Embark on an educational journey with me, as we unravel the complexities of the Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) framework, a cornerstone in supporting the diverse needs of students. Guaranteed to enlighten educators and parents alike, this episode is a deep dive into the world of MTSS, where we break down the essential tiers that frame a student's learning environment. From the all-encompassing Tier 1, which sets the stage with core curriculum and behavior expectations, to Tier 2's targeted strategies for students needing that extra push, we leave no stone unturned. With an emphasis on refining core instruction to enhance support for every learner, particularly in critical areas like phonics and math fluency, this conversation promises to arm you with the insights necessary for building a robust educational foundation.
As we progress through the tiers, the spotlight turns to the often-overlooked champions of education: paraprofessionals and aides. Despite the absence of certification, their role in delivering individualized, data-driven support through Tier 3 interventions is instrumental in helping students who are significantly trailing their peers. And while we acknowledge the hurdles educators face, especially in sourcing quality interventions for math and writing, the conversation is imbued with appreciation for these dedicated individuals who often lead the charge in driving student success. Make sure to tune in for a heartfelt tribute to those who shape our learners’ futures, and a sneak peek into our next discussion that aims to dispel common misconceptions about the MTSS framework while celebrating the continuous advancement of our students.
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Links Mentioned in the Show:
https://teachingstrugglinglearners.com
5 Steps to Getting Started with Progress Monitoring
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
If you're involved in education in any way, shape or
form, you probably hear a lotabout MTSS or maybe in your
school it's RTI the differentdata meetings and you know you
have to go to those meetingsMTSS meetings.
You got to collect the data,you have to report on it.
You have to report on it.
(00:30):
But what exactly is MTSS?
There's a lot of incorrectinformation going on around out
there and there's a lot ofassumptions about MTSS that I'd
really like to clear up today.
Hi, I'm Jessica Curtis ofTeaching Struggling Learners.
I'm a boy mom and a veteranteacher.
(00:51):
You're listening to theReaching Struggling Learners
podcast, where we talk all abouthelping students succeed
academically, socially andbehaviorally.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
So the straight up definitionof MTSS is it's a multi-tiered
(01:18):
system of support.
What it really means is MTSS isjust a framework, a system that
helps schools to identifystudents who are struggling and
then provide appropriatesupports for those students
based on what those kidsactually need.
It's three different tiers ofsupport.
(01:40):
What a lot of schools or a lotof support.
What a lot of schools or a lotof misunderstanding with MTSS is
.
Believe it or not, every singlestudent in a school is a part
of quote-unquote MTSS, and thereason for this is every single
(02:02):
student, whether they're astudent with special needs, a
student who is just has to beprovided tier one instruction.
Every single student gets tierone curriculum.
That's the basic curriculum,that is the standards that every
(02:23):
single teacher has to teach.
That is what every singlestudent in the school is exposed
to and expected to learn.
And so, for example, if you're,you know, a second grade
teacher, the second gradecurriculum, whatever that is is
that's your tier one.
By the way, this is also truefor behavior.
(02:46):
So a lot of schools areimplementing, like PBIS,
instruction for behavior.
So if you have a school-wide ora class-wide, you know money
program or rewards program orsomething for behavior, that's a
tier one intervention.
That's something to kind ofkeep in mind.
(03:07):
If you're sitting in meetingstalking about ways that you know
you've supported your students.
If you have, you know, like aclass box or a treasure chest,
or if the kids earn, you know,so many behavior points, they
get to have an ice cream everyquarter, whatever it is, that is
that's a tier one thing.
(03:29):
If it's something that everysingle student in the school, or
the grade level or theclassroom, depending on what
level you're looking at.
If every single kid isparticipating in that, that is a
tier one intervention.
Now, I've talked about it inprevious, the last couple
episodes.
I truly believe that one of thethings we have to do is we need
(03:52):
to start implementing a wholelot better tier one program.
The curriculum, the basecurriculum, needs to be improved
in reading.
One of the things and I knowwe're starting to really get
into this now, but we need tohave phonics.
There has to be phonicsinstruction.
(04:14):
That should be a basic part ofELA, starting in kindergarten,
and go on up For math.
We need to get back to doingfluency.
