May 29, 2024 • 20 mins
Ever wondered why math and writing seem to get overshadowed in educational interventions? It's time to change the narrative. Join us as we explore the pressing need to broaden the MTSS framework beyond its usual focus on reading. We'll delve into the significance of effective Tier 1 curriculums for math and writing and highlight the current gaps in educational support systems. Learn how to identify struggling students through targeted screeners and assessments and advocate for the robust curricula they deserve. We aim to arm educators with the tools and understanding needed to support their students in every subject comprehensively.
In this episode, we also tackle the unique challenges faced by writing intervention teachers who operate without a scripted program. Discover the benefits of customizing interventions to meet individual student needs and the critical importance of progress monitoring in subjects often neglected. We emphasize the necessity for regular data chats and dedicated meetings to ensure math and writing get the attention they truly deserve within the MTSS framework. As a bonus, get a sneak peek into our upcoming episode focused on MTSS strategies for managing and improving student behavior, promising educators strong coffee, calm students, and an amazing summer ahead.
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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 (00:00):
So last week I promised you a podcast episode
about MTSS for math, outliningthe system of MTSS specifically
for math.
Well, when I was lookingthrough and doing my research
for the podcast episode and forthe podcast episode that I had
planned for next week, which isfor writing, I realized the fact
(00:23):
is math and writing are verysimilar, not subject areas, but
in the way that they are treatedin MTSS, in that they're
basically not there.
Honestly, when we look at thedata and the information that's
available, the vast majority ofthe students that enter MTSS the
(00:43):
focus is on reading.
When I was planning the podcastepisode for math and then for
writing, I realized I wanted tohonor your time and my time a
little bit more with this.
Understand the reality that myteachers and my administrators
out there are facing.
While I disagree that with theway that we're doing MTSS, I
(01:06):
think that we should be focusinga whole lot more on math and
certainly way more on writing.
That's not the reality rightnow.
Teachers and administrators arebeat down.
They're tired, you're exhausted.
You're just trying to do thebest you can with what you've
got, while I want to go over theinformation for how MTSS works
(01:28):
for math and then for writingwhen you're probably not going
to see it within your schoolsystem.
Maybe you see it in your school, maybe once or twice.
Well, I want you to have theinformation so that if you have
that student that comes up,writing or math is a really big
focus for the child and you havethat opportunity to show how it
(01:49):
should be done.
I want you to have thatopportunity.
I want you to have theresources available.
So I'm going to combine the twopodcast episodes.
So we're going to talk todayabout MTSS for math and we're
going to talk about MTSS forwriting Hopefully that will be
very helpful to you and we'regoing to talk about MTSS for
writing.
Hopefully that will be veryhelpful to you.
And then next week we're goingto take off so that you have
some break and I have some breakand we're going to enjoy a
(02:11):
little bit of summer.
Hi, I'm Jessica Curtis ofTeaching Struggling Learners.
I'm a boy mom and a veteranteacher.
You're listening to theReaching Struggling Learners.
I'm a boy mom and a veteranteacher.
You're listening to theReaching Struggling Learners
podcast, where we talk all abouthelping students succeed
(02:31):
academically, socially andbehaviorally.
Thank you so much for tuning inIf you've listened to the last
(02:52):
couple podcast episodes.
You know the basic system ofMTSS, which, for writing and for
math, we know that tier one iswhatever the main curriculum is
for both of those.
For math, there's a lot ofdifferent curriculums out there
from different publishingcompanies.
Some are better than others.
It depends on what the needs ofthe students are and, quite
(03:12):
frankly, what the contracts werethat were paid for by the
school districts or the statethat you're in.
But that's the main, the maincurriculum.
For writing, there are very fewmain curriculum For writing.
There are very few overallcurriculums that are out there
that are just focused on writing.
There's a couple out there,there's very few.
The vast majority of thewriting curriculum is embedded
(03:37):
within the overall ELAcurriculum.
