7.17 Impactful Interventions

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Shannon Betts (00:02):
Welcome to the Reading Teachers Lounge.
Come join the conversation withother curious teachers as they
discover teaching strategies andresources to reach all of their
learners.
I'm Shannon.

Mary Saghafi (00:13):
And I'm Mary, and together we bring an honest and
experienced point of view to thetopics we cover to shed light
on best practices.
Whether you're a new teacherseeking guidance, a seasoned pro
looking for fresh ideas or acurious parent, our community
offers something for everyone.
So grab your favorite cup ofcoffee or tea and cozy up in the
virtual lounge with us andeavesdrop on our professional

(00:35):
conversations.

Listen, learn and immediately add to your bag of
teaching tricks.
Find what works for yourstudents with us in the Reading
Teachers Lounge.

Hello and welcome to the Reading Teachers Lounge.
We are excited to have a newguest sharing with us today.
We'd like to welcome KatiePace-Miles.
You may have already heard ofKatie and she has a new book
coming out called Making WordsStick, which is near and dear to
my heart because it's all aboutorthographic mapping and some
interventions.

(01:07):
And she has a new book comingout called Making Words Stick,
which is near and dear to myheart because it's all about
orthographic mapping and someinterventions.
And she wrote it with a goodfriend of the show, Dr Molly
Ness.
So we're so excited to have youtoday that today we're going to
be talking about interventionsand effective meetings and

(01:27):
making sure that thecommunication between who is
responsible for what within theschool, the parents, are
understanding what's happeningand that we're using quality
interventions to really helplift up our struggling learners.
So you come with a big varietyof expertise, so we're so
excited to have you.
So can you tell us, KatiePace-Miles, a little bit about

(01:47):
yourself and the work that youdo in the world of literacy?

Katie Pace Miles (01:51):
Sure.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's really an honor to be here.
So I could sum up my work, Ithink, in three buckets.
The first and my primary role isas a professor at Brooklyn
College.
I'm the professor and directorof the Advanced Certificate in
Reading Science at BrooklynCollege, which is a part of the

(02:11):
City University of New Yorksystem.
That degree is a post-master'sone year deep dive in science of
reading coursework, of readingcoursework.
The second bucket of my work isa part of the City of the City
University of New York system.
That's my role as the cofounder and principal
investigator of CUNY readingcore.

(02:34):
Cuny is the acronym for theCity University of New York.
Cuny reading core providestraining to over 650 education
majors, who then provide highimpact tutoring to over 2300 New
York City public schoolstudents each year.
These students come fromfamilies who overwhelmingly
cannot afford private tutoring.

(02:55):
And finally, I'm the founderand president of a nonprofit
called the Reading Institute,and that organization enables me
to share my readingintervention, reading Ready and
another program, reading Go, aswell as science of reading,
professional learning at low orno cost to anyone who needs it.

How did you find the science of reading?
Was it during your own courselearning, or kind of by doing
the wrong practices and thenlearning about it?
That was our, that was ourjourney.

It was during my master's.
So I actually I'm trained inelementary education.
In my undergrad I startedteaching and became very
frustrated with the field ofeducation right right out of the
gate.
And in fact I think I wasfrustrated with the field of
education While I was doing myundergrad.

(03:49):
I just found that I wasn'tgetting straight answers on
things I come to come.
Much later, I you know, Ifigured out that's because the
answers weren't there in what Iwas being taught in my teacher
prep program.
So when I went to do my master'sI said I'm not going into
education, I'm gonna go intopsychology.

(04:09):
So I did my master's ineducational psychology, which
was a much more scientificapproach to how we learn.
It was all about learning anddevelopment.
And from there I found the workof Dr Linnea Airy and I sought
her out to do a PhD ineducational psychology and I'm
just forever grateful that shebrought me on with a fellowship

(04:32):
to complete my doctorate withher.
And that is in experimentalpsychology.
So it's educational psychologyand the focus is learning,
development and instruction,with a specialization in the
acquisition of reading.
And the way you hone in on theacquisition of reading when you
work with Dr Aries.
You're trained as anexperimental psychologist to

(04:53):
test approaches to see whichones are statistically
significantly you know moreimpactful on the young student
or emergent reader than otherson the young student or emergent
reader than others, which isthe title of this episode.

like impactful interventions.

So that's perfect.
I'm also just kind of laughing.
It's like a fancy way of justdoing what I was doing before as
a reading specialist.
So in my practitioner realmprior to getting my PhD, my
favorite job was being a readingspecialist.
They called us a learningspecialist at that point in time
.
I still look back so fondly onthat work, and actually my CUNY

(05:32):
Reading Corps work is a projectthat is so near and dear to my
heart because I just feel likeit's an expansion of what I was
able to do at the school level.
I'm able to give readinginterventions to kids all over
New York City.
It's just me wearing my readinginterventionist cap.

That was my favorite role as well.
Like I have, I've kind of goneback and forth between homeroom
teacher, interventionist, backto homeroom, back to
interventionist, back tohomeroom, and then now I'm a
reading tutor, but it was likedoing action research all the
time.
All the time, yeah, and then youknow, I would pull from my bag

(06:10):
of tricks and I would always getlike one or two students which
any other trick didn't work andI would kind of invent new
techniques from there or diveinto more research to find, you
know, what will work with thisstudent that nothing else worked
with.

Oh yeah.