I know we've, you know, goneover the whole drill and kill
thing, but the reality is thestudents don't know how to add
and subtract fluently and that'smaking it really hard on them
(04:35):
later on.
That should be a tier oneinstructional thing.
We need to beef up our tier one, but right now I'm not going to
talk about that.
We're going to talk about thewhole MTSS process.
But the big thing to remembertier one for MTSS is every
single student in the school.
For MTSS is every singlestudent in the school, it's
(04:58):
every student in the classroom.
Tier one is grade leveldifferentiation.
If you're sitting in, you knowyour reading class and you've
got your little groups, that'stier one.
If the basic information isstill at the grade level, even
though there's high, medium andlow within the grade level band,
that's a tier one intervention.
(05:19):
Okay, next up is tier two, andthis is for students who have
been identified, usually throughyour pre-mid-post universal
screeners that you do at thebeginning, middle and end of the
year.
But these are students who needa little bit extra help.
These kids aren't super low,they're still within the grade
(05:43):
level band.
They're probably doing okay inclass, but they're struggling a
little bit.
They're having a hard time withreading.
They're not able to keep upwith the reading because they
need a little bit extra, whichis what the tier two
interventions should beproviding.
And so this would be forstudents who need maybe two or
(06:03):
three extra, a little bit ofsupport to fill in gaps during
the week.
So maybe they need to have somephonics lessons retaught to
them and then you need to figureout okay, maybe they need a
little bit of extra practicewith their math fluency, those
kinds of things.
It shouldn't be massivelydifferent from what is happening
(06:26):
in the classroom, the subjectarea, I should say the skills.
Now, obviously, as you getolder and older and older, if
you're working with high schoolstudents who are not able to
read, well, obviously you're notgoing to be in tier two, you're
not going to be working onShakespeare, but you definitely
do still want to have at thelower grades.
(06:48):
It should be pretty close if astudent is only working at tier
two, close if a student is onlyworking at tier two.
Again, with tier two, you haveto identify the skill gaps.
You figure out what is the mostfoundational skill gap and you
start to work.
You figure out what program orwhat activities would help most
quickly fill that skill gap.
(07:10):
You work on it and you check theprogress and every six to nine
weeks you report and say hey,either this intervention is
really working, the student isright on track and hopefully
won't need this interventionsoon, or you're going oh, it's
not really working the way wewanted it to.
The student isn't making enoughprogress.
We should talk about moreintensive interventions.
(07:33):
Progress we should talk aboutmore intensive interventions.
Most states, schools, districts, they require that you do an
assessment, a progressmonitoring task, for tier two at
least once every other week.
So bi-weekly checks to see isthat student making progress,
(07:55):
and part of that is because it'snot as intense of a
intervention as what they'll getat tier two, but also because
or get it tier three, I shouldsay, but also at tier two the
students are a lot closer tograde level.
Usually if they're just workingat tier two then they're
usually it's usually working atcloser to grade level.
(08:17):
So take a little bit more forthem, a little bit longer to
catch up, but they should stillbe making good progress and
hopefully wouldn't would bemaking enough progress that
hopefully soon, you know, withinthe next six months or so maybe
wouldn't even need tier twointervention, wouldn't need this
(08:38):
intervention anymore.
That would be the hope.
Then we have tier three.
This is for students where tiertwo wasn't enough.
The students were not fillingthose gaps far quickly enough.
Maybe they're a couple yearsbehind grade level and so
they're far enough behind thatthey're really, really
(09:00):
struggling to do what they needto do in the classroom setting,
in that tier one classroomcurriculum setting, and so for
those students to be able to getthose gaps filled they need,
more than a couple times a week,30 minutes of support.
They really need it four tofive days a week and they need a
(09:21):
smaller group setting becausethey're they're they're farther
behind.
We've got to be intense withthis, with they're at tier three
, because these are kids thatare they're far enough behind
that, hey, when it comes down toit, these babies really can't,
they can't do what they need todo in the Tier 1 curriculum
(09:43):
because they have so many orsuch deep skill gaps that we
have to fill, and these are thestudents that we really, really,
really got to work with.
