I am too old for this

[Dmmetler]

I am doing a class on early literacy development to renew my teaching license, and this week’s module is focused on RTI and why you shouldn’t label students as “struggling readers”. Some parts of intervention (more instruction, faster pace, focused on getting a child up to speed, good programs, etc) I agree with. But the “don’t label” is giving me fits. Because the kid who is struggling knows they are struggling. And while the teacher may not label the child, the kid will do so. Not to mention the sheer logistics impossibility of providing RTI focused to each child in class for 30 minutes 5x/week, without the child missing any whole class instruction.  Do they not realize that in the 90-120 minute block they are talking about, if whole class instruction is half the class, and each child who is behind needs 30 minutes 5 days a week, that 1-2 kids  (or small groups, if you actually have multiple kids who really need the same thing, which, if you are individualizing to the level expected, probably won’t be the case) per adult at most can be served? And that this is assuming that the other kids need nothing (which is hardly fair to them) and are able to be completely independent. Ask any homeschool mom how well that works....

Furthermore, almost all of my current caseload is homeschooled kids for whom RTI was a complete failure-many of whom had never actually been evaluated. Almost inevitably, they come out as needing auditory processing work or vision therapy, or both, sometimes even before they can be evaluated for other LD issues.  Even a really, really good 1-1 OG based phonics program won’t do much if the kid is seeing double or triple, or if they cannot hear the sounds. But by the time I get them, they are 3rd grade age or older, and are so demoralized by their failures that it is a real uphill climb. For 2e kids, it is even worse because often they are able to compensate well enough to fake it for several years, and don’t even get the RTI. When they start to fail, they crumble. It’s devastating. 

How the heck am I supposed to write about how I will use the intervention process to benefit my students when my experience is that it is a roaring failure and that if anything, we need to screen kids more and earlier, not later, plus use a better program to teach phonics in general? At 20, I could do it. At 47, I’m left wondering what planet the instructor flew in from. (I know what planet the researchers flew in from-it’s the planet of lab schools where you have about one adult per kid and the adults are paying you to work because it’s part of getting college credit).  Arrgh!!!

Edited July 1, 2019 by Dmmetler2

[Terabith]

That drove me crazy student teaching.  There really was this expectation that we would provide one on one tutoring five times a week for thirty minutes for each kid without anyone missing any instruction.  It was completely impossible, and the vast majority of the first grade day was spent on busy work to try to accommodate a fraction of that.  

[Lecka]

I totally get you, but I think a lot of kids do succeed with the amount they get with RTI 1/2.  Into RTI 3 (iirc) they are not expected to just be having extra on top of classroom instruction (and not missing any classroom instruction).

Very frustrating to me as my oldest kept getting reshuffled into a new lowest group in both speech and reading!

But I saw it work for a lot of kids.  

I would have a hard time with this too, especially with your tutoring experience.  

Edit: it ended up working out for my oldest to be referred to a sliding-scale speech clinic (that was covered by our insurance) and me to work with him on reading. 

I definitely don’t know what would have happened if I couldn’t have transported him, we had different insurance, I couldn’t work with him, etc.

But I definitely saw a lot of kids make great progress and pass my son by with school RTI.

They had one thing where the bottom 3 kids would see the reading specialist and other kids would rotate out.... and then my son did rotate, out too!  But I was working with him a lot and taking him to speech therapy, too.  

It is pretty depressing to think about kids where it does not work out.  But at that school (we have since moved) i was worried about one kid and then he qualified for intensive tutoring between 3rd and 4th grade and I think he made a lot of improvement then (finally). 

Edited July 1, 2019 by Lecka

[Guest]

Most of what is labeled Tier 1 is just good teaching. Tier 2 is where it starts getting into expecting teachers to give extra instruction, and usually ends up being not that individualized.  It can work. I do think RTI has at least brought explicit phonics back into schools. And I know I’m seeing a biased sample because I am mostly seeing kids who had parents who got frustrated enough to walk away-some managed to stay long enough to get an evaluation that qualifies their child for the special ed IEA (which requires that a child have been on an IEP and in PS at least a year here), some just gave up because their child’s needs were not being met. And before that, I taught in a focused literacy school which essentially did provide Tier 2 to everyone-but had a lot of extra staffing to do so-and over half of our kids still ended up needing IEPs and something more-to the point that we had a lab just for FastForWord and similar programs. 