Yep, and, funny enough, I had similar feelings
in my undergrad and I startedteaching as well as teaching
kindergarten, and I realizedthat I had kindergarten students
who were later diagnosed withdyslexia.
But I thought, why did I justget a four-year degree and if I
don't know how to teach thesechildren to read?
So I knew I could teach readersto become better readers and

(06:43):
this is what Shannon and Ialways say but I had a very hard
time learning to teachnon-readers to become readers
and I just felt like I did nothave that skill set.
And so I went into specialeducation and I found it even
got more complex, and I did.
I did get some help inassisting and learning some new,

(07:03):
more proper interventions, butI still felt like I was woefully
underprepared to reallyidentify what the behaviors
looked like within the studentsand how I could in fact actually
diagnose and provide someintervention.
That would be most appropriate,and I think that we might get
into this.
But I can also share that I sortof felt like there was some

(07:26):
gatekeeping that was happeningat the district level, because
if I were one, I often didn'teven know what to ask for when I
came up to the problem of hereis the kid.
I'm noticing this, you know,and guessing is really just not
an appropriate or effective useof my time.

(07:46):
And so I was getting veryfrustrated and I would go and I
would ask smarter teachers thanme, I would go ask some of the
administration and I didn't feellike I was getting answers, and
I also would do some researchon my own and I would be told in
meetings and I like cringe atthis, but I was told if you

(08:09):
offer or if you would suggest,that that means that the
district has to pay for it andwe're not going to pay for it,
and it just that's so cringy tome.
Oh make me turn Right, it does.
It's just so sadly for thedistrict there was a lawsuit
that came out and I was part oftraining as part of the solution

(08:32):
to this.
So I was trained in teachercertification for Orton
Gillingham, which has kind ofsent me on this journey of that.
I now work as an advocate tohelp families ask for what their
students need because it's justsomething that, just like you,
it just doesn't sit well with me.

It just doesn't.
It's amazing that we're alreadywe're going here on educator
prep so much of my passion hasreally it is all it's about the
children learning how to read.
Passion has really it is allit's about the children learning
how to read.
But so closely related to that,if not in tandem, is what
training has the teacherreceived to best perform her

(09:15):
duties to teach all children howto read.
And so at the university, it'sbecome this mission of mine to
make sure any student who's inan education major, and that
could be at the undergrad orgrad level, that they are
equipped not just with theknowledge of how the brain
learns how to read, but then thepractice of actually teaching

(09:35):
an emergent reader.
Overwhelmingly, we're workingwith striving emergent readers.
So students who have fallenbehind grade level and we do
this in a very practical waythey get training.
In these intervention programsthat I'm a part of, they get a
kit of materials something thatI never received when I was
being trained as a teacher andthey must implement 20 sessions

(09:58):
of high-impact tutoring with thestudent and they have to track
data all the way through.
It's not just pre post, it'sthat formative, informal
assessment that's happening allthe way through and it really
opens the pre-service orin-service teacher If they're in
a master's degree.
It really opens up her mind tothe power I think that's within

(10:20):
her to teach children how toread, and teach any child how to
read.
A striving reader is going tomake progress through a
structured literacy format whenyou can respond to data that's
presented to you.

I hope they realize how fortunate they are
to be equipped with that,because I feel so much guilt
over, like the students who gotaway, you know, and I know you
know what I mean about that youknow, like the ones who I had in
the years prior, before I,before I knew better and could
do better you know, and I gavethem 100% effort of my knowledge
at that time.

(10:54):
But once you, you know, havebetter techniques and you're
informed about the science ofreading, you know your
instructional approaches dochange, and so I hope that they
are aware of what valuable likeresources and knowledge you're
equipping them with at the startof their career.
That's amazing.

Well, and I think that this is sort of how I hope
that this conversation continuesto go.
So we've laid a foundation ofwhy you know what is the need
right now.
We're expressing it right now.
So let's move our conversationto a more positive light and,
explaining a little bit moreabout what to do, shine the
light on what you know.
What are these best practices,what should it look like?

(11:34):
So let's lay a foundation alittle bit.

Can we also maybe lay a framework of like what
you, Mary, you calledintervention, what students need
?
I really like that and I had atraining that somebody said
intervention equals instruction.
I equals I.
So, there's a differencebetween data collection and the
intervention lays within.

(12:06):
Because, like you and I bothjust talked about, like jobs
that we've had asinterventionists, where does
that even fit in within theschool?
Can you give?
And I know that some placescall it MTSS some places.
Call it RTI Can you justexplain all that for us.

That's right.
So MTSS, rti.
Mtss stands for multi-tieredsystems of support, rti stands
for response to intervention.
I have been working withschools that really have gone
back to this simpler nameresponse to intervention.
Multi-tiered systems of supportmeans that it's both the
academic and the behavioral.

(12:38):
Response to intervention isfocusing more on the academic.
It's really pretty much allabout the academic, but of
course you need to have thatawareness of the social,
emotional piece that's going onwith the students.
So RTI starts.
It's a triangle and at the baselevel, which is the largest
level, you have your tier one orcore instruction.

(13:01):
Some schools call it theuniversal instruction, and this
should be highly effectiveinstruction that all students
are receiving, and we're goingto focus on literacy here.
So in their English languagearts instruction and the vast
majority of students should besuccessful with meeting
benchmarks, performing well onthe unit assessments, whatever

(13:27):
at that moment you need toassess they should be responding
well to what that instructionis.
At tier one, students who donot respond to or find success
with the core or tier oneinstruction move up a level in
the triangle and they should bereceiving targeted small group
instruction based on the skillthat needs support.