Unfortunately, from what we areseeing from the data the state
scores, the pre-med post scoresand all that writing has very
much taken a back seat, and withgood reason.
Let's be honest only 35-40% ofour students are able to read on
(04:00):
grade level.
That's going to be the focus.
You have to be able to read tobe able to write.
That's just how it is.
Reading levels are alwayshigher than writing levels.
That's just how it works.
You have to be able to read, tobe able to write.
You have to know how words gotogether, how they form, to be
able to write them and to shareyour thoughts on paper.
(04:22):
It does make sense for teacherswho are looking at a classroom
of 20 kids and a teen of thosekids are struggling with reading
the grade level text.
Yeah, I understand that justbeing able to read and
comprehend that text is going totake priority.
Writing has unfortunately takena big backseat to reading.
(04:47):
We know that there is a very bigissue at the high school where
students are unable to performvery basic writing skills like
writing a complete sentence.
We know that the tier onewriting program is not serving
our students For math.
(05:07):
We'll look again at the algebrateachers, since before COVID,
our algebra teachers are gettingstudents who don't.
They cannot perform the basicoperations for algebra because
they don't understand the basicalgebra, because they don't
understand the basic skills,they don't have fact fluency.
So again, I would argue thatthe Tier 1 programs that we have
(05:30):
been using have not beenadequate for the majority of our
students.
Tier 1 is whatever all of thestudents are getting or Not
getting, unless 80% or more ofour students are able to perform
the skills, I would argue thatthe tier one curriculum is not
appropriate.
It's not doing what thestudents need it to do.
(05:53):
Mtss is the perfect means ofcollecting the data and arguing
for better curriculum, orcurriculum at all, for that tier
one level, and I'd like to giveyou the opportunity to have
your voice heard.
If the tier one curriculumisn't doing what it should
meaning the students aren'tgaining the skills that they
(06:14):
should for math or for writingthen we should move them to tier
two.
Again, just like with reading,use some screeners for that At
different levels.
You can screen for well, we allhave the pre-mid post for math,
the star scores and all thatstuff, the map scores, all that.
Most states and countiesrequire some sort of pre-mid
(06:36):
post.
You can use those to determinethat, hey, below this cutoff
point, these students really do,they're struggling.
If we identify a student that'sstruggling, we need to look at
and see what is the skill areathat they're struggling in.
This is much easier in mathbecause we have those MAP scores
(06:57):
, the STAR scores, the whateverit is that you're using in your
county or your state for thoseassessments.
For writing, until you reallyget into the testing
quote-unquote testing grades,there usually isn't a writing
test and that's not till thevery end of the year For writing
.
Every grade level should bedoing a beginning of the year
(07:20):
writing assessment.
Now, I'm not a big advocate foradding assessments, but if we
have third graders who are askedto write about something that
happened in their life, yourfavorite thing in the world,
whatever it is and we find thatthose that are third graders are
not able to write completesentences, they cannot spell
(07:40):
certain words that are gradelevel appropriate, that they
can't use capitalization orpunctuation, then that's your
screener right there, and weknow these are some things that
we need to work on for thosestudents and that would be a
tier two intervention working oncapitalization and punctuation,
sentence structure, making surethat we can spell grade
(08:03):
appropriate words in thesentences.
We can spell grade appropriatewords appropriate in the
sentences, those kinds of things.
That would be your tier twoUsing the screeners, just like
we would for math or for reading, use the screeners to identify
what are the skill area deficitsand focus on those, giving them
the you know, the smaller groupinstruction for writing.
(08:24):
It might be the whole classroom,but hey, at least we know what
we need to work on.
Then, if the students are notmaking the progress that we
would expect to get them ontograde level, filling in those
skill gaps.
We would then want to move themon to tier three, which is that
would be for students who areworking well below grade level,
(08:46):
probably working two years belowgrade level.
Those students would needindividualized, or more
individualized support.
They need more reteaching.
They need more practice tosolidify those skills.
I know that there has been a lotof pushback in the teaching
community that students don'tneed as much practice to show
(09:08):
that they know something.
