Approximate time to complete: 45 minutes 

Note: This is the third course in the Intervention and assessment sequence. 

Download the Course Companion document before starting this course. You can use the Companion Document to take notes on your learning, address reflection prompts, and as an easy way to retrieve course resources.  

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of this course, participants will be able to: 

  • Identify the role of several common literacy assessments for determining appropriate interventions
  • Analyze current assessment and intervention practice to determine areas for improvement. 

Consider This Scenario

Connection Point

In your Course Companion Document, consider these questions:  

  • Can you relate to the above scenario? In what ways are your challenges in literacy instruction similar or different? 

Teams at Main Middle School design instruction and intervention for students who are not meeting grade-level expectations. The team collects feedback from the teachers about students’ strengths and areas of struggle and examines the results of Ohio’s State Tests for English Language Arts. Based on this information, the team identifies the students who need intervention. For the last few years, teachers have used an intervention program for all students who are identified as needing reading support. The team knows that reading is a challenge for students, but students receiving intervention do not appear to be making gains. Many of the educators are growing frustrated because they just cannot seem to identify the root issue of students’ reading difficulties.

Intervention Through Data-Based Decision Making

Collecting the right data and analyzing it appropriately are critical to quality instruction and intervention. This activity covers the critical importance of data-based decisions and some steps educators can take to ensure that their intervention selections are supported by data. Click the square button in the presentation to make it full screen. 

Matching Students to Interventions with Dr. Joan Sedita 

The following video, featuring Dr. Joan Sedita, covers some key strategies for matching students who struggle to read with an appropriate intervention. 

Knowledge Check

Test knowledge with a knowledge check.

Resources

The following resources can help you better understand and utilize assessments to determine the best interventions to provide to students. There is a place in your Course Companion to take notes on these resources. 

  • This free document, decoding diagnostic assessments from Really Great Reading can be reviewed to see an example of quality assessments. 
  • Review the information provided on literacy assessments by Adlit.org and consider how the information on screening and diagnostic assessments fits into your comprehensive assessment system for reading at the secondary level.

Course Reflection

Let’s revisit our scenario from above and see what is different at Main Middle School after refining their process for data-based decision making.

Students at Main Middle School were given a universal screener for literacy at the beginning of the school year. The screener includes measures of oral and silent reading fluency. After reviewing the data from this universal screener, the team knew that more information was needed on these individual students to determine specific reading needs. Simply providing all students the same intervention was not likely to meet their individual needs. The next step in Main Middle School’s decision-making framework is the administration of specific diagnostic assessments for phonics and decoding for those scoring below benchmark to determine what intervention needs to be provided in those areas. The team will then analyze this assessment data to match students to the appropriate intervention, using their established decision-making process and framework.

Reflection: 

Answer the following questions in your course companion: 

  1. Consider the students in your setting that require supplemental support and intervention in reading. When looking at the four subtypes of reading difficulties, where do the students in your setting fall?

  2. Does your school have a process for determining which interventions are provided to which students? Based on your learning from this course, what steps can you take to implement or improve this process? 

To Learn More

If you want to learn more about decision-based interventions, the following resources can help: 

Feedback: 

Please take a moment to fill out this feedback form. We will use your feedback to improve this and other courses. 

Last Modified: 7/5/2023 11:21:52 AM