(13:49):
And here you really need tostart thinking about.
What is that instruction?
What's the dosage?
Who is providing this and atwhat point does the student go?
At what point does the studentnot need to be pulled out in
small group instruction?
So assessment is throughout thiswhole model.

(14:10):
But I won't be too romantichere, I'll just move on to it.
Typically, the last tier in thetriangle is called Tier 3.
And for students who are notresponding well to Tier 2, they
move into through assessments.
We determine they need evenmore intensive intervention,
which is hopefully one-on-one,so the students move into that

(14:32):
top tier, tier 3.
And again, this has to be, it'sgot to be well-documented,
there's got to be assessments.
We need to be even more precisewith the skills that we are
supporting and the dosage thatwe are providing in that type of
instruction.
So I could go on and on aboutthis, but maybe I'll stop there.

What came to light for me?
Well, first off, when I was aninterventionist, I was part of
tier two, and also here inGeorgia we considered considered
, like English, the ESOLinstruction for English language
learners as tier two as welland so we were providing that
small group.
But then once I kind of wentback from being an

(15:15):
interventionist to being back toa homeroom teacher, I realized
and I kind of saw in myclassroom kind of all those
tiers at the same time that astudent, if they're at tier
three and they're getting thatone-on-one, they should actually
still be getting all of thetriangles, parts of the triangle
underneath it.
So you don't like stop a smallgroup once you do the one-on-one

(15:36):
, you're actually adding anotherlayer of instruction to see
okay, even more dosage.
And it's not just throwingspaghetti at the wall, but it's
a targeted like we are going tofind the biggest weakness to try
to target and close that gapand give the biggest impact so
that then everything else of thelearning can start to stick for

(15:57):
the student.
You know.

That's right.
That's right, and and it would.
Nothing would be worse thanthat student missing the core
instruction.
Exactly the backgroundknowledge building that's
happening in core instructionhas to be a part of their
education.

Feeling overwhelmed about all the
demands of your students,looking for more resources and
strategies to help your readers.

Come join our Patreon community, where we'll
support you in implementing allthe best practice pieces in your
reading instruction.
Depending on your level ofsupport, you can meet with us
bi-weekly or monthly forassistance with all aspects of
your literacy teaching.

Watch us model effective strategies and
techniques.
Reference the resource libraryto find curated sources for our
favorite activities.
Learn from and participate inour deep dive topics where we
share specifics about ourinstruction, such as classroom
management, assessment,introducing sight words,
teaching writing and so muchmore.

You'll have the confidence and tools to know
that you're working smarter, notharder, to meet your students
needs.
Feel better about your teachingtoday by checking out the
various levels of supportoffered through wwwpatreoncom
backslash reading teacherslounge.

And then also here in Georgia.
What we did is, like, if theywere not responding to the tier
three at a certain timeline,then we would, and we would have
meetings with families as well,like when we move into tier two
, into tier three, because tierthree intervention and the like
the data showed that you knowthey weren't meeting their,
their goals.
Then we would have aconversation as a team,
including the parents, um, aboutpossible testing and evaluation
, and so we, like, merged the,the tier three with the sst

(18:01):
system yes, yes, yes, someschools call that and we had
mentioned this before when wewere chatting tier four.

Some are calling it their special ed
services, whatever your districtrefers to it, as that's
absolutely right, Tier threedoesn't become the stagnant
point in time where you're justconstantly delivering tier three
.

They shouldn't be in tier three for three years,
like that's horrible.

They should not.
Yes, tier three is like theother tiers.
Right, it's how is the studentresponding to what's being
provided?
If there is progress, keepgoing.
If there is not, we need tomake the next move.

I will just share too, because what happens in
under my professionalcircumstances a private tutor
and an advocate I will haveparents come to me and say we
noticed something's wrong.
The school is saying they'redoing okay and they keep moving
from tier two up to tier threebut then back to tier two.
Should we get a privateevaluation and the reason for a

(19:04):
private?

evaluation I was about to mention that because
that's what I had to do for myson Mary, because he kept
meeting his academic goals.

Right.
So this is where it becomes alittle bit confusing for parents
, so I'm going to try to shedsome light on what this means.
So when a student is showingthese behaviors and moving from
tier three down to tier two,then back to and back and forth,
it's showing that there isstill a deficit, that they don't

(19:31):
have a strong foundation, andwhat I am noticing is usually
that there's gaps in theirlearning and those gaps haven't
yet been closed by what'shappening at the school.
So, as a professional tutor,what I suggest is that I'm going
to do some informal evaluations, I'm going to take some
observational notes and I'mgoing to let the parents know

(19:52):
I'm noticing some of these.
This could warrant a privateevaluation or go back to the
school and say I'm stillconcerned about this.
How are you meeting my students'needs?
You know, when it comes to,let's say, orthographic mapping,
I'm still concerned about this.
How are you meeting mystudents' needs?
You know, when it comes to,let's say, orthographic mapping,
I noticed that they'recontinuously spelling their high
frequency words wrong.
I noticed that their spellingis really inconsistent.

(20:14):
They're not choosingappropriate vowel sounds when
they're spelling their, theirwords.
They're not at grade levelspelling skills, yet they're
reading high frequency words orreading grade level words, but
mostly just calling, and often Iwill also see in this behavior
that they're reading the firstpart of a word and guessing the

(20:35):
end part of the word.
So those are behaviors that I'mlooking for as a tutor but
parents should be aware of,teachers should be very aware of
, and then that should signal tothem oh, there's a gap, that's
that's in this skill that thestudent is not able, you know,
to fully master yet, and movingforward with that student means
that they're still not going tohave mastery and they're not

(20:57):
going to probably make as muchprogress.