Unfortunately, what we arefinding is that, okay, if
students show five times thatthey did this one problem
correctly on the test orwhatever, that doesn't
necessarily mean that theyunderstood it and they really
absorbed it.
If you give them those sameproblems two months later, they
(09:29):
may or may not get it right.
We have to start ensuring thatstudents are getting enough
practice and that they areremembering how to do the
previous skills, because there'sa lot to learn and we have to
ensure that the students aregetting enough practice,
especially when it comes down toit.
They have to be getting thatfluency that it's easy that it
(09:52):
is second nature for them toknow the addition problems, the
subtraction problems, themultiplication and division when
it's appropriate.
Tier three, a lot of times isgoing to be a lot of extra
practice and making sure thatthe students, not that they just
understand the process, butthey have really, truly absorbed
(10:13):
it and they're able to do it ina bunch of different situations
.
For tier three, for writing,that would be again reteaching
very basic skills, probablygoing to focus a lot on spelling
with that, because that seemsto be a big area of struggle for
a lot of students, preventingthem from getting their thoughts
(10:33):
on paper.
Most students absorb veryquickly the capitals at the
beginnings and punctuation,those kinds of things, but they
will change and simplify theirwriting drastically, shorten
their writing drastically, notbecause they don't have the
wonderful ideas in their headbut because they lack the
(10:54):
spelling skills to be able toreally convey their thought.
They can have students with afantastic vocabulary are writing
very, very simplistic sentences, if they're writing sentences
at all, simply because theydon't have the spelling skills.
So a lot of the times, somewhen you're working with tier
(11:15):
three, with writing, be prepared.
You may have to work onspelling quite a bit and that's.
I realized that's a that's moreof a phonics thing, but it's.
It's an important phonics thing.
It's a gateway for our studentsto be able to convey their
thoughts appropriately.
Now for interventions.
We've talked about this a lot.
There aren't a whole lot ofinterventions out there.
(11:36):
There aren't a whole lot ofintervention programs out there
for reading or for math and forwriting, which, for reading, I
honestly see the number ofinterventions as a stumbling
block because districts, schools, get so stuck on.
We're using this program atthis grade level and whether
(11:57):
it's appropriate or not.
The benefits to not having awhole lot of extra programs out
there for writing and for mathis that we as teachers get to
use our own good logic andunderstanding of our students to
be able to focus and say mystudent doesn't need to spend 30
(12:19):
minutes doing this, fiveminutes doing this, five minutes
doing that, five minutes doingthis.
Instead, we can spend our 20-30minutes just working on what we
feel is the correct skill.
So, for example, if you have astudent who is struggling with
addition or subtraction fluency,you can do your very quick
(12:43):
timed test to see how are youdoing today?
Okay, here's some really quickpractice.
Here's a quick game to do thatis focused just on this skill.
All right, let's do anotherdrill and see how you improve.
Even over a course of 20-30minutes, you may see quite a bit
of improvement.
Same thing with writing.
Because we don't have a wholelot of writing intervention
(13:06):
programs that are so scriptedand the higher ups are just in
love with this one program.
We can go and say, hey, youknow what, guys?
I've noticed that we are doinga really good job with getting
our capitals and our endpunctuation.
But you know what we need to do?
We need to.
Today we're going to focus oncommon versus proper nouns and
(13:26):
making sure that those propernouns have a capital at the
beginning.
So we can spend 20-30 minutesjust working on those very
minute skills so that when thestudents move on, they've
actually really acquired a newskill or they've had some really
good practice and made somereally good gains towards
(13:48):
meeting that goal that we hadfor them.
While I know that it could bedaunting, for example, if you
were going to be the writingintervention teacher, oh my
goodness, I would love that.
That would honestly be like adream job for me.
But let's say you're going into be a writing intervention
teacher and, no, we don't have aprogram for you to use.
There is nothing scripted.
(14:09):
That's daunting, but at thesame time, it is so freeing
because you're not scripted.