But it’s just so frustrating to see more and more heaped on classroom teachers when, probably, what the child needs is some form of specialized therapy.  And at least in this group, which is supposed to be all teachers with at least a year of K-2 classroom experience, the only ones questioning anything are the special ed folks. 

[Lecka]

I think part of it was that at the school we were at, many kids were reading early and then the teachers could have them do decent independent work and still have time to spend with the lower kids.

My daughter has been one to do more independent work while the teacher spends more time with other groups, and I think it has worked out well for her.  

But she has gotten enough attention, still.  

I think with very many kids needing extra help, it would have to break down, because there is only so much time to spend, and other kids in the class.  

My oldest was pulled out to see the reading specialist in K and 1st with RTI, but I thought RTI 2.  Maybe it was 3.  I don’t know.  

Whatever it was, they would re-configure groups and he would still be in the group while other kids weren’t anymore, and I thought it was a bad sign for him.  

It’s hard to know.

[Terabith]

Even two kids needing 30 minutes of one on one a day leaves everyone else in the class doing independent work for an hour.  That's doable, but a definite sizeable chunk of the instructional day (especially in K-2 when kids don't really do independent work well), and any more than two kids is completely unworkable.  

Edited July 1, 2019 by Terabith

[PeterPan]

You could go over to SPELL Talk and see them rant about RTI. 

And yes given that the ADA wants them identified before first the whole thing is hogwash.

[Lecka]

I think they put the 1:1 onto aides taking kids into desks or tables in the hallway, and teachers had small groups.

Whatever we had — I definitely didn’t think it was enough for my son.  

I just know it was working for kids who really did just need a little extra help.

But there is a huge difference between needing a little extra help, and needing a lot of help.

Actually it’s hard for me to believe that any child in any of my kids’ classrooms have ever gotten 30 minutes of 1:1 from a classroom teacher.  I doubt it was ever happening from anything I knew about their classroom set-ups.  

It really would be a lot.  

[Lecka]

Where we live now I think they have a period where they pull kids but they are not missing reading or math instruction, and they have a lower ratio, but it is outside the classroom and not with the classroom teacher. 

I think they are missing stuff like social studies...... sigh.....

[Guest]

According to the studies, that model is less effective....sigh... 

The fact is, I can believe that 30 minutes a day of 1-1 with people who know what they are doing makes a big difference for a lot of kids. That’s essentially what I do when tutoring (but after we know what the child actually needs)-I provide intensive instruction and modeling so the parent can continue at home between sessions, which would then be 1-1 as well. And yes, it works. What I cannot believe is the idea that somehow, this can be provided for every kid who needs it during the language arts block without missing any whole class instruction by a classroom teacher, or even a classroom teacher and a paraprofessional. And coupled with the “don’t label them” it all comes off as an excuse to avoid actually evaluating and giving appropriate services. 

[Kanin]

1 hour ago, dmmetler said:

The fact is, I can believe that 30 minutes a day of 1-1 with people who know what they are doing makes a big difference for a lot of kids. That’s essentially what I do when tutoring (but after we know what the child actually needs)-I provide intensive instruction and modeling so the parent can continue at home between sessions, which would then be 1-1 as well. And yes, it works. What I cannot believe is the idea that somehow, this can be provided for every kid who needs it during the language arts block without missing any whole class instruction by a classroom teacher, or even a classroom teacher and a paraprofessional. And coupled with the “don’t label them” it all comes off as an excuse to avoid actually evaluating and giving appropriate services. 

I'm too old for this, too. I agree that 30 minutes a day can be really effective, if the teacher is really good. But, like you said, if the expectation is that the kid will get 30 minutes a day of intervention and not miss any class, well, that's just crazy talk. 

At my school, there is starting to be a push for more inclusion in RTI and special ed. Which I am all for! For specific kids. In reality, though, it's so complicated to include struggling kids in class at all times, and it's stressful for the kids, too. For a 4th grader needing reading intervention at a 1st grade level, heck no, inclusion is not appropriate. With "pull out" services, it's also hopeless to take a kid out of, say, math class for 30 minutes of a 60 minute period, and then plop them back into class for the 2nd half. They're totally lost and the whole enterprise is useless.

