Literacy Interventions for Older Students

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Literacy Interventions for Older Students

• Timothy Shanahan
• University of Illinois at Chicago
• www.shanahanonliteracy.com

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Some Basic Premises

• Substantial amounts of literacy instruction must
  be provided to all students at all levels of
  achievement (PreK-12)
• This instruction generally should be disciplinary
  in character and infused throughout the
  curriculum

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Some Basic Premises (cont.)

• No matter how well we teach literacy some
  students will need extra help
• By definition, intervention work will be more
  challenging than regular classroom instruction
  (for the teacher and the student)

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Teach the Literacy Curriculum

• Teach ALL of the key elements of literacy based
  on student needs vocabulary, oral reading
  fluency, reading comprehension, writing, decoding
• The role of diagnosis
• Balance the student, not the curriculum

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Use Assessment Data

• Test enabling skills, not just outcomes
• There are useful screening, accountability,
  diagnostic tests for older students
• Monitoring usually has to focus on student
  progress with curriculum
• Teacher observation
• Data considered collaboratively

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Intervene early (and often)

• Anticipate problems (dont wait) freshmen
  academies, etc. are a good idea
• Even earlier is better work with feeder schools
• Teaching is not an inoculation keep intervening

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Interventions Should Increase Amount of
Instruction

• Time is the major correlate of school learning
• In-class interventions
• Pull out programs
• After-school (and before school) programs
• Summer programs

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Teaching is required

• Clear purposes and planning
• Modeling
• Guided practice
• Clear explanation
• Shared independent practice
• Independent practice

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Dont Neglect Reading and Writing

• Teachers get caught up in teaching literacy and
  fail to have students practice literacy
• Practice without teaching is just an assignment,
  but teaching without practice is unproductive
• Reading or writing at least 50 of each
  intervention lesson

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Implementation intensity is key

• Thorough teaching to close gap
• Lots of repetition
• Lots of scaffolding
• Fast paced (not much down time)
• Matched to level(s)
• Lots of review

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Individualized instruction does not mean
individual instruction

• Individual teaching (tutoring?)
• Group instruction works well (even when students
  are far behind)
• Value of multiple response routines

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Dont Forget Language with ELL Students

• Second-language learners have learning problems
  in the same proportion as native speakers
• However, they struggle with learning to read more
  often
• Enabling skills include English oral language
• It does not help just to provide basic reading
  skills

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Motivation Matters

• Challenging learning can be frightening,
  confusing, off-putting
• Need to make sure sessions are purposeful,
  well-planned, fast-paced, active, involving
• Make progress obvious
• Make the value obvious

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Timothy Shanahan

• University of Illinois at Chicago
• www.shanahanonliteracy.com