You can do for your studentswhat you see as their next step,
which is beautiful, and Ihonestly feel that teachers
should have the respect that wecan look at them and say, hey,
(14:31):
here's a bunch of resources.
We want you to pick what youfeel is right for your student
to make to meet the goal thatwe've set for them.
I think that that's the respectthat teachers deserve.
Obviously, we want to provideall the interventions that we
say that we're going to do, justlike we would for reading, and
then we have to progress monitor.
(14:52):
For math and writing, progressmonitoring is even more
important because these areas,these subject areas, just aren't
used in MTSS.
They're not addressed nearly asoften.
It's important to show, when weare addressing math and writing
in our data chats and all that,that we're actually making
(15:15):
progress and that what we'redoing is working.
That's how we, as teachers oras an administrator, we can
advocate and say we need todedicate more time to math
interventions or writinginterventions.
We need to dedicate more money,more resources to providing
(15:36):
better resources for both ofthese areas that we need to have
a tier one curriculum forwriting or we need to spend less
time on something else so thatwe can focus some more on this.
It's all about advocating forour students.
Using that progress monitoringdata to advocate for our
students helps us actually getwith it.
(15:59):
Of course we're gonna.
We should have meetings.
We should have meetings formath and writing just as often
as we do for reading.
It's really important probablymore important if you're adding
in math or writing for MTSS thatyou have an agenda.
We know that the focus for MTSSby and large is reading.
(16:20):
So if you're talking about mathor writing for a student, it is
really important to have thatagenda up there with your
subject in it, because otherwiseit's really very likely that
the other subject areas will getkind of pushed to the side so
that we can talk about reading.
(16:40):
So again, an agenda is evenmore important and following the
system, the steps of MTSS formath and writing, is very, very
important so that the studentsget what they need in these
other, less focused upon subjectareas, just like we do with our
(17:02):
reading.
I strongly suggest that we havea list of red flags for tier
two, moving into tier three,tier three, into asking for
testing or going back down, youknow, from tier three to tier
two and so on.
There should be some red flagsthat indicate, hey, we need to
(17:24):
have a very serious, frankconversation about this student
and what they need.
For example, if a student hasbeen struggling with math for a
long time, then we need to talkabout bumping them up to the
next level or maybe talk abouttesting.
The vast majority of studentswho qualify for specific
(17:46):
learning disabilities nationwidequalify under reading.
That's because MTSS the focusis on MTSS.
In my opinion, if we had asmuch of a focus on math as we do
on reading, we would have anequally large number for
students who would qualify underour current system for math.
(18:08):
There are a lot of students whoare out there who we say we
give them the excuse oh, they'rejust bad in math because they
never had the opportunity to getthe help that they needed.
If we were to treat bothsubjects the same, we would
realize that, hey, there's a lotof kids out there that they
(18:31):
actually could do better in mathif they received the supports.
Unfortunately, the data doesn'texist right now for writing, and
I wish it did, but we have noidea right now how many students
would need extra help or maybeeven need specialized
instruction for writing, becauseit's just not covered in MTSS.
(18:56):
There's a lot of kids out therewho have fantastic ideas and
thoughts, stories that could beshared with the world, knowledge
that could be shared with theworld, but they have not taught
the skills that they need to beable to share their ideas, and
that's very, very sad, but it'ssomething that we need to
(19:17):
address.
Obviously, it's probably notgoing to be in the coming school
year, but over time, I wouldlove to see a much bigger focus
in supporting all of ourstudents, not just supporting
the ones that are strugglingwith reading, but the ones that
are struggling with math andwith writing, with communicating
(19:38):
through the written word.
I would love to see us careabout all of our students, not
that we don't care about them,but really focus on all of the
needs of our students, not justthe ones that struggle with
reading.
That, in a nutshell, is MTSSfor math and writing, just like
with reading.
(19:59):
It mirrors the overall MTSSprocess and it's a process that
we could be using to support awhole lot more students than we
are right now.