That's such a huge point too, and I want to
acknowledge the privilege of theprivate evaluation.
This is really important tocall out.
All three of us have lived inthis space.
Some families can quickly gotowards the private evaluation,
but we want to acknowledge it.
I'm in New York city.
It costs thousands of dollarshere to get a private evaluation

(21:23):
.
I paid $7,000.
Oh there, Okay, and you're inGeorgia.
Yeah, thank you for being sotransparent, shannon.
I mean, this is that's anenormous financial burden for a
family.
It was a burden for our family,oh yes, my goodness.

(21:53):
And that's not a one-time costeither for families who are
considering this right.
Every couple of years you'regoing back and doing a re-e will
come up on the privateevaluation.
But also, if the readingspecialist, the interventionist,
is deep in the knowledge of thedevelopment of literacy as well

(22:15):
as the knowledge of structuredliteracy they can put, they can
very likely diagnose the issueand put forth an effective plan
and avoid the seven thousanddollar price tag.
I'm not, I don't want to deterfamilies from getting the
private avail, but I want toacknowledge that's out of that's

(22:36):
out of the realm of reality forso many, and so there's a way
you're not doomed without that.
Mary just put together a greatplan.

Yeah, and if the go ahead and if the tier three
intervention and goal are veryclear, like we're going to
improve students' word accuracy,especially the endings of words
you know, and so that's whatthe goal is, that's what's going
to be measured as a startingpoint and all the progress

(23:05):
monitoring.
They're going to set a goal forimprovement.
And then also everyinstructional session of
intervention is going to betargeting that one weakness,
because they're still gettingthe lower levels of instruction.
So it's not like you'reignoring, you know, all the
other aspects of reading.
You're just trying to targetthis one weakness to see do they
respond to that intenseintervention.

That's right, and it's the frequency and
dosage of the interventionaligned to the needs of the
student.
That has to be a universalitywhen we're talking about both
tier two and tier three.
It can't be once a week.

It can't be once a week.
I love that and that's, I thinkthat, the frustration that
comes from parents as well.
Parents think that getting aprivate evaluation will equal
getting their students specialeducation, and this is a
misconception and it's veryconfusing and very upsetting to
parents because it makes this.

(24:03):
I hear this from parents often,and so the overwhelming thing
that I hear is the schooldoesn't understand my kids'
needs.
They're not meeting my kids'needs.
If you have a student who getsa private evaluation, they
receive a diagnosis.
That means that the criteriaunder these tests that they have
provided in a private settingcan give a medical diagnosis,

(24:28):
let's say for dyslexia.
If there is not the educationalcurved need within the school
system, the school is not seeingthat.
It is what is the word I'mthinking of?
It's not impacting them to thedegree that it does within two

(24:49):
standard deviations below.
Let's say, then, that studentmay not qualify for special
education interventions, andthat is very frustrating because
what the parent hears at thatmeeting is well, your kid's not
performing well, but they're notperforming bad enough, so we
don't really need to give themanything, they just need to try
harder.
And that makes parents' headsexplode.

Oh, my goodness, I feel like my head's
going to explode just hearingyou say that.

My son fell in that gray area where he has
never qualified for special ed.
He kind of goes back and forthbetween into tier two with early
intervention support and someyears he gets it, some years he
doesn't, depending on his testscores on the state test.
But he did because we had thatprivate medical diagnosis we

(25:37):
were able to get accommodationsthrough 504.
And so he does have somespecial accommodations like
extended time for testing andsmall group.
He uses special kind of pensbecause he has dysgraphia.
There are a couple thingsthrough 504 that parents can do,
which is 504 is sort of likethis adjacent area to the

(25:58):
triangle.
That's sort of tier four, butnot really yeah.

And it's amazing, you're talking about
accommodations versusinterventions though, right.
So, and Mary, this goes to yourpoint of what is the right of
the family and the child, whatis their right to receive.
Accommodations are much easierfor schools and districts to
provide than interventions.
Interventions take capacity,they take effective programming,

(26:24):
they take capacity ofindividuals at the school to
offer the interventions and theytake a lot of scheduling
support.
And you know, maybe I was.
As we're talking, I'm justthinking about I don't want
schools, I want schools to hearus talking about this and think,
oh, I could do that though,right.

(26:45):
Like COVID is showing that highimpact instruction, where it

(27:07):
was short lessons deliveredmultiple times a week, so three
to five times a week, that movedthe needle for vulnerable
populations of students.
Also, if and I think Shannonwas talking about this this
pinpoint, diagnostic approach tointerventions or maybe, Mary,

(27:29):
that was your, both of you right, but you're going with these
interventions, there is no timeto be wasted.
The support is needed in.
You provide that support andyou ensure that the way you're
doing it is through a structuredliteracy approach which, as I'm
sure your listeners know, isexplicit, systematic instruction

(27:52):
with targeted feedback, prompt,targeted feedback.
That is data-driven.
That is what we know to beeffective.

