Category: Education

Cognitive Load Theory

Have you ever had moments in your life where something seemed to be coming at you from multiple directions? That’s how I learned about my all-time favorite television show: Breaking Bad. Numerous friends from different backgrounds talked about it sometime during the second season, and I decided to give it a chance. I was hooked. That’s also how I came across the book Game of Thrones. I knew the books before they were ever a series on HBO, but again, several people who knew me recommended them to me, so I gave it a shot, and I was hooked.

That’s kind of what happened over break with Cognitive Load Theory. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a new topic to me; it’s something I’ve heard of and am aware of, but I’m not sure that it was something I could have explained well or taught to someone else. But over break, I was scrolling through social media with my feet propped up on the couch. During an afternoon, I saw references to John Sweller and Cognitive Load Theory from several different people I follow who are not connected in any way other than being educators. Their posts led me to a couple of articles, a fantastic graphic that I’ll share below, and a podcast that I’ll also share below. However, the post that stood out the most to me was the quote below from Dylan Wiliam. It made me stop what I was doing and really take note:

https://x.com/dylanwiliam/status/824682504602943489

I mean, when the guy who’s known for introducing the concept of “assessment for learning” says that something is the single most important thing for teachers to know, it gives me pause. So, while it was a break, and I know I encourage you all to take a break, I always find ways to fill at least a little of my break with learning. Let me share some of it with you.

So, first of all, let’s get a working definition: Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) explores how the cognitive load, or mental effort required to process information, impacts learning. According to Jamie Clark (@XpatEducator), “To learn something new, knowledge must first be processed in working memory (WM) before being transferred and stored in long-term memory (LTM) in the form of ‘schemas.’ If WM is overloaded, there is a greater risk that the content being taught will not be understood by the learner.”

So imagine that our brain has something like a “mental backpack” with limited space to carry things. CLT helps us determine how to pack that backpack best so you (or your students) don’t get overwhelmed. This is particularly important to remember in elementary schools because students’ working memory capacity is still developing.

So, let’s talk about the different types of cognitive load. There are three main types:

  • Intrinsic Load: This is the inherent difficulty of the material. For example, learning to add single-digit numbers has a lower intrinsic load than multi-digit subtraction with regrouping. Higher intrinsic loads are unavoidable at times, but we make them manageable by breaking them into smaller chunks and using scaffolding to support learning.
  • Extraneous Load: This is an unnecessary mental effort caused by how information is presented. For example, overly busy worksheets, changing the directions on each assignment, or giving verbal instructions while students are focused on reading can create distractions. Reducing extraneous load frees up mental space for actual learning. This makes me think of the book EduProtocol Field Guide by Marlena Hebern & Jon Corippo. They utilize a concept of learning frames or protocols that any curriculum can be plugged into to make the content engaging and more accessible for learners.
  • Germane Load: This is the productive effort students use to connect and organize new information into meaningful patterns. Activities like practicing or applying knowledge creatively (especially after a solid understanding of the foundational skills) increase germane load and lead to deeper learning.

OK, now that we understand what CLT is and the different types of load that impact learning in our classroom, the next question is, what do we do to support our students? Well, we must understand that working memory in students, especially young ones, is limited. Most learners can juggle only 4-5 pieces of information at once. But for some of our students, even that would be a stretch. There are a few things we can do to support learning in our classroom:

  • Simplify and scaffold: Break your lesson into small steps and introduce each concept individually. Then, gradually, increase the complexity. Go through the “I do, We do, You do” cycle with each level of complexity. This builds mastery in each of the steps. For example, when teaching place value, ensure your students understand the tens and ones place entirely before moving on to the hundreds place.
  • Use visual aids: Pictures, charts, and diagrams help offload some mental work from working memory to the visual system. Anytime you can add a visual, it will support your students’ working memory.
  • Provide clear instructions: Give concise, step-by-step directions and check for understanding before moving on. It’s good practice to plan your directions so you can be sure they are clear and concise. We are all tempted to sometimes give directions while students are in the middle of something. Most students will not hear or process the direction you just gave.

The next thing we want to consider is to minimize the extraneous load. Remember, this is the unnecessary mental effort that can sometimes be caused by how information is presented.