So the work that we're going todo in this Tier 3 intervention
setting, it's going to be moreindividualized, with that
(10:03):
smaller group setting andbecause it's so much more
intense and it's so much moreindividualized for that child,
that's when we're also going tobe collecting data more
regularly.
We're going to collect data atthe tier three level on a weekly
basis because, man, these kidsat tier three, they're the ones
that are really, reallystruggling If they're not making
(10:31):
progress over a two or threeweek period.
We got to change ourintervention because these
babies don't have time to wastesitting floundering.
We got to get them going, okay.
So that's really the differencebetween tier one, tier two and
tier three.
That's really the differencebetween tier one, tier two and
tier three, and that encompassesthat whole, all of those
(10:52):
groupings of kids.
That encompasses every singlestudent in school at tier one.
And then you got the kids whoare they're struggling a little
bit.
We got to help them, and thenyou got the ones who are really
struggling and we really need tohelp these babies.
So, but that's the whole systemkind of broken down.
And a lot of times MTSS isdepicted as a triangle and you
(11:13):
have, you know, the base withthe most amount is tier one,
which is everybody.
Tier two is usually, you know,a smaller area in the middle,
but it's not a massive chunk ofthe population.
And then, of course, tier threeshould be a minimal amount of
students.
Now, if you're thinking back tothe last couple podcast
(11:34):
episodes where we were talkingabout, you know like 70% of our
students are, they arestruggling.
Well, that's not the way thatMTSS was ever meant to deal with
that.
It's basically at that pointyou've got almost a flip
triangle where you've got a verysmall amount of the student
population that doesn't needadditional supports and you have
(12:00):
a whole bunch who do need extrasupport and do have some
significant skill gaps there.
So when it comes to MTSS, withthe testing and the meetings
usually weekly meetings to talkabout student progress and all
that most schools focus onreading.
(12:20):
And there's a lot of reasonsfor that, the main one being,
quite frankly, there is a lotmore money, school budgets and
all that put toward reading.
There have been historically,way more laws and resolutions
and things passed by states andschool boards and all that that
(12:44):
focus on reading.
And you know that's, let's behonest, where the money goes,
that's where the focus goes.
So there are a lot of readinginterventions out there that are
available for schools anddistricts to buy.
There are way fewer for math.
It's hard, I'll be honest.
It's hard to find good qualitymath interventions.
(13:09):
But it's even harder to findwriting interventions.
Now, behavior interventions,those can either be really good
or really bad, those as a schooldistrict and all that you
really want to figure out whatyou want to invest your money in
.
But I'll be honest, it is.
It is really hard.
(13:31):
I can't even think of a singlegood, high quality math
intervention program or writingintervention program that I
would recommend at this point.
Would recommend at this point.
But again, part of the reasonfor that is there's just not
money in that.
So the schools don't have awhole lot of extra money to
(13:52):
throw for math interventions,that kind of thing and therefore
you know the curriculumcompanies aren't going to create
that.
It's sad but it is true.
States and districts all havedifferent rules for who can lead
the intervention groups.
They also have rules on whatinterventions they're allowed to
(14:13):
use and all that stuff.
But especially when it comes towho can provide the
interventions themselves,sometimes they also have rules
on you know how long theinterventions go for, how long
the intervention time is.
They have rules about how often.
Some school districts are onlyrequired tier two to be two to
(14:36):
three days a week.
Some I've seen that tier twohad to be five days a week.
It just depends on what yourdistrict has going on and some
districts even will mandate thespecific reading interventions
or progress monitoring thatthey're supposed to use.
My own personal opinion on that,based on what I have seen in
(14:56):
multiple states we are wastingreally good resources by
limiting who leads these groups.
A lot of states and districtsthat I have been in they have
said you cannot have, you haveto have a teacher, a certified
teacher, teaching interventionprograms, teaching tier two and
(15:20):
tier three classes.
Because of that, I can also saythat there have been some
fantastic aides who, quitefrankly, were better at teaching
interventions than theintervention teachers that were
not allowed to lead interventiongroups.
There are some absolutelyfantastic paraprofessional aides
(15:44):
out there in schools who arethey are just reading or math or
writing gurus.
They are absolutely fantastic,partially because they've been
working with students withspecial needs.
They've been working withstruggling students for so long.