Correct.
Yeah, and you were talkingabout like being doable, and I'm
looking at the side, like Ithink this is a good time to
pull up my calendar that when Iwas teaching second grade this
is the I had bought this at likethe dollar tree at the
beginning of each school yearand it kind of had it was like a
month long calendar for thewhole school year that I would
use and I would write down allthe students' initials and then

(28:27):
when I met with them for Tier 3.
And this was what mydocumentation was so that I
could.
Then we had to, because it wasTier 3 and I was at the school
level we had to type it all intoour Infinite Campus school, you
know, learning managementsystem, and so I had to keep
very good records and this was asystem that I landed on and you
can see through my notes here Imean, this is from 2018.

(28:50):
So this is many years ago, butjust from my notes you can see
that what I was working on withthe students so I have like SJA
letter sounds- so, I juststarted with letter sounds
because this was in the fall andI worked on letter sounds for
the first month and I alsomarked the different dates that

(29:11):
I did progress monitoring.
I would write down PR on my.
I would print them all out atthe beginning of the month from
EasyCBM is usually what I used,and so for this letter sounds I
would print out the you knowletter sounds probes and I would
have them all in a folder.
I would go ahead and write thestudent's names on it and then
maybe have the expected datewhen I wanted to give that

(29:33):
progress monitoring probe, youknow in pencil, and then I would
circle it on my calendar, thedate I actually did it so that I
had it dated, and then I wouldmark and you can see I did it
one week, I did it four timesthat week for this student.
Oh, four times again the nextweek, four times the next week,

(29:55):
three times the next week.
Then I have that the next monththat one of the students went
to short bowels from there.
So then we were only working onshort bowels.
Um and not um, the lettersounds anymore.
I also would write down whenthe students were absent or when
I was absent, so that would gowhen um, I had marked all the

(30:17):
times when I contacted theparent, um, when we had meetings
, and it was just in like a onestop job where I had all my data
collected and you're right thatI found this is even before I
really knew the research.
but it was just sort of my ownexperience that I realized that
it was better for me to meetwith them four to five times a
week for five to 10 minutes thanit was to have a great lesson

(30:38):
for 30 minutes once a week and Icould pull them especially.
Some of these students came tome first thing in the morning.
They were like the first offthe bus students and I could get
my intervention done before thebell rang you know before
announcements, so I got realcreative.
Or if they were end of dismissalstudents, I could do it at

(30:58):
dismissal, you know, or I'd pullthem, you know, in the
transition between lunch andspecials or whatever I found
time to do it, or sometimes Iwould keep them, like I would
see their small group, and thenI would dismiss the small group
and keep those one or twostudents, like you know to do
the intervention at the five atthe tail end of the small group.

That.
What a great way to do it rightthere.
That is fantastic.
What I could tell from thatcalendar is that you were
probably on the edge of yourseat with all of that
documentation ready to jump tovowel sounds, right.
You were like, okay, as soon asI know they've got it, I'm
going and I always talk with myuniversity students who are even

(31:45):
if they're pre-service teachersI call them now
interventionists, right, becausethey're providing high impact
tutoring.
I always say keep it walking,keep it walking.

I'm sure you know Wiley Blevins in New York.
I've always followed his scopeand sequence because it's my
favorite.
So yeah, you're right, I knewwhere I was taking them.

You knew that's a great approach.
You know where you're takingthem.
You're not languishing in thiscertain group of letter sounds
longer, even a minute longerthan that student needs If
they're a striving reader.
Time is of the essence and sowe're pushing it.
It takes us back to our earlyteacher prep days of zone of

(32:23):
proximal development.
That really comes into playwhen you're a reading
interventionist.
Right, you are pushing the edgeof that zone of proximal
development, moving them,getting them ready for the next
piece.

Well and they responded very well to it.
You know, like these studentsthese were second graders we
were doing letter sounds theyfelt very ineffective a lot of
the school day.
But when I had them in that safespace around the kidney table
they responded so well to myintervention because they were
like, oh my gosh, you're givingme just right work.
Thank you so much.
Oh, this is in pieces that Ican actually learn.

(32:57):
Yay, you know, and then theywere okay, you can push that ZPD
gently if it's the right level.
But a lot of times I've been inwe're going to talk about
ineffective meetings a littlewhile but I've been in some
ineffective times where they'veactually said the intervention
to do would be like a gradelevel one, which that's not

(33:18):
appropriate.

Like if there are three grade levels behind.

You can't give a grade level intervention.
You've got to meet the studentswhere they are.
Absolutely.

I'm going to share a little bit about kind of
coaching parents up, because Iknow we have some parent
listeners and one of the bigthings that I hear from parents
is we don't have time to wait,we don't have any time to waste,
and they are absolutely correct.
That is not an invalidstatement at all, but I think
the answer then is what Shannonjust provided you have to allow

(33:53):
the school to provideinterventions that are targeted,
that use valid data and I'mgoing to just carefully say that
really valid data providingthese appropriate interventions,
because if a student is thennot making that progress, we
need to have that documented,because then the student is then
entitled to a free evaluationfrom the school for special

(34:17):
education services, and that isjust an evaluation to see if
they are found eligible forspecial education services.
Again, once those specialeducation services are then
received, you don't stop thisintervention.
You are still providing tierone instruction because you want

(34:39):
to be making sure that thestudent is receiving grade
appropriate education.
But, just as Shannon said,providing the intervention in a
systematic, explicit way.
I think what parents need tohear is well, what is the next
step?
And that's what Shannon wasjust talking about with her
scope and sequence.
In a meeting you should be ableto share.