  • Declutter your teaching materials: Try to avoid overly decorative slides, worksheets, and visuals, and take a moment even to scan your classroom walls. Too much visual stimulation creates mental noise that can add to a student’s cognitive load. I know that sometimes we like things to look pretty and cute, and those motivational posters are fantastic, but too much is a form of distraction. Try to stick to the essentials that directly support the learning objectives or your current units and skills.
  • Align instruction and tasks: If you’re explaining a concept, ensure your students are focused on listening and not distracted by writing or unrelated activities. Phrases like “Apples up,” “pencils down,” or “all eyes on me” can help keep students focused on your explanation and not some other task.
  • Create quiet and well-lit learning environments: Minimize background noise and distractions, especially during independent work time. Low lighting can have a calming effect at moments, but during work time, low light can increase cognitive load because it is difficult to read text on a page when there isn’t enough light. That is why there are state laws and standards about the possible light levels within a learning space (hence the new lighting installed not that long ago).

After thinking about the extraneous load, we want to optimize the germane load. Students use this productive effort to connect and organize new information into meaningful patterns. It’s about practicing and applying skills to create deeper learning. Things we might do to help with this optimization include:

  • Connect to prior knowledge: Use your students’ knowledge to build a new understanding. For example, in math, you might review skip counting before leading into a lesson on multiplication. Or use experiences that your students may have had in their lives to help build background knowledge before reading a story.
  • Encourage reflection: Take time for students to reflect on their learning. This could be in a whole class setting, in a think, pair, share, or even in a journaling activity. Prompts like “What did you notice?” or “Can you explain this in your own words?” help to deepen understanding. Some other reflection questions might include “What is one thing you learned today that you didn’t know before?” or “What was the most important thing we talked about today? Why?” or “What part of today’s lesson felt easiest for you? What felt hardest?” There are a ton more potential questions that could be used for reflection, including ways to connect to prior knowledge (how does this connect to something we learned earlier?), evaluating effort and strategy (was there a step that you found tricky? how did you figure it out?), highlighting growth (what made you feel proud about yourself today?), encouraging curiosity (what is one thing you’re still wondering about?), building social and emotional awareness (how did you feel during this activity? why?), or looking ahead (what do you think we might learn next?).
  • Practice, practice, practice: Repetition solidifies learning, but it needs to be varied to maintain engagement. Maybe you start with direct instruction, then some practice on whiteboards that students hold up for you to check, and then you could move into some partner or small-group work. Maybe there could be some flashcards, or the skill could be practiced in some game format. By varying the format, you ensure that students have plenty of opportunities to practice the skill and solidify learning, but those opportunities are varied enough that they can maintain engagement.

So, let’s discuss some age-appropriate supports. Obviously, each child has different needs, but in general, there are some developmentally expected abilities in terms of CLT based on a child’s age range.

In primary grades (K-1), we want to use concrete, hands-on materials as much as possible. At this age, students are still developing their abstract thinking skills, and manipulatives provide tangible ways to explore concepts.

As you plan lessons, think about how and where you can add hands-on materials to any lesson. This might include counting bears, unifix cubes, pattern blocks, playdough, counters, letter tiles, and magnetic letters. These objects allow students to manipulate a concrete object to support their thinking and reduce their cognitive load. Next, we want to keep activities short and focused. The attention spans of 5 and 6 year olds may only last 5-10 minutes, so a mini-lesson may only be 5-7 minutes, followed by a hands-on activity of about 10 minutes, and then ending with a quick share out or reflection of 3-5 minutes. Whenever possible, incorporate play-based learning. I had a professor at IU who must have used the phrase “learning is social” a million times in my classes with her. Young children naturally learn through exploration and play. It keeps them engaged while reinforcing skills. You might use role-playing games to practice social skills or set up themed learning opportunities, like the “grocery store” for math or a provocation for a writing station in literacy. Young students also thrive on routines and predictability (let’s be honest, I do, too!). Having predictable routines helps reduce anxiety and allows students to focus on learning. Things like a visual schedule, consistent transition signals, and a routine for the beginning and close of the day help reduce cognitive load because students will know what to expect and when to expect it.

In the upper elementary grades, students develop greater independence, cognitive abilities, and social-emotional needs. However, they still thrive with a certain level of structure and engagement. So, let’s consider a few ways we can support our upper elementary (2-4) students.

One of the first and most important ways to support students with their cognitive abilities is to encourage active participation. Students at this age can participate in discussions and collaborative activities, which deepen their understanding. You can do this through think-pair-share activities that help engage all students in discussion or incorporate hands-on projects. Another way to involve students in classroom participation that may not always seem like a direct connection is through classroom jobs or leadership roles, which help students feel responsible. We also want to promote critical thinking in our students. They are ready to analyze, compare, and apply rather than memorize facts. Open-ended questions that require reasoning push students to use critical thinking skills, such as “Why do you think that happened?” or “What would you have done differently?” Scaffolding and gradual release will also help build independence in our upper elementary students. Things like modeling a skill (writing a strong topic sentence, for example), guided practice side-by-side either individually or in a small group through a problem as students try it themselves, and then independent practice where students try things on their own, gradually increasing the complexity as they gain confidence are all ways to support students growth in independence.