There seems to be an inclination from administrators, and maybe even classroom teachers, to downplay the necessity of phonics instruction (and the amount of TIME it takes). Let's say a kid needs 45 minutes of solid phonics instruction per day, minimum. They're going to miss their regular reading class completely. That's fine with me, but for some people, it's a problem. There is just no conceivable way that a student can get 45 minutes of phonics instruction per day AND keep up with the regular classwork. They just can't.

I think we need a fundamental reimagining of the structure of school. I don't know what an ideal structure would be, but there has GOT to be a better way!

Edited July 1, 2019 by Mainer

[Kanin]

Just now, Mainer said:

And coupled with the “don’t label them” it all comes off as an excuse to avoid actually evaluating and giving appropriate services. 

I really want to know how many of the RTI kids in my school are actually dyslexic. I think a LOT of them are. Trouble is, if a kid is not absolutely failing in class, on standardized tests, etc., they won't get referred, they'll just stay in RTI indefinitely. Plenty of dyslexic kids have really great reading comprehension and vocabulary, so they can score well on multiple-choice tests, and that, coupled with good behavior and participation in class, makes it seem like there's not much of an issue.

That is... until 5th or 6th grade, when compensating no longer works. It's SO frustrating. 

Oh, and don't get me started about the effectiveness of RTI (in reading, anyway). I think it can vary from excellent to sub par, depending on the person delivering instruction, the curriculum they use, how well matched the curriculum is to the student, etc. 

 

[Kanin]

2 hours ago, dmmetler said:

But it’s just so frustrating to see more and more heaped on classroom teachers when, probably, what the child needs is some form of specialized therapy.

I cringe when I see what classroom teachers have to do. It is TOO MUCH! At a certain point, won't teachers rebel, or keel over from stress? The primary teachers at my school get to their classrooms at 6:15 each morning, and go in all day on Saturdays 😞 

[Lecka]

I promise you there are parents who are totally unwilling to let their kids fall behind, and have heard nightmare horror stories about the kids who are in any kind of pull-out and very concerned their kid not be put in with those kids.  

My younger son is not in any inclusion anymore, but he could be if I wanted him to be.  Never mind I know his listening comprehension and background knowledge are totally, totally not there.  Totally, totally, totally not there.  

I could have him in inclusion classes with an aide to “help” him aka (probably) prompt him through every single thing he did all day.  

[Crimson Wife]

1 hour ago, dmmetler said:

 And coupled with the “don’t label them” it all comes off as an excuse to avoid actually evaluating and giving appropriate services. 

Bingo.

I took a class entitled "Assessment of Deaf Students with Disabilities" through Gallaudet that was actually just a regular SPED assessment class (I'm totally ticked off about the mislabeling because I could've gotten a regular SPED course for cheaper elsewhere but too late now). The textbook and professor said that under RTI only 1-3% of students should be in SPED. Well, we know that 20% have a learning disability so that's leaving a whole lot of kids not getting appropriate intervention. Now granted not every kid with an LD is going to need SPED services but it's definitely well above 3%.

[Heathermomster]

My son was pulled out of class starting in 2nd grade, three times per week at 45 minutes per session.  He missed either recess or PE.   His classroom never paused for him or the other 3 students in pullout.  We started deliberately using audio books at home by 3rd grade.  By 3rd grade, he worked with the Wilson tutor 2 times per week at 45 min per session.  One day per week he stayed after school so pick up was 30 min after the school let out.  He sat though all the normal classes.  I guess I don’t understand why the school is making things so difficult.  Identify the need early, hire the staff to perform the tutoring, and send the student back to class with accommodations.  By the time DS was 4th grade, he did not read like a 1st grader.  By 5th grade, he was reading ahead.  Comprehension and content areas were always ahead, except grammar mechanics, spelling, and math.