They get into their littleminds and they know how to teach
(16:06):
these kids and how to get thepoint across, how to get them
moving to the next level.
I really think that if we reallyget serious about thinking
outside the box when it comes tofixing MTSS and making this
entire system more doable andmore effective, we have to start
(16:30):
trusting some of the amazingpeople that we have in our
schools and stop looking at, hey, this person has this amazing
degree.
Therefore, they absolutely mustbe the only person that teaches
this.
Absolutely must be the onlyperson that teaches this.
Well, I mean, quite frankly, Ihave sat in high schools where
(16:52):
the reading specialist teachersthey didn't actually know how to
teach kids how to read.
They knew how to teach kids whocould read, who had the basics,
who could decode and who coulddid have sight words and all
that.
They could teach them how toimprove their reading and
improve their comprehension, butthey did not know how to take a
(17:20):
child from illiterate toliterate, whereas we also had a
couple aides in the building andin the district who were
fantastic because they hadworked at elementary levels, in
the kindergarten, first gradeclassrooms and they had watched
years and years of childrenlearning how to read.
They knew how to bridge thatgap, they knew how to teach
those kids how to read, but theyweren't allowed to be the tier
(17:45):
two and tier threeinterventionist.
So those kids really missed out, not because their teachers,
the certified teachers, were bad, but that's not what those
certified teachers went tocollege to learn how to do.
I really think we have to reallystart looking at being smarter
(18:06):
about this and, quite frankly,especially for the districts
that mandate hey, this is theintervention program that you
should use.
As long as it's someone who iscleared by the school district.
Obviously we don't want, youknow, just Joe Schmo coming in
off the street, but as long asthey are someone who is, we have
(18:27):
said yes, you are allowed towork with our students.
We believe that you are a goodcandidate to work with our
students.
They're trained, know how touse the intervention.
As long as they're seeingresults, I'd say we should just
be thankful we have them and letthem teach what they are
passionate about.
Because, let's be honest,whether it's a certified teacher
(18:49):
or a teacher's aide, a parapro,whatever it is, if they're good
at teaching kids how to read orhow to do basic math or how to
do writing, why in the world,with so many students who are
struggling, why would we stopthem from doing that?
It just doesn't make sense.
So I really think we have tokind of get outside the box a
(19:11):
little bit.
Stop thumbing our noses atpeople who are maybe they don't
have the certification, maybethey don't have the advanced
college degree and all that, butif they're really good at what
they do, maybe we shouldappreciate that.
So next week we are going totalk about the purpose behind
(19:31):
NTSS and yeah, it seems prettyobvious, but we're going to talk
about that because there aresome misunderstandings when it
comes to that.
Until next time, may yourcoffee be strong, your students
calm and, of course, yourstudents progressing.
Bye.
If you're involved in education in any way, shape or
form, you probably hear a lotabout MTSS or maybe in your
school it's RTI the differentdata meetings and you know you
have to go to those meetingsMTSS meetings.
You got to collect the data,you have to report on it.
You have to report on it.
(00:30):
But what exactly is MTSS?
There's a lot of incorrectinformation going on around out
there and there's a lot ofassumptions about MTSS that I'd
really like to clear up today.
Hi, I'm Jessica Curtis ofTeaching Struggling Learners.
I'm a boy mom and a veteranteacher.
(00:51):
You're listening to theReaching Struggling Learners
podcast, where we talk all abouthelping students succeed
academically, socially andbehaviorally.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
So the straight up definitionof MTSS is it's a multi-tiered
(01:18):
system of support.
What it really means is MTSS isjust a framework, a system that
helps schools to identifystudents who are struggling and
then provide appropriatesupports for those students
based on what those kidsactually need.
It's three different tiers ofsupport.
(01:40):
What a lot of schools or a lotof support.
What a lot of schools or a lotof misunderstanding with MTSS is
.
Believe it or not, every singlestudent in a school is a part
of quote-unquote MTSS, and thereason for this is every single
(02:02):
student, whether they're astudent with special needs, a
student who is just has to beprovided tier one instruction.
Every single student gets tierone curriculum.
That's the basic curriculum,that is the standards that every
(02:23):
single teacher has to teach.