Upper elementary students also need a lot of help to develop executive functioning skills. Directly teaching organizational strategies, like using planners to keep track of materials, assignments, projects, or take-home/bring-back folders, will help. Teaching students how to take an enormous task and break it into smaller steps helps them learn about creating checklists or understanding the steps needed to meet a goal. Things like timers and schedules can help students learn to manage transitions better and be able to focus on work during their in-class time.

As my readers know, most of my time and thinking is spent in the elementary realm, but I know that there are a few of you who read this who come from the middle and high school levels. I don’t know that I have direct recent experiences that I can give you, but I found what seemed like a great article from Edutopia with some concepts that seemed to apply much more to the secondary level. You can see that post here.

On the other hand, if you’re interested in this stuff and, like me, find understanding how the brain works absolutely fascinating, I found this Classroom Practice Guide from the New South Wales Government titled “Cognitive load theory in practice.” I did a scan, not a full read, but it seems like a great resource to learn more. You can find that here.

As with anything, our work in meeting the needs of our students means that we need to pay attention to signs of cognitive overload – things like frustration, disengagement, or difficulty recalling prior lessons. If students show signs of cognitive overload, it’s time to make some adjustments. Simplify, slow down, or provide additional support as needed. When you keep the concepts of cognitive load theory in mind, you set your students up for better opportunities for learning and growth. This will help them move towards proficiency, which allows them to meet the goals we have set as a school.

Finally, there are a couple of resources – first is kind of like a cheat sheet graphic that you could download and print to use as a guide. Maybe keep it near your planning materials as a reminder of how you can maximize and optimize learning in your classroom. The second is a great podcast that was shared with me that digs into CLT a little deeper in a conversational format if that is more your jam than reading!

Click on the Podcast logo above for a recent episode of the Critically Speaking podcast. This episode is about math education in particular, but it hits on concepts of cognitive load theory based on the work of John Sweller. This conversation between Terese Markow and Dr. Anna Stoske hits on a wide range of issues around a decline in math education and has some key takeaways that support direct instruction and the need for foundational skills to get to higher-level thinking.

What really goes into teaching comprehension

As a classroom teacher, I remember spending chunks of time with my students. We’d read, sometimes me to them, sometimes them to me, sometimes to each other, and sometimes on their own. Then, I would do some comprehension activity—maybe some questions to answer, a written response, or something similar. This is how I was trained then, so it’s what I did. I thought I was doing good work.

However, in the past couple of training sessions with LETRS, my thinking has been challenged to move students to true comprehension. There was so much more that I could have been doing throughout the reading process to help build higher thinking skills for my students. So let’s dig into some of the things we can do Before, During, and After reading to support building reading comprehension (you can reference the planning checklist below).

Before:

First, we need to establish a purpose for reading—why have we selected this text? What should our students take away? Is there a lesson to be learned? This helps us define the why behind the reading for our students.

Identify text structure – Is this an informational piece? A narrative? What do your students need to know about the text structure to be able to attack it?

Prepare background knowledge – As you look at your text, what do you think your students need to know to comprehend this text? Is there information they may not have already been exposed to?

Select vocabulary – As you preread the text, consider what words your students need to know to comprehend the text. Focus on the Tier 2 words.

Finally, Identify Challenging Language – What language might be challenging for students when pre-reading the text? Are there phrases that could be difficult to understand? Are words used in unusual ways? Mark those spots during your pre-read to be prepared to discuss them during the read-aloud.

During:

We should be sure to Plan Questions & Anticipate Student Questions intentionally – As you pre-read your read-aloud text, have a stack of sticky notes nearby. Mark spots in the text where you will pause to check for understanding. Are there parts that might be tricky to understand? Language that you might want to highlight? And be ready to address spots where students might ask you questions – maybe a place where something confusing happens. By taking the time to prepare, you can ensure that the questions you ask during the reading are more than surface-level questions but comprehension questions that push your students to higher levels of thinking.

Next, Use text structure to organize thinking – graphic organizers like a story framework, a web diagram, a cause/effect map, or a Venn diagram are just a few examples of the types of graphic organizers that can help students track the plot of a narrative story, or organize the information in an informational text.

After:

Once you finish the reading, some things to consider with students include: Was the purpose met & did the students’ thinking change? These questions can help you evaluate students’ understanding of the text. Do you need to reread portions of the story? Is there something unclear? This might help illuminate a need to go back into the text.

