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ES Literacy Reading Grade 4: Intervention

Purpose: Why This Unit?

At this point in the year, your scholars should be reading at or above a level R. For kids to successfully reach Level R and begin to read within the R-T text band, they need to make a major shift from merely identifying a character’s traits to understanding how and why characters’ traits change. Likewise, they will need to shift from identifying one clear main problem to seeing how multiple problems build toward one overarching problem. In nonfiction, scholars will increasingly encounter texts with a clear author’s purpose, implicit main ideas, hybrid text structures, more academic vocabulary, and words that carry precise connotations within the text.

As you start contemplating the thinking work that kids will need to do in order to read independently at level S by year’s end, you are probably getting increasingly concerned about your reading emergencies— scholars who are reading below grade level or whose reading skills are not progressing. You also are likely concerned about kids who are on the cusp of meeting grade-level expectations, who you think with some targeted intervention could be become much stronger readers.

In this unit, your job is to act on the data you’ve gathered to move your emergency and cusp kids, while setting up structures to continue to support on-grade-level scholars.

If you do your job well, ALL emergency and cusp scholars will achieve one level of growth, so that by the end of this unit, you will have fewer scholars approaching or below expectations than you did in the previous F&P cycle.

It is imperative that ALL your scholars are reading at home and at school. Meet with the parents of any scholars who are not reading at home. If you cannot convince parents to ensure that their children are doing their homework, you need to manage up to leadership.

It is your responsibility to ensure that ALL of your scholars are reading 6 days a week at home!

Diagnosing Scholar Needs and Your Own Practice

Planning for the intervention unit should mirror the work you do for planning the launch of any unit. First and foremost, you must start with your own adult practice and what you plan on doing differently during this unit. You’ve been teaching reading and writing across the components. At this point, you will have some scholars whom you’ve successfully moved. Identify what you have done that has worked, then replicate this with other scholars. You’ve also had the experience of trying to intervene and failing. Identify what didn’t work and stop doing it! If you are unsure how to effectively move a scholar, reach out to your leader or labsite teachers to help you determine what moves you need to make.

Step 1: Identify Trends Across Your Emergency and Cusp Scholars

Look holistically at your reading and writing data and scholar work and ask yourself: For scholars reading below grade level or who are stuck, what is holding them back?

Reading

  • When I look at my Guided Reading Notes and F&P data, is comprehension, accuracy, or fluency holding this scholar back?
    • Comprehension
      • Fiction
        • Are scholars holding onto meaning across chapters?
        • Can they identify the main problem the character faces?
        • Can they make accurate inferences about the character’s traits and/or feelings?
        • When applicable, can they identify the lesson the character or the reader learns?
      • Nonfiction
        • Can my scholars articulate the main idea of a section or paragraph, or do they tend to focus on simply recalling details?
        • Do they use text features, including headings, to help them comprehend?
    • Accuracy
      • Are scholars paying attention to word endings?
      • Do they self-correct?
      • Do scholars cross-check that what they read looks right, sounds right, and makes sense?
    • Fluency
      • Do they pause appropriately for punctuation?
      • Do they read with expression?
        • Do their reading logs show that they are reading independently at an appropriate rate?

Writing

  • When you look at scholar work, are they thinking flexibly about the main idea?
  • Do their written responses have accurate ideas?
  • Are they using the genre and thinking job to think flexibly about the text?

What does this tell me about my practice? What can I as the adult do differently?

  • Am I making kids responsible for the thinking work by asking them to do the majority of the talking?
  • Am I demanding that kids have ideas when they speak, read, and write?
  • Am I consistently giving kids feedback and coaching them around their goals?
  • Am I following up to make sure kids are applying their goals every time they read?

Step 2: Identify Small Groups for Cusps and Emergency Scholars

Identify any trends that apply to small groups. Which scholars are facing similar challenges?

Step 3: Set Goals and Plan for Holding ALL Kids Accountable

Set time-bound goals for all your scholars and make a plan for when you will coach scholars. Hold them accountable for reaching these goals.

  • For reading emergencies and cusp scholars, determine what you will tackle in small groups during Independent Reading, and through 1:1 coaching. For your cusps and emergencies, set a bite-sized goal for the week.
  • Although your focus is on moving reading emergencies and your cusp scholars, you need to put in place structures that will continue to press kids reading on or above grade level to achieve strong growth.
    • Set qualitative goals for kids reading on and above grade level to ensure that they make progress as readers. Since these scholars need less support, set a goal for a two-week period.
    • Check in once or twice a week in either Guided Reading or during Independent Reading to coach high fliers and scholars reading on grade level, and hold them accountable for their goals.

Step 4: Investing Parents

Reflect on how you’ve already invested parents in their scholars’ growth.

  • Do you need to:
    • Communicate more frequently with parents?
    • Hold parents accountable for making sure kids are completing their reading logs?
    • Invest parents in helping their scholars develop a true passion for reading?
    • Meet with parents to ensure that they know their scholars’ goals and can support them at home?
    • Celebrate scholar growth more often with parents?

Reading: How and What to Teach

This is not the time to reinvent the wheel to move your scholars as readers! Leverage the resources available on the Ed Institute Library to help you build a plan to address scholar needs. Below are suggested resources and tips to help you determine which small-group lessons and goals will best help your reading emergencies and cusp scholars.

