the same old sow with new lipstick.” New terms can substitute for old ones and the process for delivering instructional and behavioral support to students can remain essentially the same. Following are a few pitfalls to avoid in developing the RtI process:
We’re Not on the Same Page-All team members need to be thoroughly acquainted with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA 2004) and related research.
Not Everyone Is Involved-RtI will fail if it is or is perceived as a “top-down” decision-making entity. Teachers are key to RtI success. Parent buy-in is essential.
Too Much Time and Overwhelming Paperwork-RtI needs to be efficient. Ironically, many of the old, inefficient means of individual diagnostic and formative assessments and record-keeping for progress-monitoring are promoted in much of the RtI literature. To secure long-lasting support, time and paperwork have to be minimized without sacrificing accuracy.
No Professional Development-Without the investment of quality site-based in-service training and support, the RtI process will be compromised.
No Budgetary Support-The three-tiered model requires purchase of instructional materials appropriate to each intervention. Resource specialists and teachers cannot be expected to re-invent the wheel or simply “water-down” the core instructional materials for service delivery.
Following are free diagnostic reading assessments, created by a team of reading specialists, that are user-friendly, simple to score and analyze, and designed to enable resource specialists and teachers of all levels of expertise to differentiate reading instruction: http://penningtonpublishing.com/assessments.php.
Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is the author of the comprehensive reading and spelling/vocabulary intervention programs: Teaching Reading Strategies and Teaching Spelling and Vocabulary.
Teaching Reading Strategies is designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight to adult within one year, the curriculum is decidedly un-canned, adaptable to various instructional settings, and simple to use. With multiple choice reading assessments on two CDs, formative assessments, blending and syllabication activities, phonemic awareness and phonics workshops, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages on eight CDs, 390 flashcards, posters, activities, and games (364 pages), even novice reading teachers and para-professionals will be able to use these user-friendly resources to effectively differentiate reading instruction with minimal preparation. Appropriate for all three tiers of RtI instruction.
Teaching Spelling and Vocabulary is designed to remediate the vowel sound-spelling patterns that correspond with the comprehensive whole-class TSV Spelling Assessment, while teaching the advanced spelling rules and systematic vocabulary. The program includes assessments and memorable songs/raps on two CDs, spelling tests, Greek and Latin affixes/roots worksheets, syllable practice, spelling games, vocabulary games, and more to differentiate spelling and vocabulary instruction, please check out Teaching Spelling and Vocabulary. Appropriate for all three tiers of RtI instruction.
 Teaching Reading Strategies |
 Teaching Essay Strategies |
 Teaching Grammar and Mechanics |
 Teaching Spelling and Vocabulary |