Finally, Assessment: Can students express takeaways? Use text evidence? This is where we can evaluate the big ideas and long-term understanding that students take from a text. Did they get the lesson we wanted them to learn when we established the purpose? Can they point to evidence in the text to support their thinking? These are key signs of true comprehension.

If you are like me, you probably wonder when I have time to do that. I read aloud every day! Sometimes, multiple times a day. You’re right! Trying to do this with every text would be very difficult. But that is where the power of teams comes in. When you work as a team and plan units together, you can select common read-alouds. If you have the same 8-10 read-alouds (maybe more, maybe less) in a week across your team, each person can prep 2-3 of these a week, and you can share. Think of the read-aloud library you could build as a team during a school year.

You might choose to do this with the actual books with markings in the book, or if you are a more digital native, you could create shared folders, and your read-aloud notes and outlines could live there. And what if you expanded the creation of the read-aloud library across the school? In a school of 20 teachers, doing two books weekly, that’s 40 books per week, and over 1,400 books in a school year that could be shared for read-aloud purposes. Work smarter – not harder.

So let me leave you with this – remember that building reading comprehension is more than asking questions when you finish the reading. It’s a constant process. If you use your read-aloud as I did, without any prep and mainly as a throwaway time, learn from me and do better. Those 10-15 minutes a day can be such rich opportunities for teaching, but it takes planning and prep to make it so. Please work with your team, or we can work across the school to build a shared read-aloud library that we can all access to benefit our students!

Guide to Assessments in Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

At a recent Collaboration Network for the Indiana Literacy Cadre, we discussed the pivotal role of assessments in the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) process. Our session, led by Tracy Hastings, the Executive Director of Education and Early Literacy Initiatives from the Ivy Tech Community College, was a massive support for understanding the different types of assessments and their role. We discovered that assessments are not just tools for evaluating students but also for guiding the next steps in instruction.

One of the resources she shared with us is this chart:

LD@school, a project of the Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario, created the chart. What I love is that it breaks down the different types of assessments and their uses. As a reminder, assessments are about more than just evaluating a student. They are also tools that teachers should use to help guide the next steps in instruction.

Let’s examine each assessment type and its uses, starting with Universal Screeners. These assessments are typically used three times per year (beginning, middle, and end) to identify students or systems that are at risk. These brief assessments measure a student’s performance on a standardized scale. They often give us scores in a percentile range and are given to all students. Screeners can be used to help catch students who are struggling early. One misconception about universal screeners is that the data may be used to help us group students with similar scores for an intervention. The problem is that a Universal Screener often checks various skills, and two students with similar scores have very different needs for intervention. You can think of the universal screener as being like a blood pressure or temperature check. These might tell a doctor that something is wrong, but not what is wrong. When planning tiered interventions for students, you need more information than just the universal screener. Universal screeners can also help identify some potential issues with the core curriculum to ensure that it meets the needs of all students. Our district uses DIBELS and NWEA MAP assessments as universal screeners, although other districts might use Acadience, Aimsweb, FastBridge, or easyCBM.

As I said, the Universal Screener may give us an idea that a student is at risk, but that’s not enough information to know how to solve that problem. Just like how your doctor might do more tests if your blood pressure or temperature is too high or too low, when a Universal Screener tells us that a student is struggling, we next need to do some Diagnostic Assessments to learn more about the child’s needs. A diagnostic will help us to pinpoint specific areas of difficulty. We only use these assessments with students who are at risk to help us identify what the problem is and what intervention or differentiated instruction would best support the learner. Sometimes, we might be tempted to give all the diagnostics to all our students to know more about them. The problem is that it would take too much time from our Tier 1 instruction to do this. If a school’s Tier 1 instruction is where it needs to be, we should only see about 20% or less of our students falling in the at-risk category.

Recently, I’ve been having a lot of conversations about making sure that what we do to support our learners in Tier 2 or Tier 3 is making sure that we are in alignment – meaning that the needs of the child and where they fall in the progression of skills are in alignment with the intervention or differentiated instruction. That way, we know that we are meeting the needs of the child in front of us. Based on the diagnostic, you may find that two students with very similar scores on the Universal Screener have vastly different needs once you do the diagnostic assessments. We’ve been using the CORE Phonics Survey, the LETRS Spelling Assessment, and the PAST in our building. Other diagnostics might include the Really Great Reading Phonological Awareness Survey or the Acadience Comprehension, Fluency, and Oral Language Diagnostic.