We are going to get more indepth in how we can support more
of our students and be a littlebit more focused in what we're
doing, but not next week.
Next week we're going to takeoff, and the week after we are
(20:22):
going to talk about somethingthat, no matter what your
subject area, it's somethingthat all of us need to deal with
or unfortunately have to dealwith, and that is behavior.
We know that behaviors havebeen increasing, not in a good
way, over the past few years,and so we will talk about MTSS
for behavior in our next episode, but until then, may your
(20:46):
coffee be strong, your studentscalm and your summer absolutely
amazing.
Bye.
So last week I promised you a podcast episode
about MTSS for math, outliningthe system of MTSS specifically
for math.
Well, when I was lookingthrough and doing my research
for the podcast episode and forthe podcast episode that I had
planned for next week, which isfor writing, I realized the fact
(00:23):
is math and writing are verysimilar, not subject areas, but
in the way that they are treatedin MTSS, in that they're
basically not there.
Honestly, when we look at thedata and the information that's
available, the vast majority ofthe students that enter MTSS the
(00:43):
focus is on reading.
When I was planning the podcastepisode for math and then for
writing, I realized I wanted tohonor your time and my time a
little bit more with this.
Understand the reality that myteachers and my administrators
out there are facing.
While I disagree that with theway that we're doing MTSS, I
(01:06):
think that we should be focusinga whole lot more on math and
certainly way more on writing.
That's not the reality rightnow.
Teachers and administrators arebeat down.
They're tired, you're exhausted.
You're just trying to do thebest you can with what you've
got, while I want to go over theinformation for how MTSS works
(01:28):
for math and then for writingwhen you're probably not going
to see it within your schoolsystem.
Maybe you see it in your school, maybe once or twice.
Well, I want you to have theinformation so that if you have
that student that comes up,writing or math is a really big
focus for the child and you havethat opportunity to show how it
(01:49):
should be done.
I want you to have thatopportunity.
I want you to have theresources available.
So I'm going to combine the twopodcast episodes.
So we're going to talk todayabout MTSS for math and we're
going to talk about MTSS forwriting Hopefully that will be
very helpful to you and we'regoing to talk about MTSS for
writing.
Hopefully that will be veryhelpful to you.
And then next week we're goingto take off so that you have
some break and I have some breakand we're going to enjoy a
(02:11):
little bit of summer.
Hi, I'm Jessica Curtis ofTeaching Struggling Learners.
I'm a boy mom and a veteranteacher.
You're listening to theReaching Struggling Learners.
I'm a boy mom and a veteranteacher.
You're listening to theReaching Struggling Learners
podcast, where we talk all abouthelping students succeed
(02:31):
academically, socially andbehaviorally.
Thank you so much for tuning inIf you've listened to the last
(02:52):
couple podcast episodes.
You know the basic system ofMTSS, which, for writing and for
math, we know that tier one iswhatever the main curriculum is
for both of those.
For math, there's a lot ofdifferent curriculums out there
from different publishingcompanies.
Some are better than others.
It depends on what the needs ofthe students are and, quite
(03:12):
frankly, what the contracts werethat were paid for by the
school districts or the statethat you're in.
But that's the main, the maincurriculum.
For writing, there are very fewmain curriculum For writing.
There are very few overallcurriculums that are out there
that are just focused on writing.
There's a couple out there,there's very few.
The vast majority of thewriting curriculum is embedded
(03:37):
within the overall ELAcurriculum.
Unfortunately, from what we areseeing from the data the state
scores, the pre-med post scoresand all that writing has very
much taken a back seat, and withgood reason.
Let's be honest only 35-40% ofour students are able to read on
(04:00):
grade level.
That's going to be the focus.
You have to be able to read tobe able to write.
That's just how it is.
Reading levels are alwayshigher than writing levels.
That's just how it works.
You have to be able to read, tobe able to write.
You have to know how words gotogether, how they form, to be
able to write them and to shareyour thoughts on paper.
(04:22):
It does make sense for teacherswho are looking at a classroom
of 20 kids and a teen of thosekids are struggling with reading
the grade level text.
