Reflection Paper

Mesmer, E.M., & Mesmer, H.A.E. (2008). Response to intervention (RTI): What teachers of reading need to know. Reading Teacher, 62(4), 280-290.

When I first decided to expand my education, it had been so long since I had been to school, and I was very hesitant. I talked at length about my decision with my husband and with his encouragement, decided to enroll but still was not quite sure which degree program to enroll in. I knew that this was something that I had always wanted to do since I obtained my Associates Degree in Nursing, but I did not have the courage, nor did I want to give up the time with my family and children. I second guessed my abilities and my knowledge because it had been so long since I had been in college. Now that my children are about to graduate high school and

Author note: This paper was prepared for the American Federation of Teachers by Louisa C. Moats, project director, Washington D.C. site of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Early Interventions Project, and clinical associate professor of pediatrics, University of Texas, Houston, Health Sciences Center. Her work is supported in part by grant HD30995, “Early Interventions for Children with Reading Problems,”

Reading is a means of language acquisition, of communication, and of sharing information which is essential in being a productive member of society. If and when a student missed an opportunity to learn the skills necessary for reading, it’s has a profound impact on their lives. As educators we realize that teaching all children to read requires that every child receive excellent reading instruction. We are also aware that children, who are struggling with reading must receive

Reading Recovery is a highly effective short-term intervention of one-to one tutoring for low-achieving first graders. The intervention is most effective when it is available to all students who need it and used as a supplement to good classroom teaching” (Cox, 254).

The study that I reviewed for the fluency evidence based practice was conducted in an alternative high school in the Southeast. The students that were involved in the study attended sessions that were mediated by their peers three times a week for 45 minutes. The sessions were held in a study hall type classroom that was structured in that the environment was conducive to helping increase the fluency skills of these struggling readers. This was a focus class that had certain guidelines for being a part of. The students were enrolled in this class if they received a grade level of six or below on the Test of Adult Basic Education assessment. The other requirements for this class were as follows: current reading scores between levels 4.0 to 7.0 as determined by the TOWRE (Test of Word Reading

The evaluation of the Leveled Literacy Intervention is being requested by our district superintendent, Dr. Craig Witherspoon, to determine the success of the implementation and the efficacy of the program. During this last year, our district piloted the Leveled Literacy Intervention program throughout the district with our Tier 3 students in the elementary schools. The Leveled Literacy Intervention program provides students with reading assistant system, and the training of classroom teachers and reading specialists. Higgins, Fitzgerald, and Howard (2015) found that providing “early interventions for struggling readers is critical for their future academic success” (p. 260). These authors continued by explaining that “these interventions should contain structured activities where students are supported through scaffolding, modeling and guiding until they gain competence and

The program being evaluated in this paper is an intervention program that is used with Tier 2 students who need more intensive reading instruction. The program is called Enhanced CORE. It is designed to correlate with the district purchased reading curriculum called Journeys published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The program is designed to pre-teach students skills that they will be learning during the core instruction time period in order to give them extra exposure to the curriculum as well as extra practice with phonics and fluency skills. Consequently, students are getting a preview of all the phonics skills, high frequency words and reading practice before it is taught to the whole class in order to help

Designing an individual intervention to increase reading fluency requires completion of assessments that will determine the child’s reading strengths and weaknesses. An inaccurate reader needs direct instruction on improving word recognition, which may include sight words and decodable words (which rules is the student not applying) at their instructional level. Once the goals have been established, in this case fluency, the intervention will begin with an introduction on fluency and word recognition.

The role of the reading specialist is to be able to teach all children to read, which requires that every child receive excellent reading instruction and that children who are struggling with reading receive additional instruction from professionals specifically prepared to teach them. Teaching all children to read also requires reading specialists in every school because the range of student achievement in classrooms, with the inclusion of children who have various physical, emotional, and educational needs, requires different educational models from those of the past. In order to provide these services, schools must have reading specialists who can provide expert instruction, assessment, and leadership for the reading program. Reading specialists are professionals with advanced preparation and experience in reading who have responsibility for the literacy performance of readers in general and struggling readers in particular. This includes early childhood, elementary, middle, secondary, and adult learners. Learners can be in public, private, and commercial schools, or in reading resource centers or clinics (Roles). This paper will explore what it means to be able to encourage and enhance instruction within content area learning and literacy competence, as well as identifying research initiatives, which have a profound impact upon teaching, and learning of reading and the language arts.

Goal #3: Addison was delivered explicit instruction using passages and texts at her instructional and independent reading levels to ensure she was reading materials allowing her to read with few errors to increase fluency. The materials provided were approximately at the end of the third grade reading level. The interventions utilized to address the goals were 6 Minute Fluency, Leveled Literacy Intervention, and a variety of comprehension

The strategy I have selected is Model-Lead-Test. This strategy allows students to frequently practice new skills correctly while having direct teacher supervision. The rehearsal of incorrect responses is reduced as a consequence of the continuous practice. Some strengths of the Model-Lead-Test are that it is explicit, systematic, and allows for repetition. Those strengths are great for students who are at-risk for reading difficulties. This should prove appropriate for Luke, because of his need for explicit and systematic instruction, and direct teacher supervision.

Students can struggle to read for many reasons. “They can lack the talent, the cognitive wiring that is necessary to easily unlock the printed code of English” (Shaywitz, 2003). These students have been categorized by many names such as learning disabled, dyslexic, and ADD (attention deficit disorder). There is only a minimal amount of students who actually suffer from a neurological or cognitive issue which causes them to be behind in learning. Student’s which are considered “at risk” because of their poor achievements on assessments actually have average intelligences they just lack a strong literacy environment at home. A child’s learning foundation begins at home so students who tend to struggle with reading are not being read to. These

Many students around the United States have reading difficulties, which can be due to a variety of reason such as: low socioeconomic status, family history of learning disabilities, a neurological disorder, limited exposure, etc. Reading difficulties can lead to further problems with education and learning, therefore the struggles should be addressed and intervention techniques should be implemented promptly. The interventions need to be individualized for the student based on their needs in order to improve the student’s reading to the best of their abilities.

Learning to read is one of the most foundational skills needed for educational success. As children learn to read they develop the ability to decode, interpret, and store information from what they are reading. Reading comprehension allows a child to gain meaning from text and decoding allows a child to process sounds into words. Reading is vital to educational success because it allows a student to learn new information and build upon their prior knowledge. Students who attain reading skills are more likely to achieve academic success while students who have reading difficulties are likely to struggle academically and fall behind their peers. Reading difficulties have been prominent within the US for years. For example, the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress statistics shows that only about 33% of fourth graders are at or above proficient at reading (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2011). Studies show that the cause of reading difficulties is based primarily on genes, environment, and instructional experience (Vellutino, Fletcher, Snowling, Scanlon, 2004). Students with a language learning disorder have difficulty comprehending spoken and written language thus making it difficult to learn new information. Children with reading disabilities are more likely to struggle during elementary school years as students are asked to think about what they read more critically. Speech language pathologists and teachers can help