[Terabith]

 

2 hours ago, Heathermomster said:

My son was pulled out of class starting in 2nd grade, three times per week at 45 minutes per session.  He missed either recess or PE.   His classroom never paused for him or the other 3 students in pullout.  We started deliberately using audio books at home by 3rd grade.  By 3rd grade, he worked with the Wilson tutor 2 times per week at 45 min per session.  One day per week he stayed after school so pick up was 30 min after the school let out.  He sat though all the normal classes.  I guess I don’t understand why the school is making things so difficult.  Identify the need early, hire the staff to perform the tutoring, and send the student back to class with accommodations.  By the time DS was 4th grade, he did not read like a 1st grader.  By 5th grade, he was reading ahead.  Comprehension and content areas were always ahead, except grammar mechanics, spelling, and math.

But it's not really fair to ask kids to give up recess or pe, and for a lot of kids, missing the opportunities for social stuff and physical activity will make it impossible for them to concentrate the rest of the day.  Staff won't allow services to be done before or after school, because they would have to pay staff to work outside contracted times.  It's genuinely impossible.  

Now, I think a LOT of problems could be prevented if you use an OG based program with all kids to teach phonics at the beginning.  Good, solid instruction in the classroom will go a long way towards preventing a lot of kids needing RTI.  But it certainly won't prevent all of them.  The logical, rational time to pull kids for reading assistance is during reading instruction.  Same for math.  But....nobody will do that, either.  I don't know what the answer is.

[Heathermomster]

DS had multiple times through the day and week to socialize at school.

SPIRE is a reading program public schools could be using.  Slingerland is also an OG program that could be taught to multiple students.

Edited July 2, 2019 by Heathermomster

[Terabith]

51 minutes ago, Heathermomster said:

DS had multiple times through the day and week to socialize at school.

SPIRE is a reading program public schools could be using.  Slingerland is also an OG program that could be taught to multiple students.

When I was student teaching in first grade, our kids got one fifteen minute recess a day.  They got pe for 30 minutes every sixth day, in a rotation with art, music, library, etc.  Lunch was often silent.  There was no other time for socializing built into the day.  Sometimes the teacher would allow the kids to do some moving/ dancing during math songs.  Sometimes.  Lots of kids got yelled at for wiggling or not sitting still or talking to their neighbors.  They were expected to write pages and pages every day and every sheet of paper had to be colored.  It was fine motor hell.  Tons of writing expectations but no handwriting instruction was given.  Most of our kids held pencils in fists.  No phonics instruction.  It was appalling and abusive and completely developmentally inappropriate.  

[Terabith]

Also, during that one 15 minute recess, they weren't allowed to use any spinning equipment, play tag, touch one another, do cartwheels or handstands, use the swings, or roll down hills.  They were frequently told not to run.  

[Heathermomster]

4 hours ago, Terabith said:

When I was student teaching in first grade, our kids got one fifteen minute recess a day.  They got pe for 30 minutes every sixth day, in a rotation with art, music, library, etc.  Lunch was often silent.  There was no other time for socializing built into the day.  Sometimes the teacher would allow the kids to do some moving/ dancing during math songs.  Sometimes.  Lots of kids got yelled at for wiggling or not sitting still or talking to their neighbors.  They were expected to write pages and pages every day and every sheet of paper had to be colored.  It was fine motor hell.  Tons of writing expectations but no handwriting instruction was given.  Most of our kids held pencils in fists.  No phonics instruction.  It was appalling and abusive and completely developmentally inappropriate.  

DS was at a private school, so his experience was vastly different.  

I wasn’t always thrilled with son’s private school; however, they allowed recess and PE, retained OG tutors, and taught music and art.  Standardized testing started in 3rd grade; however, test scores were not a motivator and did not dominate the academic calendar because the school did not receive any State or Federal monies. Teachers could be fired with cause and were not protected by a union.  Most of the current Kindie and 1st grade teachers are OG trained and use that expertise in the classroom.

[Runningmom80]

This is pretty much word for word our experience with DD. She is bright and can compensate so qualified for nothing. (Until the work gets too hard to compensate, and her grades slip, then they’ll talk to me again.) 

i just did Wilson intro training and the room was mostly full of SPED/intervention specialists.

The stories they told were infuriating. 

