What will my child be missing when receiving a Tier II intervention?
Tier II reading intervention is usually scheduled during the grade level's 30-minute Tier Time block. During grade level Tier Time, students remaining in the classroom are completing independent literacy practice work. Your child will not miss any whole-class literacy lessons during intervention time. Your child will have independent practice time in the classroom prior to or after the Tier II intervention.
An additional 20-30 minute intervention block is provided for students in need of intensive reading support. This is called Tier III and is in addition to a child receiving Tier II intervention. You will be notified if your child is in need of this more intensive reading support.
How was my child chosen to receive reading intervention services?
All students are assessed using DIBELS, which stands for Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills. This assessment contains various tests that are given for one minute each, and check students' proficiency in different areas of reading. In addition, students are administered an individual diagnostic reading assessment called, Benchmark Assessment System. This assessment is administered to each child in grades K-4 at least two times per year. If a child’s performance on these two assessments indicates a possible risk for difficulty in some area of reading, further assessments are given. Our building reading and intervention specialists along with the regular classroom teacher, review the data to determine if Tier II intervention is needed.
The reading or intervention specialist assesses new students after they have been in the school for a short time. We allow a short period for the child to become acclimated in the new school setting prior to assessing them.
What will my child be doing during reading intervention?
Your child will work in a small group setting with other students having similar needs in reading development. Group sizes range in number from 3-6. Depending upon your child’s assessment data, he/she will be assigned to work with either the building reading specialist, intervention specialist, or one of our highly qualified reading aides. Regardless of whom your child is assigned, all intervention programming is research-based and is tailored to meet each student's specific needs. These programs focus on reading fluency, comprehension, phonics, phonemic awareness, and vocabulary development.
How is my child’s progress monitored while receiving intervention?
Student progress is measured regularly throughout the school year. The DIBELS Benchmark testing is done with all students three times a year - early in the school year, at the middle of the school year, and at the end of the school year. Progress monitoring is also done every two to three weeks with students receiving reading support.
How can my child exit from reading intervention?
Throughout the year, our reading and intervention specialists collaborate with your child’s regular classroom teacher. This is to coordinate both the classroom teacher and interventionist’s areas of focus when working with your child both in the regular classroom and during the intervention block. If, over time, a student demonstrates growth that indicates the ability to perform satisfactorily for the grade level the teachers will meet to plan the child’s exit from Tier II intervention. You will be contacted if your child is exited from reading support.
How can I help support my child’s reading growth?
Read every day with your child. Even as your children get older, continue reading aloud to them. Reading aloud to your child is one of the most important things you can do with him or her to help support and learn new vocabulary, hear fluent reading, and instill the joy of reading to learn about the world. As your child becomes more proficient in reading, you should still read aloud, but you can also have him or her read to you. If your child is reluctant to read to you, ask him or her to read a paragraph or page silently and then try reading it aloud. Provide your child with practical opportunities to practice reading. Some examples are reading directions for a game, reading a recipe in a kid's cookbook, and reading a restaurant menu. Find a series that is interesting to your child (see our Language Arts web page). Series books are wonderful because the characters are already familiar to your child.
More more great ideas on how to support your child's reading growth, check our English Language Arts webpage.