(35:01):
This is what I'm looking for,this is what you can also be
looking for, and then this iswhere we're going next.
So if we have masteredconsonant sounds, we're looking
for vowel sounds.
I noticed that your child ishaving difficulty with the eh
and the ih sound, which is verycommon in the South.

Very common yeah.

And so you know when you are.
Maybe you're driving in the car.
Here's an example of somethingthat you can do in the car give
them a word and ask them whatvowel sound do they hear?
Giving parents just a littlebit of insight to that provides
so much more trust and it soundsand is received very
differently than well.

(35:39):
We need to take some more data.
That is a very nebulous kind ofthing to say, so I would
recommend in meetings giving theparents something to do next or
sharing with them what the nextexpectation is will actually
save you so much in the long runbecause it does provide trust
and they know that if they'renot also seeing the progress,

(36:01):
then there is still going to beanother plan as to what can
happen next.
So this framework is in placefor a big reason.
It is not a let's wait to failkind of methodology and that
often gets like a soundbite andgets shared.
But I have seen very realcircumstances where parents do

(36:22):
feel that way and students feelthat way, and Shannon and I
often talk about that too.
When you're not receiving whatyou need, you're going to
demonstrate some behaviors,you're going to demonstrate
frustration, you're going tofeel very othered, and that
doesn't provide a safe learningenvironment for you to take
risks and move forward.

(36:42):
So I just wanted to share thatpiece because I do think, again,
parents are entitled to freeevaluation.
A private evaluation is notnecessary, but it also may not
speed up the process either.
It may identify the areas ofweakness and it may provide some
recommendations and sometargeted recommendations within

(37:05):
the classroom.
However, what we're talkingabout is what's actually
happening in the classroom, andthe school does and is
responsible for sharing thatinformation with teachers and
parents.
Right, Okay, so soapbox had to.
Just I love it.

I love it.
I'm just going to add if anyparents need a resource for
emergent readers, I have twofree resources, of course, that
we give out through the ReadingInstitute.
One is called the CaregiverGuide and the other is the
Letter Knowledge Guide, andthey're very simple activities.
The Caregiver Guide mirrors thestructured literacy tutoring in
Reading Ready and we distill itdown into a fun, easy to

(37:46):
implement games.
I'm a parent of two youngchildren and so we really and my
colleagues that worked on thiswith me we really wanted to make
it parent friendly, and itgives what Mary was just saying,
like what words should I focuson?
So it gives you the list ofwords and what you should do
with them, right before you eatdinner, as you're sitting down,
as you're driving in the car.

Thank you, we'll link to those in the show notes.
I just noted those down.
I will say too, to add to whatMary said as well, that it's
easier to have a scope andsequence when the clear area of
weakness is decoding, and that'stypically where I start with
intervention.
If the data is showing that youknow they can't decode, then
that's usually what I targetbefore I can target any of the

(38:30):
other areas of reading.
But if they are mastered, ifthey have mastered decoding.
And then another area is thestruggle like vocabulary or
fluency comprehension.
That's a little bit morechallenging to have a clear
scope and sequence but you canfind, you know, the biggest
weakness within those areas.
You know like maybe in fluencyit's phrasing.

(38:52):
So then you choose, you knowFCRR activities based on
phrasing.
You know, and those are yourintervention activities that you
follow, and then you measure itby giving words per minute
assessments regularly orsomething.
Or you know if it's acomprehension, comprehension is
typically going to be improvedas they're decoding, influency

(39:14):
improved.
But then also if you have astrong tier one curriculum,
especially one rooted in aknowledge based curriculum, then
hopefully their comprehensionwill improve that way.

It's a really important point, Shannon, too,
because we're making this sound,like you know, in a way
simplistic of like, okay, youfigure out where the problem is
and you jump in there.
But there's a big part of thisthat support the development of
reading and in structuredliteracy, right, these are oral

(39:57):
language, phonemic awareness,phonics, spelling, morphology,
syntax, semantics.
Of course, comprehension is anumbrella over some of those.
You're providing anintervention that hits on
multiple components at once.
So you need a really strongintervention program that does
that.
And then from there, whileyou're providing that
intervention, maybe in a smallgroup, maybe one-on-one you're

(40:21):
seeing oh, wait, a second,that's where the weakness lies,
right, it's the phrasing.
It is very difficult todetermine that in your tier one
instruction unless you'vereconfigured your tier one
instruction to look more liketier two, which I know some
teachers have.
So I just want to acknowledgethis idea of multi-component

(40:41):
intervention versus diagnosticintervention, where you're just
going to hone in on phrasing.

I agree and I think that if you have a student
who's a struggling reader, youshould know those areas and it
should be if you have.
If your student is in tier two,you might not be meeting with
the school regularly, but ifyour student is in tier three,
they likely need multiplecomponents to make sure that
they're processing through.

(41:10):
So you should be aware ofmultiple areas.
So if you are already involvedin MTSS or RTI meetings,
parents' ears, teachers' earsshould perk up for these multi
components of literacy and a lotof times that is fluency
vocabulary, including some ofthese phonemic components.