 

 My DD would be devastated to miss recess or gym at all, even once and that’s not hyperbole.  The whole reason I put her in school was to be with friends because she’s an extrovert to the max.  It’s a mute point because it will be a cold day in you know where before the public school system does anything at all to help her. They won’t even acknowledge an official diagnosis because like Dmmetler and Crimson said, they don’t want to have to give real intervention. As soon as they make it official with a label they have to offer services. As someone at the training said, we’re over taxed and under resourced. 

[Heathermomster]

13 hours ago, Terabith said:

 

But it's not really fair to ask kids to give up recess or pe, and for a lot of kids, missing the opportunities for social stuff and physical activity will make it impossible for them to concentrate the rest of the day.  Staff won't allow services to be done before or after school, because they would have to pay staff to work outside contracted times.  It's genuinely impossible.  

Now, I think a LOT of problems could be prevented if you use an OG based program with all kids to teach phonics at the beginning.  Good, solid instruction in the classroom will go a long way towards preventing a lot of kids needing RTI.  But it certainly won't prevent all of them.  The logical, rational time to pull kids for reading assistance is during reading instruction.  Same for math.  But....nobody will do that, either.  I don't know what the answer is.

The idea of the district not contracting out OG tutors for specific school hours and purpose is utter nonsense and sounds like teacher union games.  

[Terabith]

That would require the district to believe in OG.  Or any phonics instruction.  Ours is very into sight words and guessing.  

[kbutton]

15 hours ago, Terabith said:

Now, I think a LOT of problems could be prevented if you use an OG based program with all kids to teach phonics at the beginning.  Good, solid instruction in the classroom will go a long way towards preventing a lot of kids needing RTI.  But it certainly won't prevent all of them.  The logical, rational time to pull kids for reading assistance is during reading instruction.  Same for math.  But....nobody will do that, either.  I don't know what the answer is.

I think there were some threads a few weeks ago about states where parents are suing for universal phonics instruction and getting it. Interviews with school personnel included phrases like, "When we know better, we do better." I think part of the knowing better is fixing it when classes like this make it seem so cut and dry.

On a personal note having learned with phonics and then having had a kid in school K-2 where they taught phonics (private school, so somewhat skewed in both the "not much special ed" and selection bias), teaching phonics across the board (even non-OG phonics) seems to help a great deal. Both my experience with school phonics and my older son's is with A Beka phonics, and they have their own terms for things (special sounds, etc.), but it's pretty thorough, and you get direct instruction through 3rd grade. Kids are reading, for real, without guessing by the end of K. I knew as a kid that even the poor readers in my school (probably dyslexic, definitely ADHD issues) were at least the equivalent of average readers in public school of the same age, and that didn't change until later elementary. Then it evened out a bit, but not all the way.

23 hours ago, dmmetler said:

Furthermore, almost all of my current caseload is homeschooled kids for whom RTI was a complete failure-many of whom had never actually been evaluated. Almost inevitably, they come out as needing auditory processing work or vision therapy, or both, sometimes even before they can be evaluated for other LD issues.  Even a really, really good 1-1 OG based phonics program won’t do much if the kid is seeing double or triple, or if they cannot hear the sounds. 

How the heck am I supposed to write about how I will use the intervention process to benefit my students when my experience is that it is a roaring failure and that if anything, we need to screen kids more and earlier, not later, plus use a better program to teach phonics in general? At 20, I could do it. At 47, I’m left wondering what planet the instructor flew in from. (I know what planet the researchers flew in from-it’s the planet of lab schools where you have about one adult per kid and the adults are paying you to work because it’s part of getting college credit).  Arrgh!!!

Even with thorough evals, the public schools can't completely fix or catch the vision problems, but some schools are starting to use FastForward and other programs with the preschool and K crowd. Our district's early childhood building does. 

The evaluation thing could get better--letting parents know their rights through Child Find would help. 

I wonder if you can using something data driven to argue for being an advocate within the process--how you will empower parents to know when RTI is working, when I child needs evals, etc., and somehow weave that into your writing. I am not sure if you are writing a general response paper, or if this is supposed to be a big research paper. At least with a research paper, you could get data on your side.

