Analyzing Your RtI: Research Based Interventions

After realizing our RtI model wasn't really working for us or our students, the teachers in my building decided to analyze the different components of our RtI model.  This blog series will go in depth with how we scrutinized each of the following parts of the model:
An overview
High Quality Instruction
Universal Screening
Research Based Interventions
Continuous Progress Monitoring
Fidelity
RtI meetings
Professional Development

 In the previous post, I described our assessment flow charts that help us to "nail" down the skills that each student needs to begin working on.  For some it may be phonological awareness, while another group of students need an intervention for fluency, and others may need a more comprehensive program like LLI.

But then what?  And who does them?  And how do you fit them all in the schedule?

Well...this is also going to vary greatly from school to school because we all have different resources, different constraints, a varying amount of support, and unique populations of students.   But I want to share with you what we did in the hopes that it can help you along your journey.

First things first...we had to figure out what we even had available to us.  We were looking for interventions that were research based, could be completed with fidelity, had a script or at least a very clear sequence.  When we sat down and really looked at all of our resources, this is what we discovered:

This list will certainly grow and change as we grow with our RtI model.  But it was and is a place for us start.

Some of our interventions are actual programs that are sequential and include all that we need.  These include PALS, LLI, Orton Gillingham, and Do the Math. But there were some gaps that needed to be filled and the Florida Center for Reading Research and Intervention Central are great resources to help fill the gaps!

Florida Center for Reading Research has some great hands on activities that lend themselves well to being used as a phonological awareness intervention.  To fit our needs, I typed them up.  Here is one example:

All of these interventions were put into a binder with tabs to separate the different components of phonological awareness.  Then we put all the materials needed to do any of the interventions in a bin and labeled them by the intervention number.

Intervention Central has some research based interventions for fluency and sight words that we found worked well for our students.  So I printed them off and also placed them in a binder so that they could be easily accessible to anyone conducting that intervention. 

As we continue on our journey through RtI, we will continue to evaluate how our interventions are working for our students.  Some guiding questions for us include: Are there any gaps that we are not filling?  Are the interventions that we are using providing the support needed for each individual?  Are there interventions that are not proving to have solid and productive results?

LLI will be a new intervention piece for us this year and I am super excited to use it!

The next piece to our RtI model...progress monitoring.

Em

Whole Lot of Research Going on.... Part 2 and a Freebie!

Life... it's a funny thing.  It tends to get in the way a tad.  So this post is a long time coming, but I did rotate the pictures so you can see some of our writing. 

I left you with a few pictures of the jeeps and what our hallway looked like.  In part two I'm going to talk to you about the writing.  I'm blessed to only teach writing to our bright-eyed little firsties.  Each class is 70 minutes long so we spend a lot of time in writers workshop, which I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE! We get to conference with lots of children throughout the process which leads to great conversations about being authors. We think informative writing is so much easier for our firsties to write because it's just facts.  No opinions, no story, just stating the facts.  And state the facts they did. 

Em and I have had long conversations about final copies of writing pieces. Do your firsties like to "publish" their pieces?  Our firsties LOVE writing their pieces, but rewriting them....notsomuch.  The time has been put in and they are not willing to redo what has been done.  So for this writing piece, students wrote/drew pictures/revised, edited and then we typed them up.  After that students only had to cut and paste their words onto blank white pages.  I liked doing it this way because it gave them the power to choose where their words would go and what the book would look like.  Once the words were in place, the illustrating began!  Here are a few books. WARNING... there are a lot of pictures, but I wanted to show you the differences in our writers. The first book was one of my favs because he wrote about Salmon. What firstie chooses Salmon to write about???!!!??? This friend.  :)  His lead and fun fact are fantastic! 

Here's a few of our writing pieces.  :)  Students had to write five chapters along with a lead and provide closure.  Let me know what you think!

LOVE this Cover!

                                                                                        Oops.. forgot to turn.

                                                                               another one..:(

For sticking with me, here's your freebie!  The chart we use to collect our data. : )

A Whole Lot of Research Going On

Friends, prior to spring break we were KNEE DEEP in research and informational writing.  There is something to love about informational writing.  It's so...... factual.  hehehe  I think I say this about every writing unit when we finish, "It's my favorite."  So why change it now, this one is "My favorite!"  :)

Em collected books from our bookroom, I raided my daughter's books, and here's what my classroom bookshelves looked like when we started.

 

We spent  time as a class researching sharks.  We tried to find what they looked like, where they lived, what they ate, and how they moved.  This was in support of what our firsties would later research. 

We also transformed our hallway into a "jungle"  (thanks to our student aide and Em) that would later be the entrance to our Safari Walk.  *SQUEAL*  You're going to love it, just hold your horses.  :)  Our firsties absolutely love, love, LOVED our Safari Walk.  Here's the hallway..

 

Lots of excitement was in the air which made writing so easy.  We browsed the books, listed our top three choices

















and then the magic book fairy (Em) matched each student with a book at their level.




















 Next, we tabbed our info with tabs that corresponded to the colors of our chart.  Here's what the chart looked like.  This chart was inspired by a presentation we heard at Reading Recovery last year. 

 Once all the information had been tabbed, students then had to go back and transfer that information onto the organizer in "note form".  They willingly did this after I told them they were like HIGH school and COLLEGE kids.  :)  After the transfer was complete the writing began and all I can say is WOW.  Like fifty shades of WOW and I know we've done shades of meaning, but like  Fancy Nancy says, sometimes... there isn't a fancier way of saying it, so WOW it is! :)  Apparently, some (well most) of my pictures need to be rotated so I'll have to do a Part 2 post. 

I'll leave you with a few pictures of our Safari Walk.  We made Safari Hats from paper plates and bowls which was of course inspired by Pinterest.  CLICK HERE to see.  :)  Our classroom desks turned into four person Jeeps.  Again, we were inspired by Pinterest.  CLICK HERE to see this one.

 

I'll be back with more later.  I hear a crying  babe upstairs, so I'm off to my "other job".  :)

Three cheers for research!