Yeah, I understand that justbeing able to read and
comprehend that text is going totake priority.
Writing has unfortunately takena big backseat to reading.
(04:47):
We know that there is a very bigissue at the high school where
students are unable to performvery basic writing skills like
writing a complete sentence.
We know that the tier onewriting program is not serving
our students For math.
(05:07):
We'll look again at the algebrateachers, since before COVID,
our algebra teachers are gettingstudents who don't.
They cannot perform the basicoperations for algebra because
they don't understand the basicalgebra, because they don't
understand the basic skills,they don't have fact fluency.
So again, I would argue thatthe Tier 1 programs that we have
(05:30):
been using have not beenadequate for the majority of our
students.
Tier 1 is whatever all of thestudents are getting or Not
getting, unless 80% or more ofour students are able to perform
the skills, I would argue thatthe tier one curriculum is not
appropriate.
It's not doing what thestudents need it to do.
(05:53):
Mtss is the perfect means ofcollecting the data and arguing
for better curriculum, orcurriculum at all, for that tier
one level, and I'd like to giveyou the opportunity to have
your voice heard.
If the tier one curriculumisn't doing what it should
meaning the students aren'tgaining the skills that they
(06:14):
should for math or for writingthen we should move them to tier
two.
Again, just like with reading,use some screeners for that At
different levels.
You can screen for well, we allhave the pre-mid post for math,
the star scores and all thatstuff, the map scores, all that.
Most states and countiesrequire some sort of pre-mid
(06:36):
post.
You can use those to determinethat, hey, below this cutoff
point, these students really do,they're struggling.
If we identify a student that'sstruggling, we need to look at
and see what is the skill areathat they're struggling in.
This is much easier in mathbecause we have those MAP scores
(06:57):
, the STAR scores, the whateverit is that you're using in your
county or your state for thoseassessments.
For writing, until you reallyget into the testing
quote-unquote testing grades,there usually isn't a writing
test and that's not till thevery end of the year For writing
.
Every grade level should bedoing a beginning of the year
(07:20):
writing assessment.
Now, I'm not a big advocate foradding assessments, but if we
have third graders who are askedto write about something that
happened in their life, yourfavorite thing in the world,
whatever it is and we find thatthose that are third graders are
not able to write completesentences, they cannot spell
(07:40):
certain words that are gradelevel appropriate, that they
can't use capitalization orpunctuation, then that's your
screener right there, and weknow these are some things that
we need to work on for thosestudents and that would be a
tier two intervention working oncapitalization and punctuation,
sentence structure, making surethat we can spell grade
(08:03):
appropriate words in thesentences.
We can spell grade appropriatewords appropriate in the
sentences, those kinds of things.
That would be your tier twoUsing the screeners, just like
we would for math or for reading, use the screeners to identify
what are the skill area deficitsand focus on those, giving them
the you know, the smaller groupinstruction for writing.
(08:24):
It might be the whole classroom,but hey, at least we know what
we need to work on.
Then, if the students are notmaking the progress that we
would expect to get them ontograde level, filling in those
skill gaps.
We would then want to move themon to tier three, which is that
would be for students who areworking well below grade level,
(08:46):
probably working two years belowgrade level.
Those students would needindividualized, or more
individualized support.
They need more reteaching.
They need more practice tosolidify those skills.
I know that there has been a lotof pushback in the teaching
community that students don'tneed as much practice to show
(09:08):
that they know something.
Unfortunately, what we arefinding is that, okay, if
students show five times thatthey did this one problem
correctly on the test orwhatever, that doesn't
necessarily mean that theyunderstood it and they really
absorbed it.
If you give them those sameproblems two months later, they
(09:29):
may or may not get it right.
We have to start ensuring thatstudents are getting enough
practice and that they areremembering how to do the
previous skills, because there'sa lot to learn and we have to
ensure that the students aregetting enough practice,
especially when it comes down toit.