With both educational issues and medical issues, I am strongly in favor of continuing ed credits (not sure if yours is continuing or a regular class) being focused on actual interaction with (or in lieu of that, intense video footage and interviews) populations of both people being helped by best practices and people being failed by bureaucracy. With school issues, it's harder due to privacy. With medical stuff, there are oodles of conferences that could be turned into a kind of CME--advocate groups often bring in cutting edge research. I think, for instance, every cardiologist should be required to interact with and attend things put on by The Ritter Foundation or The Marfan Foundation. Some of these advocate groups do a great job of pointing out that while their issues may be rare (sometimes they are not--they are simply THOUGHT to be rare), often the signs and symptoms are obvious and referral easy.

Anyway, I think the educational system and medical system both tend to be parallel in how they perpetuate myths and educate their practitioners as a whole, with both groups having some really stellar practices and ideas and both groups having lots of ostriches with heads in the sand.

[Guest]

I taught at a school where all the teachers were Slingerland trained in K-3, and we still didn’t have the resources to provide 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week of 1-1 intervention to the kids for whom classroom instruction wasn’t enough. And if anything, the teacher’s union was fighting to get the specialist teachers and paraprofessionals, not to push more onto them. 

[Guest]

This is a class for either continuing ed (license renewal) or graduate credit (license advancement), and is supposed to be focused on current best practices, classroom analysis, the research, etc. Which is why it is so frustrating to see research based stuff (like sequential, explicit phonics coupled with exposure and vocabulary building is a good thing, or 30 minutes of 1-1 instruction focused on a child’s needs, 5 days a week can have lasting effects) coupled with the “so, how are you as a classroom teacher going to do this all yourself”.  We’ve hit this with other topics, too, but this one is especially frustrating because it is so blatantly impossible to do without commitment of financial resources to actually get the good programs, train teachers in them, and get enough extra bodies who have said training to provide the intervention needed. Maybe, hopefully  eventually fewer bodies would be needed and the cost would come down, but for now, I’m not exaggerating when I say that we would need almost as many intervention specialists as classroom teachers to provide 30 minutes a day of 1-1 for each child who is behind enough on reading to qualify for RTI, since a single specialist could only see about 10 kids a week at that level of intensity, and in a classroom of 30, there are probably 6-7 who qualify. 

 

I see a skewed picture because I went from spending my career in urban public schools to working at the college level in the lab setting doing the research to private intervention. But from what I hear, even the “nice, suburban schools” most of my homeschooled tutoring kids came from (and most of my gym tutoring kids attend) aren’t much better. There is a world of difference between the research setting and the public classroom one.

[Heathermomster]

So what are you going to do?

[Guest]

I think I'm going to respond with the positives (that the research backs up sequential, OG based phonics both as a general instruction method and as a RTI Tier 1 intervention as a whole-class activity and the value of intensive, daily intervention while still being fully involved in whole class activities, but express doubts with the implementation of 30 minutes, 5 days a week within the regular classroom, due to limited resources and time.

I'm also going to look for research on the value of early identification and suggest that intervention that is backed by evaluation and appropriate identification is a more appropriate model because the extra knowledge will make it possible for interventions to be more targeted, and also unlock funding specific to the child's needs should the child actually qualify for special education services, or for ELL support. That it doesn't make sense in K-3 to expect teachers to provide both intervention for children who are within the range of neurotypical development, but may not be quite where the standards expect them to be, and also for children who are not neurotypical and can reach their best potential via interventions targeted to their developmental needs when we have the tools at our disposal to identify children who would benefit from said services before they have years of failure and are that much farther behind their peers.

 

Basically, try to put it into edu-speak. Realistically, it doesn't matter what I say. An instructor for a continuing ed/grad level class isn't going to be making educational policy. And I suspect as long as I show that I know the content and put in enough citations, I should get a passing grade on the assignment.

 

 

[Kanin]

7 hours ago, dmmetler said:

30 minutes of 1-1 instruction focused on a child’s needs, 5 days a week can have lasting effects

If you have a specific paper that has this as a result, could you sent it to me? It would be helpful to show to my admins. 

Today, I actually got permission to have a 2-kid group for 1 hour each and every day for phonics and writing, and whatever else they need. It feels like a goldmine of time.