Response to Intervention InstituteThe Ohio State University

October 16th, 2007

Emily Rodgersrodgers.42@osu.edu

Reading Recovery and

Response to Intervention

Clay, 1979 Reading the Patterning of Complex Behavior

• “Some children, who have responded well to their opportunities in the pre-school years are nonetheless slow to profit from the school programme.”

• “If all goes well, the teacher establishes a good relationship with the slow learner and he begins to respond to some of the early reading tasks.”

• “The teacher’s task during that first year is to get the slow child responsive to instruction…”

p.43

In Introduction to Response to Intervention: What, why, and how valid is it? Fuchs and Fuchs describe an approach to RTI.

Fuchs and Fuchs, 2006. Reading Research Quarterly

• Implementation usually involves a trial of fixed duration delivered in small groups or individually.

• If students respond to the treatment trial, they are seen as remediated and disability-free and returned to the classroom for instruction.

• If they are unresponsive they move to a more intensive Tier 2 standard treatment protocol.

• If they show insufficient progress at Tier 2, a disability is suspected and further evaluation is warranted.

Fuchs and Fuchs refer to Vellutino et al.’s research as an example of an RTI.

• Cognitive Profiles of Difficult-to-Remediate and Readily Remediated Poor Readers: Early Intervention as a Vehicle for Distinguishing Between Cognitive and Experiential Deficits as Basic Causes of Specific Reading Disability

Frank R. Vellutino et al. 1996

Learning to be learning disabled.

Clay, M.M. (1987)

Vellutino cites Clay eight times in his article.

• The first is that this approach does not necessarily screen out children whose reading difficulties might be caused primarily by inadequate schooling or limited exposure to reading readiness activities. This point is well articulated in a penetrating article by Clay (1987), who argued forcefully that the failure to control for the child's educational history is the major impediment to differential diagnosis of reading disability.

p.601

Clay's (1987) concerns are given a good deal of credibility by intervention studies that have shown that most impaired readers can acquire at least grade-level reading skills if they receive early and labor-intensive intervention to correct their reading deficiencies (Clay, 1985; Iversen & Tunmer, 1993; Pinnell, 1989; Wasik & Slavin, 1993).

Vellutino et al. 1996 p. 602

These results, like those obtained in the previous intervention studies, are consistent with Clay's (1987) contention that most impaired readers, who might be classified as learning disabled, are probably not learning disabled in the stereotypical sense in which this term is used, that is, as a label for someone whose learning difficulties are presumed to be of constitutional origin.

Vellutino et al. 1996 p. 603

However, if Clay (1987) is correct in suggesting that virtually all research evaluating the etiology of reading disability is confounded by the failure to control for the child's educational history, then it must be acknowledged that this and other explanations of the disorder need to be reexamined after some attempt is made to effect such control.

Vellutino et al. 1996 p. 604

Johnston’s review of Vellutino et al.

This team has contributed a great deal to our understanding of children who have difficulty in learning to read. This particular phase of their work began with Clay’s (1987) classic paper “Learning to be learning disabled,” in which she argued that…before classifying someone as learning disabled one should at least try to rule out inadequate instruction as the cause. She initially took this stance in 1979…

Peter Johnston, 2002

See document on CD

Reading Recovery Professional Development Building Capacity for RtI

• Reading Recovery teacher/Classroom teacher

• Reading Recovery teacher/Small groups

• Reading Recovery teacher/Intervention Specialist

• NEW Intervention Specialist with literacy professional development (Literacy Lessons)

Reading Recovery/Classroom teacherReading Recovery/Small Groups

Typical Models

Intervention specialist trained as a Reading Recovery teacher

Another way that Reading Recovery professional development can build RtI capacity

Intervention specialist trained as a Reading Recovery teacher

Reading Recovery Teachers’ Other Roles

Ohio, 2005-2006• Classroom teacher: 67• Title I or reading teacher: 389• Special education teacher: 9• ESL teacher: 2• Staff developer: 9• Some other role: 28

Source: Rodgers & Gomez-Bellenge. Reading Recovery in Ohio: 2005-2006 State Report. Available at www.ndec.us

Reading Recovery Teachers’ Other Roles

Total Students ServedOhio, 2005-2006

• RR/Classroom teacher: 1,960 students in all• RR/ Title I or reading teacher: 17,466 students in all• Special education teacher: 251 students in all• ESL teacher: 73 students in all• Staff developer: 1,801 students in all • Some other role: 2,264 students in all

Source: Rodgers & Gomez-Bellenge. Reading Recovery in Ohio: 2005-2006 State Report. Available at www.ndec.us

New modelIntervention Specialist

with literacy professional development• Intervention specialist

takes part in professional development called “Literacy Lessons”

• They learn how to design and deliver literacy lessons for individual students

• This pilot project offers graduate study coursework and coaching to Literacy Intervention Specialists to support them in designing Literacy Lessons™ for individual learners who are having great difficulty learning to read and write.

• In Year 1, Literacy Intervention Specialists take three graduate level courses in Reading Recovery and teach two Reading Recovery students daily. Candidates study early literacy learning theory and learn how to design literacy lessons for individual learners.

• In Year 2, they are coached in a series of Literacy Lessons™ professional development sessions. These sessions help the teachers to design and deliver literacy lessons to individual special education students. Teachers enroll in one course in year 2.