ES Literacy Reading Grade K: Intervention

At this point in the year, your scholars should be reading at or near level C, and they have already explored reading across fiction and nonfiction. Scholars at this level must derive meaning from the pictures, recognize and read common sight words, use the pattern to help them read, and retell stories in order.

You have lots of information about your scholars as readers and writers. In your class, there is likely a small subset of kids about whom you are deeply worried: reading and writing emergencies and kids who are stuck. In addition, you probably have high fliers and kids who have achieved growth but are capable of thinking more deeply about texts and conveying their ideas with greater clarity.

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 successfully master at least 1– 2 reading and writing goals. After this unit, your scholars should be reading at level C or higher on the F&P assessment.

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 persuade 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 your scholars are reading 6 days a week at home!

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 process 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

• Is there one genre that my students find most challenging?
• When I look at my Guided Reading notes, is comprehension or accuracy the biggest whole class need?
  • Comprehension
    • Fiction: Can my scholars retell what happens first, next, and last? Can my scholars identify the problem and solution?
    • Nonfiction: Can my scholars articulate the main idea of a section or page? Can my scholars identify the main lesson the author is teaching us in this book?
  • Accuracy
    • Do scholars have 1:1 correspondence?
    • Do scholars track print correctly?
    • Do scholars study the pictures before reading the words?
    • Do scholars use the first sound in the word?
    • Do scholars cross-check that what they read makes sense, sounds right, and looks right?
    • Do scholars self-correct?

Writing

• Do my scholars generate meaningful ideas?
• Do my scholars tell one clear story?
• Do my scholars stay on-topic throughout their writing?
• Do my scholars convey their ideas through their drawings and labels?
• Do my scholars plan and write sentences that match their ideas?
• Can my scholars reread their writing and/or explain what is happening on each page?

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. Make a plan for when you will coach scholars, and hold them accountable for reaching these goals.
• For emergencies and cusp scholars, determine what you will tackle in small groups during Independent Reading/Writing, and what you will address through 1:1 coaching. For your cusps and emergencies, set a bite-sized goal for the week.
• Although your focus is on moving emergencies and your cusp scholars, you need to put in place structures that will continue to press kids who are on or above grade level to achieve strong growth.
  • Set qualitative goals for kids on and above grade level to ensure that they make progress as readers and writers. 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 and Writing to coach high fliers and scholars 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?

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 lessons and goals will best help your whole class as well as specific groups of scholars.

• 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 every day. 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 affect 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 reteaching 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.

While there are probably a range of reading needs in your classroom, the majority of kids are likely in the B-D level band. Below are predictable problems that readers at these levels face as they tackle more complicated texts, along with suggestions for how to address these challenges. In addition, consistently remind scholars to use their pointing fingers under each word as they read.

Scholar Issues and How to Address

Studying the picture before reading the words on the page
Teach scholars to…

• Study the picture before reading the words. Ask yourself, “What’s happening in this picture?”

Carrying the pattern over from page to page
Teach scholars to…

• Keep the pattern in your mind, and carry it over from page to page.
• Use sight words, or words you know by heart, to help you on each page.
• Notice when the pattern stays the same and when it changes. Ask yourself, “Do the words on this page look the same or different?”

Retelling the story in order by saying what happens first, next, and last
Teach scholars to…

• Go back and flip through the pages of the book to remind yourself of what happened.
• Tell the story across your three fingers by saying what happened first, next, and last.
• After you retell the story, ask yourself, “Does that make sense?”

Congratulations! You’ve reached the end of Unit 5: Intervention. As a result of teaching this unit, you, as the teacher, have:

• Set clear goals for kids based on what you know holistically about them as readers and writers.
• Strategically planned and executed instruction to address whole-group, small-group, and individual needs.
• Held scholars accountable for using their goals and coached them to use strategies to reach their goals.

Your scholars should:

• Have each mastered 1–2 reading and writing goals that you set for them.
• Be reading at level C or higher.
• Study pictures before reading.
• Use meaning and/or context and parts of words to understand and accurately read challenging words.
• Retell what happens first, next, and last.
• Craft a narrative with a clear idea.
• Convey their ideas through drawings and words.

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

Reflect on your successes and stretches, as well as those of your scholars. Look at your Guided Reading notes and informal assessment results. Have your scholars grown as readers over the past 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. Are there families to whom you need to proactively reach out to make sure that scholars will still read without you checking on them?

Are 100% of your kids reading fluently and using all 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. Whom 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!