That is what every singlestudent in the school is exposed
to and expected to learn.
And so, for example, if you're,you know, a second grade
teacher, the second gradecurriculum, whatever that is is
that's your tier one.
By the way, this is also truefor behavior.
(02:46):
So a lot of schools areimplementing, like PBIS,
instruction for behavior.
So if you have a school-wide ora class-wide, you know money
program or rewards program orsomething for behavior, that's a
tier one intervention.
That's something to kind ofkeep in mind.
(03:07):
If you're sitting in meetingstalking about ways that you know
you've supported your students.
If you have, you know, like aclass box or a treasure chest,
or if the kids earn, you know,so many behavior points, they
get to have an ice cream everyquarter, whatever it is, that is
that's a tier one thing.
(03:29):
If it's something that everysingle student in the school, or
the grade level or theclassroom, depending on what
level you're looking at.
If every single kid isparticipating in that, that is a
tier one intervention.
Now, I've talked about it inprevious, the last couple
episodes.
I truly believe that one of thethings we have to do is we need
(03:52):
to start implementing a wholelot better tier one program.
The curriculum, the basecurriculum, needs to be improved
in reading.
One of the things and I knowwe're starting to really get
into this now, but we need tohave phonics.
There has to be phonicsinstruction.
(04:14):
That should be a basic part ofELA, starting in kindergarten,
and go on up For math.
We need to get back to doingfluency.
I know we've, you know, goneover the whole drill and kill
thing, but the reality is thestudents don't know how to add
and subtract fluently and that'smaking it really hard on them
(04:35):
later on.
That should be a tier oneinstructional thing.
We need to beef up our tier one, but right now I'm not going to
talk about that.
We're going to talk about thewhole MTSS process.
But the big thing to remembertier one for MTSS is every
single student in the school.
For MTSS is every singlestudent in the school, it's
(04:58):
every student in the classroom.
Tier one is grade leveldifferentiation.
If you're sitting in, you knowyour reading class and you've
got your little groups, that'stier one.
If the basic information isstill at the grade level, even
though there's high, medium andlow within the grade level band,
that's a tier one intervention.
(05:19):
Okay, next up is tier two, andthis is for students who have
been identified, usually throughyour pre-mid-post universal
screeners that you do at thebeginning, middle and end of the
year.
But these are students who needa little bit extra help.
These kids aren't super low,they're still within the grade
(05:43):
level band.
They're probably doing okay inclass, but they're struggling a
little bit.
They're having a hard time withreading.
They're not able to keep upwith the reading because they
need a little bit extra, whichis what the tier two
interventions should beproviding.
And so this would be forstudents who need maybe two or
(06:03):
three extra, a little bit ofsupport to fill in gaps during
the week.
So maybe they need to have somephonics lessons retaught to
them and then you need to figureout okay, maybe they need a
little bit of extra practicewith their math fluency, those
kinds of things.
It shouldn't be massivelydifferent from what is happening
(06:26):
in the classroom, the subjectarea, I should say the skills.
Now, obviously, as you getolder and older and older, if
you're working with high schoolstudents who are not able to
read, well, obviously you're notgoing to be in tier two, you're
not going to be working onShakespeare, but you definitely
do still want to have at thelower grades.
(06:48):
It should be pretty close if astudent is only working at tier
two, close if a student is onlyworking at tier two.
Again, with tier two, you haveto identify the skill gaps.
You figure out what is the mostfoundational skill gap and you
start to work.
You figure out what program orwhat activities would help most
quickly fill that skill gap.
(07:10):
You work on it and you check theprogress and every six to nine
weeks you report and say hey,either this intervention is
really working, the student isright on track and hopefully
won't need this interventionsoon, or you're going oh, it's
not really working the way wewanted it to.
The student isn't making enoughprogress.
We should talk about moreintensive interventions.
(07:33):
Progress we should talk aboutmore intensive interventions.
Most states, schools, districts, they require that you do an
assessment, a progressmonitoring task, for tier two at
least once every other week.
So bi-weekly checks to see isthat student making progress,
(07:55):
and part of that is because it'snot as intense of a
intervention as what they'll getat tier two, but also because
or get it tier three, I shouldsay, but also at tier two the
students are a lot closer tograde level.