They have to be getting thatfluency that it's easy that it
(09:52):
is second nature for them toknow the addition problems, the
subtraction problems, themultiplication and division when
it's appropriate.
Tier three, a lot of times isgoing to be a lot of extra
practice and making sure thatthe students, not that they just
understand the process, butthey have really, truly absorbed
(10:13):
it and they're able to do it ina bunch of different situations
.
For tier three, for writing,that would be again reteaching
very basic skills, probablygoing to focus a lot on spelling
with that, because that seemsto be a big area of struggle for
a lot of students, preventingthem from getting their thoughts
(10:33):
on paper.
Most students absorb veryquickly the capitals at the
beginnings and punctuation,those kinds of things, but they
will change and simplify theirwriting drastically, shorten
their writing drastically, notbecause they don't have the
wonderful ideas in their headbut because they lack the
(10:54):
spelling skills to be able toreally convey their thought.
They can have students with afantastic vocabulary are writing
very, very simplistic sentences, if they're writing sentences
at all, simply because theydon't have the spelling skills.
So a lot of the times, somewhen you're working with tier
(11:15):
three, with writing, be prepared.
You may have to work onspelling quite a bit and that's.
I realized that's a that's moreof a phonics thing, but it's.
It's an important phonics thing.
It's a gateway for our studentsto be able to convey their
thoughts appropriately.
Now for interventions.
We've talked about this a lot.
There aren't a whole lot ofinterventions out there.
(11:36):
There aren't a whole lot ofintervention programs out there
for reading or for math and forwriting, which, for reading, I
honestly see the number ofinterventions as a stumbling
block because districts, schools, get so stuck on.
We're using this program atthis grade level and whether
(11:57):
it's appropriate or not.
The benefits to not having awhole lot of extra programs out
there for writing and for mathis that we as teachers get to
use our own good logic andunderstanding of our students to
be able to focus and say mystudent doesn't need to spend 30
(12:19):
minutes doing this, fiveminutes doing this, five minutes
doing that, five minutes doingthis.
Instead, we can spend our 20-30minutes just working on what we
feel is the correct skill.
So, for example, if you have astudent who is struggling with
addition or subtraction fluency,you can do your very quick
(12:43):
timed test to see how are youdoing today?
Okay, here's some really quickpractice.
Here's a quick game to do thatis focused just on this skill.
All right, let's do anotherdrill and see how you improve.
Even over a course of 20-30minutes, you may see quite a bit
of improvement.
Same thing with writing.
Because we don't have a wholelot of writing intervention
(13:06):
programs that are so scriptedand the higher ups are just in
love with this one program.
We can go and say, hey, youknow what, guys?
I've noticed that we are doinga really good job with getting
our capitals and our endpunctuation.
But you know what we need to do?
We need to.
Today we're going to focus oncommon versus proper nouns and
(13:26):
making sure that those propernouns have a capital at the
beginning.
So we can spend 20-30 minutesjust working on those very
minute skills so that when thestudents move on, they've
actually really acquired a newskill or they've had some really
good practice and made somereally good gains towards
(13:48):
meeting that goal that we hadfor them.
While I know that it could bedaunting, for example, if you
were going to be the writingintervention teacher, oh my
goodness, I would love that.
That would honestly be like adream job for me.
But let's say you're going into be a writing intervention
teacher and, no, we don't have aprogram for you to use.
There is nothing scripted.
(14:09):
That's daunting, but at thesame time, it is so freeing
because you're not scripted.
You can do for your studentswhat you see as their next step,
which is beautiful, and Ihonestly feel that teachers
should have the respect that wecan look at them and say, hey,
(14:31):
here's a bunch of resources.
We want you to pick what youfeel is right for your student
to make to meet the goal thatwe've set for them.
I think that that's the respectthat teachers deserve.
Obviously, we want to provideall the interventions that we
say that we're going to do, justlike we would for reading, and
then we have to progress monitor.
(14:52):
For math and writing, progressmonitoring is even more
important because these areas,these subject areas, just aren't
used in MTSS.