Two more types of assessments are considered assessments for learning. First, there’s progress monitoring. These assessments are generally given weekly or bi-weekly and help track student progress and the effectiveness of interventions. Since they are given regularly, they can allow teachers to adjust interventions or increase the intensity of support quickly. If we find students have made progress, we might gradually reduce the intervention or shift to a different intervention that moves them along the learning progression. The last assessment for learning I will discuss here is formative. These assessments are what we use to have ongoing feedback during instruction. This might include things like quizzes, discussions, and exit tickets. These assessments allow us to make sure our Tier 1 instruction is effective for all our learners.

I wanted to dig into assessments today because we must understand the reason for and value of each of the various types of assessments for learning. As educators, we must be prepared to use multiple tools to identify what is causing students to struggle and how well our interventions or instruction meets their needs. Hopefully, this post will provide you with a better understanding of the different types of assessments which in turn will help you find better alignment in your MTSS process. If you don’t know what may be available in your district, there should be people you could turn to for support. In our building, the literacy coach is an excellent resource. If you don’t have a literacy coach, a school psychologist might be another person to help you understand how you might best support your learners. By utilizing assessments these various assessments, you can create a data-informed MTSS framework that meets the various needs of all students.

So again, let’s go back to the analogy of the visit to the doctor’s office:

  • Universal Screeners: The things they do at every appointment for every patient, check you blood pressure and temperature, use the oximeter to measure pulse and oxygen saturation, etc. These things may be a sign of general health, or a sign of a potential problem.
  • Diagnostic: When the doctor notices a problem, they may order some additional tests. Things like an EKG, or a blood test, will give the doctor additional information to help identify the problem.
  • Formative: These are the check-ups along the way after you’ve been given a treatment plan. Your doctor might schedule a few follow-ups to see how things are going.

Have you had previous experiences with these various types of assessments? What have you noticed? How have diagnostics helped you improve your support for students? Let us know in the comments below!

Motivation

If you are a parent of a school-aged child, some version of this recent conversation with my daughter has probably happened to you:

Me: What did you learn in your chemistry class? (replace with whatever subject fits)

High Schooler: Nothing new…

It’s not uncommon for parents to feel uneasy when they see their children spending so much time at school, feeling bored and uninspired.

But let’s consider that view for a second. First, every teacher I know (and I know a lot of them) strives to create engaging and exciting lessons to deliver their curriculum. And while I’m not trying to say that a student’s opinions aren’t valid, teachers plan the best they can to meet their students’ needs.

Let’s take a moment to consider some cognitive science and its implications for education and schools.

As many of you know, I used to be a coach, working as a head basketball coach and an assistant football coach. One of the things I consistently told my players was taken from one of my previous coaches, and it had to do with the two things that every player can control: their attitude and their effort. Even the best motivational speech by a coach will not change a player’s attitude or effort if they don’t strive for their best. The same exists in all aspects of life. We can all control our attitude and our effort.

In education, many people see motivation as something someone does for them – generally, the teacher motivates a student. As a former science teacher, I loved to introduce my students to the spectral salts lab we did by using a Bunsen burner and different salts to change the color of the flame. The wow factor would get kids’ attention through situational interest. But it is not a permanent type of attention, which we might call personal interest. I realized that individual interest is not just a fleeting moment but a crucial factor in sustaining motivation. No matter how many times I changed the color of the flame if personal interest wasn’t there, that student would struggle to learn the scientific concepts.

Situational interest may initially draw a child into an activity. This interest develops when teachers introduce the wow factor. But it’s important to note that motivation, the driving force behind sustained learning, comes from personal interest, a deeper and more lasting form of engagement. This is where educational research comes in to help us understand and foster personal interest in students.

Personal interest is highly correlated to a sense of success. We become more motivated to do something as we become better. There are two main implications of this. First, while it is great for a teacher to focus on making something enjoyable, that does little to build motivation or personal interest. To build motivation, we must create chances for students to find success and feel like they are improving.

The other implication is that motivation is an intrinsic skill that can be developed through choosing the right attitude and exerting effort. As many of you know, I love to cycle. It’s a rare weekend day that I’m not out of my bike on some country backroad in central Indiana. It’s not unusual for me to spend several hours on a ride. However, that wasn’t always true. When I started cycling more seriously, my first rides were typically less than 10 miles and maybe only a little over half an hour. I added miles as I got stronger and felt successful at those distances. I’d feel more successful, so I’d challenge myself more. It felt challenging, but I was motivated by my interest in continually improving. Eventually, I got to a point where I was a strong enough cyclist to ride in the RAIN (Ride Across Indiana). This one-day ride starts in Terre Haute and goes to Richmond, a distance of 160 miles. The training and the ride were both incredibly challenging, but the motivation I had to accomplish something drove me to put forth the effort.