(41:32):
So maybe it's understanding thealphabet and knowing the
alphabetic principle that wouldbe in the earlier grades.
You would likely see thathappening If you are noticing
some more decoding.
What I really like to emphasizeas well to parents is the
encoding piece.
Absolutely there should not bea huge gap between their ability

(41:57):
to read words that are gradelevel and spell those words.
As long as morphology isprovided, as long as phonics
instruction is provided, thosestudents should be able to chunk
words, choose appropriatephonemes to spell those words,
have their brain working in anorganized orthographic mapping

(42:19):
process.
And I know that these are somejargony words, but these are all
kind of red flags that theschool is doing or green flags
that the school is doing theright thing.
If you are just hearing.
Oh, we're just working onfluency and we're doing oral
reading, fluency, one minutetimed, which means that they're

(42:40):
reading a grade level passageand we want to see how fast
they're reading and how, andthey're not even talking about
the errors that the child ismaking.
That's a big red flag, that's aI want to know what are the
errors?
Why are those errors occurring?
Is my child reading slowly?
Because it's taking them a longtime to process that
information.

So I want to really kind of just dig a little
bit deeper into this and justlet parents know that there's a

(43:23):
lot that goes into this, but youshould also be getting this
feedback in real time.
It's reasonable to ask thosequestions.
And then, where are you goingnext?
It's that for parents.
I would always advise them toask those those three questions.
Where were they?
What are we doing now?
Where do we go?

next, I want to share too that oral reading
fluency.
A minute time thing is still anappropriate intervention.
Let me just share that.
The data collection, datacollection, the data collection,
yes, exactly, but theintervention aside from okay
phew.

I'm glad that we're clearing that up.
It's a really interesting pointyou're making, because there
has been some research aboutrepeated readings that hasn't
been favorable, so we have to becareful with what we're saying
here.
What Shannon was talking aboutwas this effective approach to
working on phrasing right andphrasing.
You do have to have a momentwhere you're actually putting it
in context.

(44:14):
You're reading a full passage.
Anyway, we're getting verynuanced here, but we're checking
ourselves.

I think this is a good time to bring up how we're
communicating to stakeholdersabout all this stuff.
So let's talk about we alwayshad a meeting that happened with
families and the grade levelteam and usually like the
counselor or maybe assistantprincipal when it moved from
tier two to tier three, and thatwas sort of the initial meeting

(44:42):
, and then we would communicate.
I mean, ideally, the homeroomteacher had been communicating
to the parent this whole timewhere kind of the small group
instruction had been going onand saying you know what?
I've noticed?
Your student is behind inreading.
This is what we're working on.
I've set a goal for the studentthat they haven't met their
goal, even though we've beendoing it in a small group like

(45:04):
two or three times a week, andso I'm now going to be bringing
it to the school level, and sothen we would have a meeting.
What would happen at thatmeeting?
And then what would happenideally, at subsequent meetings?

Yeah well, shannon, I think you're asking
me this and I'm going to kind ofpull out for a second, tell us
what not to do.
I'm actually going to just talkfor a second about just the
structure of meetings.
Mary Shannon and I were havingquite a chat about different
types of meetings that we havebeen a part of across our

(45:40):
careers and I'm in academia, asyou all know, and I have been a
part of so many spiraling,dysfunctional meetings, and so I
don't mean to make this my ownmeeting therapy session.
But I do just want to talkabout effective meetings in
general and acknowledge thatprofessions often outside of

(46:01):
education have meeting norms forgroups of teachers at schools
that may create more effectiveinstruction for students before
we even get to the point wherewe are in a tier three,
potentially tier four situation,and so let's just go through a

(46:25):
couple of these principles thatI've learned over the years.
The first is that any meetingat a school should have an
agenda that's set in advance andpublished ahead of time, and
that everyone has a deadline tocontribute to that agenda prior
to the point a reasonable pointin time prior to the meeting
starting.
So everyone feels like theyhave a voice.
The goals of the meeting needto be stated at the top of the

(46:49):
meeting, and the success of themeeting is based on whether
those goals were met.
So you're stating these goalsat the beginning and the very
last thing you do at the top ofthe meeting and the success of
the meeting is based on whetherthose goals were met so you're
stating these goals at thebeginning and the very last
thing you do at the end is askthe group have the goals been
met?
You will need to appoint afacilitator.
Sometimes that facilitatorrotates.
Other times you all agree thatthis one person is the person

(47:10):
that should be running themeetings and they're effective
at doing it, and that personneeds to be very good with time
management.
Or you have a facilitator andyou have a different person
that's going to deal with thetime management.
Time management needs to bedone appropriately and
considerately.
So sometimes a topic does needanother minute or two because

(47:33):
you can't progress to the nextbullet point unless you resolve
this.
So there has to beconsideration and flexibility.
But the time management alsoneeds to know when are we going
to put a pin in this?
Because we're spiraling here.
When it comes to studentlearning, it's got to be all
about action items.
What are your next steps?
Learning it's got to be allabout action items.

(47:56):
What are your next steps?
How are we going to take actionwith regards to assessment and
instruction?
And then every meeting towardsthe end, you've got the summary
of next steps that align to theaction items.
Then you go back to the goalsand at the start of the next
meeting then you address whatthe action items were, were they
met, and then you jump into themeeting for that week.

(48:18):
So I think sometimes you know,in my work I've had to, because
I have these different projectsgoing on, I've I've had to, a
little bit like master.
I think the art of thisefficient meeting protocol, as
well as the documentation ofmeetings over time where you can
really conversations about whatan efficient and effective

(48:40):
meeting would be to improvestudent outcomes, is worth
everyone's time.