Usually if they're just workingat tier two then they're
usually it's usually working atcloser to grade level.
(08:17):
So take a little bit more forthem, a little bit longer to
catch up, but they should stillbe making good progress and
hopefully wouldn't would bemaking enough progress that
hopefully soon, you know, withinthe next six months or so maybe
wouldn't even need tier twointervention, wouldn't need this
(08:38):
intervention anymore.
That would be the hope.
Then we have tier three.
This is for students where tiertwo wasn't enough.
The students were not fillingthose gaps far quickly enough.
Maybe they're a couple yearsbehind grade level and so
they're far enough behind thatthey're really, really
(09:00):
struggling to do what they needto do in the classroom setting,
in that tier one classroomcurriculum setting, and so for
those students to be able to getthose gaps filled they need,
more than a couple times a week,30 minutes of support.
They really need it four tofive days a week and they need a
(09:21):
smaller group setting becausethey're they're they're farther
behind.
We've got to be intense withthis, with they're at tier three
, because these are kids thatare they're far enough behind
that, hey, when it comes down toit, these babies really can't,
they can't do what they need todo in the Tier 1 curriculum
(09:43):
because they have so many orsuch deep skill gaps that we
have to fill, and these are thestudents that we really, really,
really got to work with.
So the work that we're going todo in this Tier 3 intervention
setting, it's going to be moreindividualized, with that
(10:03):
smaller group setting andbecause it's so much more
intense and it's so much moreindividualized for that child,
that's when we're also going tobe collecting data more
regularly.
We're going to collect data atthe tier three level on a weekly
basis because, man, these kidsat tier three, they're the ones
that are really, reallystruggling If they're not making
(10:31):
progress over a two or threeweek period.
We got to change ourintervention because these
babies don't have time to wastesitting floundering.
We got to get them going, okay.
So that's really the differencebetween tier one, tier two and
tier three.
That's really the differencebetween tier one, tier two and
tier three, and that encompassesthat whole, all of those
(10:52):
groupings of kids.
That encompasses every singlestudent in school at tier one.
And then you got the kids whoare they're struggling a little
bit.
We got to help them, and thenyou got the ones who are really
struggling and we really need tohelp these babies.
So, but that's the whole systemkind of broken down.
And a lot of times MTSS isdepicted as a triangle and you
(11:13):
have, you know, the base withthe most amount is tier one,
which is everybody.
Tier two is usually, you know,a smaller area in the middle,
but it's not a massive chunk ofthe population.
And then, of course, tier threeshould be a minimal amount of
students.
Now, if you're thinking back tothe last couple podcast
(11:34):
episodes where we were talkingabout, you know like 70% of our
students are, they arestruggling.
Well, that's not the way thatMTSS was ever meant to deal with
that.
It's basically at that pointyou've got almost a flip
triangle where you've got a verysmall amount of the student
population that doesn't needadditional supports and you have
(12:00):
a whole bunch who do need extrasupport and do have some
significant skill gaps there.
So when it comes to MTSS, withthe testing and the meetings
usually weekly meetings to talkabout student progress and all
that most schools focus onreading.
(12:20):
And there's a lot of reasonsfor that, the main one being,
quite frankly, there is a lotmore money, school budgets and
all that put toward reading.
There have been historically,way more laws and resolutions
and things passed by states andschool boards and all that that
(12:44):
focus on reading.
And you know that's, let's behonest, where the money goes,
that's where the focus goes.
So there are a lot of readinginterventions out there that are
available for schools anddistricts to buy.
There are way fewer for math.
It's hard, I'll be honest.
It's hard to find good qualitymath interventions.
(13:09):
But it's even harder to findwriting interventions.
Now, behavior interventions,those can either be really good
or really bad, those as a schooldistrict and all that you
really want to figure out whatyou want to invest your money in
.
But I'll be honest, it is.
It is really hard.
(13:31):
I can't even think of a singlegood, high quality math
intervention program or writingintervention program that I
would recommend at this point.
Would recommend at this point.
But again, part of the reasonfor that is there's just not
money in that.