The same is true for learning. Students can use the skills they learn from school to work hard on a subject, which will improve their understanding and increase motivation. But just like training for a long ride, this takes sustained efforts that will feel difficult at times. We need to focus on the success we find as we learn and achieve more.

While people may have personal interests and preferences, they also have tremendous control over their motivation. For this reason, I don’t believe it’s ever appropriate to tell someone, “Oh, you just aren’t a math person.” (Or again, replace math with whatever subject fits best).

So, let’s talk about how educational research ties into all of this. One way that teachers support students’ study skills is through a process called “spaced practice.” Cognitive science supports this concept as a way of learning material. It says that if we want to learn something new, we should break it up over time and return to it regularly rather than trying to learn it all in one block. This is why many of the curriculum resources used in schools these days involve spiral review – this creates a spaced practice that supports brain science around learning.

The other huge effect on learning related to cognitive science is the idea of “retrieval practice.” This concept tells us that once we have learned something, a great way to embed that learning in our long-term memory is to retrieve it from our memory and do something with it.

What does that mean in the classroom? This means that we should constantly return to concepts already taught, which is especially valid in subjects where current learning builds on previous knowledge. Math is an excellent example of this, and it’s also important to think about our essential standards and how we might create spaced practice and retrieval practice of those topics. Thinking about foundational learning skills in the elementary classroom, this is why short mini-lessons on things like structured literacy that move quickly and cycle through multiple skills quickly help our students stay engaged in the learning.

What might this mean for families at home? Instead of spending hours working on something like memorizing letters and sounds or math facts, we might spend 5-10 minutes, possibly a few times a day, and repeatedly return to similar skills. Last year, when helping my daughter learn her Spanish vocabulary, we became huge fans of flashcards. We’d use them to review and create two stacks – the words she knew and the ones we still needed to learn. When we reviewed, we’d spend more time on the words she still needed to learn, but in every session, we’d return to the words she knew. This spaced retrieval practice helped solidify the words in her brain and became a study skill that she could eventually implement independently and with her friends at school. Before long, she no longer needed my support because she had the strategies to help herself learn.

By returning to a topic, we help embed the idea so that our students can use it fluently. In a topic such as learning times tables, we need our students to not just get to the point where they get most things right but to get to a point where they can’t get them wrong.

However, these cognitive learning skills in spaced and retrieval practice sometimes make students feel like they aren’t learning anything new. But that’s what’s supposed to happen! If classes were always teaching students new things, the learning would be highly ineffective, and students would remember very little and apply even less.

It’s important to remember that most of the skills we teach in schools are not concepts that come naturally. Most people will automatically learn to speak and understand the language they are around most, a skill the human brain has evolved to do. But we have not evolved to learn math, reading, or writing. These are skills that require hard work and practice. There is no way to avoid that.

So when students complain that they aren’t doing anything new, help them understand that doing things again and again is how we learn. Just like I never would have been able to ride 160 miles on my first day of cycling, our students are not masters of new learning after one day of practice. There is always room to make sure that what we do is exciting and engaging, but some of that engagement has to be brought by the student in the form of trying their best to learn the new thing.

Our job as a school is to kindle the fire for learning in our students. They have to create a lasting fire.

What are your thoughts? Do you have any connections to how spaced practice helped you learn or improve at something? Could you share with us in the comments below?

Our resources are not our curriculum

Earlier this summer, I led a group of teachers and the assistant principal from our school to the PLC (Professional Learning Community) at Work Conference in St. Louis. This conference, hosted by Solution Tree, gathered some of the leading experts in PLC. As you read this blog over the fall, you may see a few references to the invaluable learning that occurred there, and this post is the first one that will draw from that experience. Whether you are already engaged in true PLC work or not, the PLC process’s premise, built around 4 key questions, is crucial to our discussion.

These questions come from Learning by Doing: A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work by DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, Many, and Mattos. Today’s post will focus on question 1. One of the key quotes I’ve heard about question 1 comes from Rick DuFour and explains why we need to spend time thinking about that question: “It does not matter which teacher your child has at our school… your child will receive the highest quality instruction, the best assessment practices, and extra time and support to learn at high levels.”

There have been some swings in education over the years. Do we teach our subjects based on the resources we have? Or do we focus on our standards and the skills our students need based on those standards? I will be honest: the teacher in me causes my eye to twitch when I hear talk about teaching from the resource “with fidelity.” At the same time, I know that when I look at the list of authors involved in the writing of any of our resources, there are lots of people with Ph.D. or Ed.D. after their name and their accolades listed. It tells me that some intelligent people put the resources together to support student learning.