They're not addressed nearly asoften.
It's important to show, when weare addressing math and writing
in our data chats and all that,that we're actually making
(15:15):
progress and that what we'redoing is working.
That's how we, as teachers oras an administrator, we can
advocate and say we need todedicate more time to math
interventions or writinginterventions.
We need to dedicate more money,more resources to providing
(15:36):
better resources for both ofthese areas that we need to have
a tier one curriculum forwriting or we need to spend less
time on something else so thatwe can focus some more on this.
It's all about advocating forour students.
Using that progress monitoringdata to advocate for our
students helps us actually getwith it.
(15:59):
Of course we're gonna.
We should have meetings.
We should have meetings formath and writing just as often
as we do for reading.
It's really important probablymore important if you're adding
in math or writing for MTSS thatyou have an agenda.
We know that the focus for MTSSby and large is reading.
(16:20):
So if you're talking about mathor writing for a student, it is
really important to have thatagenda up there with your
subject in it, because otherwiseit's really very likely that
the other subject areas will getkind of pushed to the side so
that we can talk about reading.
(16:40):
So again, an agenda is evenmore important and following the
system, the steps of MTSS formath and writing, is very, very
important so that the studentsget what they need in these
other, less focused upon subjectareas, just like we do with our
(17:02):
reading.
I strongly suggest that we havea list of red flags for tier
two, moving into tier three,tier three, into asking for
testing or going back down, youknow, from tier three to tier
two and so on.
There should be some red flagsthat indicate, hey, we need to
(17:24):
have a very serious, frankconversation about this student
and what they need.
For example, if a student hasbeen struggling with math for a
long time, then we need to talkabout bumping them up to the
next level or maybe talk abouttesting.
The vast majority of studentswho qualify for specific
(17:46):
learning disabilities nationwidequalify under reading.
That's because MTSS the focusis on MTSS.
In my opinion, if we had asmuch of a focus on math as we do
on reading, we would have anequally large number for
students who would qualify underour current system for math.
(18:08):
There are a lot of students whoare out there who we say we
give them the excuse oh, they'rejust bad in math because they
never had the opportunity to getthe help that they needed.
If we were to treat bothsubjects the same, we would
realize that, hey, there's a lotof kids out there that they
(18:31):
actually could do better in mathif they received the supports.
Unfortunately, the data doesn'texist right now for writing, and
I wish it did, but we have noidea right now how many students
would need extra help or maybeeven need specialized
instruction for writing, becauseit's just not covered in MTSS.
(18:56):
There's a lot of kids out therewho have fantastic ideas and
thoughts, stories that could beshared with the world, knowledge
that could be shared with theworld, but they have not taught
the skills that they need to beable to share their ideas, and
that's very, very sad, but it'ssomething that we need to
(19:17):
address.
Obviously, it's probably notgoing to be in the coming school
year, but over time, I wouldlove to see a much bigger focus
in supporting all of ourstudents, not just supporting
the ones that are strugglingwith reading, but the ones that
are struggling with math andwith writing, with communicating
(19:38):
through the written word.
I would love to see us careabout all of our students, not
that we don't care about them,but really focus on all of the
needs of our students, not justthe ones that struggle with
reading.
That, in a nutshell, is MTSSfor math and writing, just like
with reading.
(19:59):
It mirrors the overall MTSSprocess and it's a process that
we could be using to support awhole lot more students than we
are right now.
We are going to get more indepth in how we can support more
of our students and be a littlebit more focused in what we're
doing, but not next week.
Next week we're going to takeoff, and the week after we are
(20:22):
going to talk about somethingthat, no matter what your
subject area, it's somethingthat all of us need to deal with
or unfortunately have to dealwith, and that is behavior.
We know that behaviors havebeen increasing, not in a good
way, over the past few years,and so we will talk about MTSS
for behavior in our next episode, but until then, may your
(20:46):
coffee be strong, your studentscalm and your summer absolutely
amazing.
Bye.
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