So the schools don't have awhole lot of extra money to
(13:52):
throw for math interventions,that kind of thing and therefore
you know the curriculumcompanies aren't going to create
that.
It's sad but it is true.
States and districts all havedifferent rules for who can lead
the intervention groups.
They also have rules on whatinterventions they're allowed to
(14:13):
use and all that stuff.
But especially when it comes towho can provide the
interventions themselves,sometimes they also have rules
on you know how long theinterventions go for, how long
the intervention time is.
They have rules about how often.
Some school districts are onlyrequired tier two to be two to
(14:36):
three days a week.
Some I've seen that tier twohad to be five days a week.
It just depends on what yourdistrict has going on and some
districts even will mandate thespecific reading interventions
or progress monitoring thatthey're supposed to use.
My own personal opinion on that,based on what I have seen in
(14:56):
multiple states we are wastingreally good resources by
limiting who leads these groups.
A lot of states and districtsthat I have been in they have
said you cannot have, you haveto have a teacher, a certified
teacher, teaching interventionprograms, teaching tier two and
(15:20):
tier three classes.
Because of that, I can also saythat there have been some
fantastic aides who, quitefrankly, were better at teaching
interventions than theintervention teachers that were
not allowed to lead interventiongroups.
There are some absolutelyfantastic paraprofessional aides
(15:44):
out there in schools who arethey are just reading or math or
writing gurus.
They are absolutely fantastic,partially because they've been
working with students withspecial needs.
They've been working withstruggling students for so long.
They get into their littleminds and they know how to teach
(16:06):
these kids and how to get thepoint across, how to get them
moving to the next level.
I really think that if we reallyget serious about thinking
outside the box when it comes tofixing MTSS and making this
entire system more doable andmore effective, we have to start
(16:30):
trusting some of the amazingpeople that we have in our
schools and stop looking at, hey, this person has this amazing
degree.
Therefore, they absolutely mustbe the only person that teaches
this.
Absolutely must be the onlyperson that teaches this.
Well, I mean, quite frankly, Ihave sat in high schools where
(16:52):
the reading specialist teachersthey didn't actually know how to
teach kids how to read.
They knew how to teach kids whocould read, who had the basics,
who could decode and who coulddid have sight words and all
that.
They could teach them how toimprove their reading and
improve their comprehension, butthey did not know how to take a
(17:20):
child from illiterate toliterate, whereas we also had a
couple aides in the building andin the district who were
fantastic because they hadworked at elementary levels, in
the kindergarten, first gradeclassrooms and they had watched
years and years of childrenlearning how to read.
They knew how to bridge thatgap, they knew how to teach
those kids how to read, but theyweren't allowed to be the tier
(17:45):
two and tier threeinterventionist.
So those kids really missed out, not because their teachers,
the certified teachers, were bad, but that's not what those
certified teachers went tocollege to learn how to do.
I really think we have to reallystart looking at being smarter
(18:06):
about this and, quite frankly,especially for the districts
that mandate hey, this is theintervention program that you
should use.
As long as it's someone who iscleared by the school district.
Obviously we don't want, youknow, just Joe Schmo coming in
off the street, but as long asthey are someone who is, we have
(18:27):
said yes, you are allowed towork with our students.
We believe that you are a goodcandidate to work with our
students.
They're trained, know how touse the intervention.
As long as they're seeingresults, I'd say we should just
be thankful we have them and letthem teach what they are
passionate about.
Because, let's be honest,whether it's a certified teacher
(18:49):
or a teacher's aide, a parapro,whatever it is, if they're good
at teaching kids how to read orhow to do basic math or how to
do writing, why in the world,with so many students who are
struggling, why would we stopthem from doing that?
It just doesn't make sense.
So I really think we have tokind of get outside the box a
(19:11):
little bit.
Stop thumbing our noses atpeople who are maybe they don't
have the certification, maybethey don't have the advanced
college degree and all that, butif they're really good at what
they do, maybe we shouldappreciate that.
So next week we are going totalk about the purpose behind
(19:31):
NTSS and yeah, it seems prettyobvious, but we're going to talk
about that because there aresome misunderstandings when it
comes to that.
Until next time, may yourcoffee be strong, your students
calm and, of course, yourstudents progressing.
Bye.
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