I also know that resources are often put together based on alignment with national, state, and local standards. However, when I look at most of our resources, they list Common Core standards at the front and then list what unit or lesson will cover those standards. Some resources even seem to have created their own standards. And the reality is that, just like anything else, publishers are in the business of making money. That means they often pay attention to states like Texas or California for what should be included in a textbook because those two states are the two biggest buyers of textbooks in the US. It’s essential to know that these states significantly influence textbook content nationwide.

So as a school leader in Indiana, the question arises: is it best practice to encourage my teachers to have a goal of teaching a whole textbook “with fidelity”? I’d argue that the answer to that is no. Instead, we should be guided by the Indiana Academic Standards, the cornerstone of our curriculum. These standards help us identify what to teach, ensuring that we focus on the skills our students need based on those standards.

Standards are the center of everything we do. Based on the standards, we create learning targets written in student-friendly language, design classroom activities, and develop common assessments. When we do this work within the PLC, we develop a shared understanding of our standards and the rigor that they entail.

Committing to the work of the PLC means that we will commit to genuinely understanding the guaranteed and viable curriculum that we offer our students and their families. It means that we know what kids need to do by the end of the year to show mastery of the priority standards and the progression of work that needs to happen for a student to achieve mastery by the end of the year.

Given that it is the beginning of the school year, I encourage you to find a team you can collaborate with. Take some time to dig into your standards and your resources. Once you have a clear understanding of your standards, then review your resources. Can lessons or chapters help your student master those priority standards? Or do you have lessons or chapters that don’t align with your standards? Use this knowledge to help you understand what from your resource will help you move students towards mastery and where you might need to supplement the resource.

The key takeaway: Our resource is not our curriculum, and just because we “did it all” doesn’t mean that we have necessarily moved our students towards mastery of the most essential standards!

Have you done work like this on your own or with a team? What did you learn about your resources and standards? Please share some of your key insights in the comments below.

Behavioral engagement vs. Cognitive engagement

Anyone who has read my posts knows I listen to many podcasts. That’s where I get many of my ideas for posts. Earlier in the spring, I was listening to one of the many podcasts I like, and one of the people was talking about the importance of student engagement.

We all know that student engagement is vital to creating a productive and supportive educational environment. High levels of engagement foster academic growth and play a crucial role in shaping our students’ personal development. By maintaining high levels of engagement, we can help our students unlock their full potential and equip them to tackle future challenges.

One of the comments that struck me was when the host pointed out the difference between behavioral engagement and cognitive engagement. It makes sense if you stop to think about it, but I had never thought of engagement as having different types. But then, I started thinking about those students who visibly would not appear engaged in the lesson. Then, it would be time to answer a question or provide a thought, and their hand would shoot up, and they’d give the most insightful and informative addition to the lesson. I was always so surprised!

Reflecting on the podcast, it became clear that behavioral and cognitive engagement are integral to effective learning. Each type represents a unique way students interact with the learning process, and both are equally important for student success.

Let’s talk for just a moment about each one.

Behavioral engagement involves the observable actions and behaviors of students in the classroom. A few of those actions and behaviors include:

  • Active participation in class activities, discussions, or collaborative work
  • Paying attention during lessons and maintaining focus on tasks
  • Putting effort into completing assignments and learning activities
  • Regular attendance and punctuality
  • Following classroom rules and expectations, showing on-task behavior, and minimizing disruptive behaviors

Conversely, cognitive engagement refers to students’ mental processes and strategies to understand and learn the material. A few of these processes and strategies include:

  • Seeking to understand the material at a deeper level rather than just memorizing facts
  • Analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing information
  • Setting goals, monitoring progress, and reflecting on learning
  • Being aware of one’s thinking processes and strategies for learning (metacognition)
  • Having a genuine interest in learning and finding personal meaning in the material

The exciting thing for us to think about, though, is the role that the teacher plays in this engagement piece. Teachers sometimes believe that it is the student’s job to engage in the learning once a student shows up. There’s that old saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink,” and I’ll agree that students have a role in their engagement. But if we leave it up to a second grader to decide whether they will engage in the lesson, we are doing a disservice to their learning. We expect them to raise their hand to use the restroom. We expect them to walk in lines in the hallway. But will we let them decide whether they should engage in a lesson? I think not.