Louder for the people in the back.
I could not agree moreOftentimes, as an advocate, I am
initiating an agenda for theteam and you know I really
shouldn't be you, it shouldn'tbe me.
It should be led by the school.
And the reason it should not beled by me as an advocate is

(49:26):
because it comes in asadversarial rather than
partnership, and what I my goalis is to make it a partnership.
I want the teacher to partnerwith the parent.
I want the parent to understandwhat the school's perspective
is.
I want the support to be abridge for that student and so

(49:47):
making I mean there are somepeople who are very good at
meetings.
There are some people who arenot.
I am a person who goes on atangent I it is not my as many
of our listeners might know, um,but it is not my um preferred
choice to be a facilitatorwithin a meeting.

(50:08):
So I think this is just it'simportant.
I want to keep going to makesure that we are are talking
about this, but we'll make surethat on our social media feed we
also reference what are theseeffective pieces for running a
meeting?

Sorry, shannon, go for it.
No, thank you so much, for Ithink you basically answered my
question of, like, how all thisshould be communicated to the
family, when you described how ameeting goes, with the agenda
and things like that.
And so then there's clearaction items of this is the
intervention that was chosen,this is the goal for the next
meeting, these are the datacollection probes that are going

(50:50):
to be given and how many ofthem are going to be given
between this meeting and thenext meeting, and that's how
it's all communicated, and theneverybody knows their
responsibilities between thatmeeting and the next meeting,
which I think is fantastic.
Is there anything else you wantto share with teachers, like,
while we have you with us, ofjust favorite interventions to

(51:10):
do, what else they can do tomake these interventions just
more possible and feasible andthen also impactful?

I want every person who's working with a
child on the development ofliteracy to think of themselves
as an interventionist.
And what's bothered me abouthigher ed again, I'm a part of
higher ed and so I'm going tothrow some critiques that way is
that we insist that people haveto come back to the institution

(51:43):
to get a specialized degree andsit for the state test and then
become the readinginterventionist, and I really
want to challenge that mindset.

I've never done that actually.
Oh, thank you, Shannon, that'show I don't have the paper
behind my name.

I love your transparency.
That's so great.
I have all these pre-serviceteachers that are making a huge
impact and we know this fromlooking at pre post data.
They're serving as a tier threeinterventionist right now, and
that's because it's all aboutthe quality of the program that
they have received, the qualityof the training that they have

(52:25):
received, the support andoversight that they are getting.
And then it's all about what wehad talked about before the
bond, the social, emotionalpiece of ensuring that striving
readers feel comfortable andsafe in that moment with that
individual who's providing theintervention.
And so I just want everyone,anyone who's working with

(52:47):
students in an interventionsetting, to think of themselves
as having the most elite degree.
You know you've got this If youknow how to move through
assessments and read assessmentdata, which really is just about
.
Has the school conducted ascreener?
Have they interpreted thatscreener for you and helped you
figure out who needs the support?

(53:08):
Is there some type ofdiagnostic data?
Who is doing the progressmonitoring?
What type of informalassessments are you giving each
lesson to know what to do thenext day?
That sounds fancy andcomplicated, but once you're in
it, it's not, and you're not inthat part alone.
The assessment data should notfall all on one person at a

(53:29):
school.
It should not fall all on thereading interventionist.

I'm going to add one extra thought that made it a
lot easier for me to do RTIwithout taking too much time was
to have my own printer.
Like I bought an HP printer andI got like the Insta ink, you
know.
So I would pay like a fewdollars a month and the ink
would just sort of show up likethe Insta ink, you know.
So I would pay like a fewdollars a month and the ink
would just sort of show up.
And that was a way I was ableto batch a lot of my work.
Like I was able to print amonth worth of probes.

(54:01):
You know, I'd walk out thatmeeting or I would know in my
own mind what probes I wasgiving for the next month, have
them already in the foldersready to go.
They were at the front of mydesk, right by my monitor, and
that just really, really helped.
And then I could also printinterventions, because a lot of
times the interventions I wouldchoose were from FCRR.

Yes, wonderful , and they're easy to.

I mean, that's what you were saying Like
anybody could be aninterventionist.
They have such clear directionsand those are research-based as
effective, so you could giveanyone that intervention to
implement, as long as they'reimplementing it, you know, with
integrity and fidelity.

That's right.
I love what you're just sayingabout a printer.
That's so practical, and I'venever actually reflected on the
fact that when I was a readingspecialist, I had my own printer
as well.
That's a huge point.
And also what, now that I'mdistributing these interventions
for free to these fleets oftutors?
We print everything for them.
We do not expect them to printanything, so great point.

It was very.
It made things a lot easierthan you know.
Some days the copy would bebroken and we were out of paper
and things.
It was just if I had paper andI had my own printer, I could do
all these things and itwouldn't take up too much time
or energy.

What a great thing to ask for at the beginning of
the school year as a teacherwishlist.
You know, even if it's you know, to contribute to buying that
printer or contributing to ink,something like that.
Parents are often willing toprovide things like that that
can make a teacher's life easier.
So great suggestion.
I love that.
Katie Pace Miles, thank you somuch for this information.

(55:40):
It's been lovely to share thiswith you.

I hope we can do a return and chat some more,
maybe even get we want to talkto you about orthographic
mapping, because I know that'syour major specialty.

I have my favorite, my favorite topic.
It's my North Star of myintervention work, so I'd love
to come back anytime.
Thank you for having me.

Thank you so much, and we appreciate your
knowledge and your ability toshare it so genuinely,
authentically and communicatedin such a nice way for our
listeners.
All right, till next time, takecare.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

24/7 News: The Latest

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}7.17 Impactful Interventions