Class Action Research: Treatment for the Nonresponsive

Student

IL510

Kim Vivanco

July 15, 2009

kvivanco@jsu.edu

The Problem :• 68% of Coldwater Elementary School’s struggling second grade readers have

not responded to intervention

Table 1. Reading Connected Text (or Oral Reading Fluency) on DIBELSThe Last Four Years.

• 2005-2008 more than 50% of beginning of the year struggling students are still struggling after intervention

• 2008-2009 only 43% of struggling students responded to tier II intervention ( including core reading instruction)

Year Struggling Readers Benchmark 1

Struggling Readers Benchmark 2

Struggling Readers Benchmark 3

2005-2006 10 students4 students 7 students

2006-2007 14 students8 students 9 students

2007-2008 16 students12 students 12 students

2008-2009 7 students5 students 4 students

Statement of Hypothesis

First and second grade struggling readers who participate in any early prescriptive intervention delivered by a trained instructor in a small group setting will score higher than the mean of the average responsive intervention students on ORF.

Definitions

• Voyager’s Universal Literacy System – Core reading instruction that is delivered to Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade students at Coldwater Elementary

• Dynamic Indicators of Basic Learning Skills - A set of procedures and measures for assessing the early literacy skills from kindergarten through sixth grade. They are designed to be short (one minute) fluency measures used to regularly monitor the development of early literacy and early reading skills.

• Letter Naming Fluency - Assesses a student’s ability to rapidly name letters.

• Phonemic Segmentation Fluency – Assesses the student’s ability to produce the sounds in a given word.

• Initial Sound Fluency – Assess the student’s ability to identify and producing the first sound in a given word.

• Nonsense Word Fluency - Assesses a child's knowledge of letter-sound correspondences as well their ability to blend letters together to form unreal words.

• Oral Reading Fluency - Assesses a child's ability of reading connected text in grade-level materials.

• Struggling Readers – Are students that are identified as struggling by the DIBELS data report. They are not meeting grade level expectations.

Research – Strategies for improving achievement of the nonresponsive student

• Implementation of a multitier core reading program• Administration of a universal screening • Delivery of early intensive intervention• Establishing appropriate session times• Utilization of effective programs that meet the needs of the

student

Plan of Action

1. Train teachers on multisensory instruction

2. Identify nonresponsive students

3. Administer screeners

4. Determine the most appropriate interventions and settings

5. Schedule sessions

6. Monitor progress using DIBELS LNF and ORF

7. Review on going data to determine if the nonresponsive students are scoring higher than the mean ORF score of the responsive students