You should use your scheduled Reading time (50 minutes) for intervention and continue to have a separate Guided Reading block (30 minutes). You should continue to teach Shared Text and Read Aloud to the whole class.

  • Engagement During Independent Reading: All kids need time to practice and enjoy reading. Often the kids who struggle most are the ones who spend the least amount of time reading. These kids may not have found books they love, or they may have poor reading stamina. Your job is to match kids with great books they will love and to hold them accountable for reading.
  • Be Strategic About Lesson Structure: You do not need to teach a whole-class lesson as you would during a normal Reading lesson. For example, you may divide scholars into two small groups instead of teaching a whole-group lesson. However, you must have scholars read independently and discuss books in partnerships daily, and shop for books at least once a week. Failing to include these parts of the Reading lesson will negatively impact scholar growth.
  • Tactics of Great Readers: Look at the 5 tactics of great readers as a starting place to help you analyze how to best support kids. Often when scholars move to higher reading levels and are faced with more challenging texts, they need to revisit these key strategies. For example, when reading an easier text, a scholar may have been able to automatically make a mind movie when the tagging of dialogue was clear; but now that she’s confronted with untagged dialogue and multiple characters in a conversation, this skill is breaking down.
  • Additional Resources:
    • Prior Units: Don’t assume that just because you taught a unit, scholars have truly internalized the thinking work that you taught. Look back at the units you’ve already taught to identify teaching points that merit re-teaching based on your data and your study of scholar work.
    • Text Levels: Use what you know about text levels to plan goals for kids. Identify goals for scholars who are reading in the same text band.
    • Leveled Literacy Intervention: Use the Level Literacy Intervention resources and materials to tailor small-group instruction.

Reading: Predictable Problems

Below are some common predictable problems that scholars reading below grade level in Grade 4 are likely facing and how to address these problems.

Scholar Issues and How to Address

Identifying when characters’ feelings change vs. when their traits change
Teach scholars to…

  • Pay attention to how characters react, and look for patterns in their behavior.
  • Think about how other characters react to that character.
  • Notice when a character reacts differently than what they expected, especially in moments of conflict.

Understanding how the problem is resolved in the story
Teach scholars to…

  • Pay attention to when a character’s feelings change and think about what caused this change.
  • Notice when characters react differently than expected, and think about what that tells us— about what the character has learned or how his or her feelings have changed.

Identifying how multiple problems the characters face are connected
Teach scholars to…

  • Pay attention to a character’s reactions to identify the main problem the character is facing.
  • Think about what the character wants in different chapters and how that helps us identify his or her biggest problem.

Navigate texts that use multiple text structures including nonfiction narrative and/or that have longer stretches of text without headings
Teach scholars to…

  • Read several paragraphs and then stop and think about how this connects to what they’ve already read.
  • Notice when text structures change and think about why the author made this move.

Identifying the author’s purpose
Teach scholars to…

  • Notice when the author uses opinion words or strong language; this will help them identify the author’s purpose.
  • Reread the introduction and/or conclusion to help them identify why the author wrote the text.

You Did It!

Congratulations! You’ve reached the end of Unit 5: Intervention.

As a result of teaching this unit, you, as the teacher, have:

  • Continued to press all kids to achieve strong reading growth by setting up strong structures for Independent Reading, including goal-setting and matching kids to books.
  • Set clear goals for kids based on what you know holistically about them as readers.
  • Strategically planned and executed instruction to address the needs of emergencies and cusp scholars.
  • Held scholars accountable for using their goals and coached them to use strategies to reach their goals.

Your emergency and cusp scholars should have grown by at least one reading level, so that you have decreased the total number of scholars whose reading skills are below grade-level expectations or approaching grade-level expectations from the number whose skills were at these levels during the last F&P cycle.

All scholars should be able to identify characters’ traits and how these traits change across a story, if at all. They should also be able to identify the main idea of a paragraph, section, or whole book.

Celebrate your scholars’ successes by acknowledging what they can now do as readers as a result of their work over the last several weeks.

Reflect on your successes and stretches, as well as those of your scholars. Look at your F&P results. Have your scholars grown as readers over the last month?

Scholars must read at home, as well as in school. Are 100% of your kids reading 6 days a week at home? Make sure at-home reading is happening, and meet with families who are falling short to recommit them to this team effort. Also make a plan to ensure that 100% of your scholars read daily during any school breaks. How have you effectively motivated kids and families to read when school is in session, and how can you replicate this success when kids are on break?

Are 100% of your kids reading fluently? Are they using all of the tools at their disposal to figure out the meaning of what they are reading?

Are 100% of your kids doing their literacy homework?

Going into the next unit, make specific reading goals for yourself. Set a percentage goal for how many children you will move in the next 15 days. Set a goal for children who are not reading at home. Who will you get to consistently read at home? Do they understand what they’re reading? What is their struggle with decoding? How will you partner with parents to support their growth?

If you are having trouble meeting your goals, do not wait until you have NOT succeeded. Consult your colleagues. Consult your leaders. ASK FOR HELP so you can meet your goals!

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