As educators, we have a role in helping students engage more effectively. When we create a structured and supportive environment, we can enhance behavioral engagement. Some of these steps could include:

  • Clear classroom rules/expectations—These expectations should be enforced consistently, and students should agree.
  • Routines—Predictable daily activities and transition routines will help students know what to expect and reduce disruptions.
  • Build positive relationships—Students want the people they spend time with to show interest in their lives, listen to their concerns, and respect their opinions. Students who have developed relationships and trust with their teachers are likelier to engage in the lesson.
  • Inclusive environment—Students want to feel valued and included. Creating a classroom culture where everyone is seen and heard is important.
  • Use positive reinforcement—This is two-pronged: First, recognize and reward positive behaviors and achievements through praise, tokens, or other small rewards to motivate students. Second, provide timely and specific feedback that helps students understand what they did well and how they can improve.
  • Implement effective classroom management techniques—First, try to be proactive and anticipate potential disruptions before they occur so that you can address them. When things go wrong (and they will), apply fair and consistent consequences and ensure that students understand their role in those consequences.

When we work to design challenging and meaningful learning tasks, we’re able to enhance cognitive engagement. Some of the ways we can do this could include:

  • Create a curriculum relevant to the students—Include student interests and real-life experiences whenever possible. Use interactive teaching methods like group work, discussion, and hands-on activities to keep students involved in their learning.
  • Provide varied instructional strategies—Differentiate learning to meet your students’ needs and provide scaffolds to help students learn new concepts, gradually reducing assistance as they become more proficient.
  • Foster student autonomy—Whenever possible, provide students with choice. How can they show what they know? Ask them how they want to show you! You could also offer opportunities for students to take on leadership roles in the class or school.
  • Encourage collaboration and social interaction—Time and again, reports say that one of the most critical skills for our children to learn for success in future workplaces is effective communication and problem-solving skills. To build these skills, incorporate group work or collaborative projects that require students to support one another. Be mindful of what’s going well and what isn’t. Be ready to step in when a group hits a bump in the road (it will happen). At the same time, foster a classroom culture where everyone can be the teacher and learner.
  • Promote self-regulation and responsibility—Have students set personal and academic goals, then teach them to monitor their progress and reflect on their learning. Students also need to be taught and modeled practical time management skills.

Earlier in the post, I discussed how behavioral and cognitive engagement are related. However, there are also some key differences to consider. Behavioral engagement is ultimately about what students do, while cognitive engagement is how students think and process information. Behavioral engagement can often be observed and measured directly (participation, attention). In contrast, cognitive engagement is more internal and assessed through indirect measures (self-reports, formative or summative assessments, problem-solving tasks).

However, the most important difference is the impact of these two types of engagement. Behavioral engagement is essential for maintaining a conducive learning environment and ensuring participation in classroom lessons and activities. On the other hand, cognitive engagement is particularly crucial for deep and meaningful learning. When both behavioral and cognitive engagement are in place, we can help our students reach what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a Hungarian-American psychologist, refers to as a flow state. “Flow” is a highly focused mental state conducive to productivity and learning.

This quote has me thinking that engagement strategies can help students develop an interest in something. As teachers, we help develop that interest by using our engagement skills to help students pay attention to that thing.

Let’s consider what these types of engagement cause on a classroom level.

Without apparent behavioral or cognitive engagement, a classroom will be chaotic, and little learning will occur. You would likely see a lot of referrals, and end-of-year academic data shows little growth for students.

A classroom with strong behavioral engagement but not a lot of cognitive engagement would have an orderly classroom environment, have very positive teacher-student relationships, and students would typically participate, but the drawback would be that there was only shallow learning, limited critical thinking, and a lack of motivation or interest for students. This would show in assessments – students would do well on basic fact recall but struggle with tasks requiring more knowledge.

In a classroom with strong cognitive engagement but weak behavioral engagement, you would expect higher-order thinking skills, high levels of intrinsic motivation, innovative ideas, and a natural curiosity. Still, this would come at the cost of a disruptive classroom environment, teacher and peer frustration, incomplete task completion, and high levels of stress and anxiety for all in the atmosphere. These classrooms also tend to struggle greatly when the classroom teacher is not in the room and has to have a substitute teacher.

When a classroom has both types of engagement, we expect it to run like a well-oiled machine. Students would be orderly and respectful, have positive peer interactions, be highly motivated, and actively engage in learning activities. We would also expect enhanced learning and achievement and students who develop lifelong learning skills. This is the environment where most students are most successful and teachers are most happy.

When you reflect on your classroom, where do you think you are strong in creating an engaging environment? What are some areas of continued growth for you? What are some ideas you have that might help others grow in the areas you are strongest? Share with us in the comments below!

The Crossroads of Mario Kart and a Healthy MTSS Program

I’m not sure how much time you spend gaming, but there was a point when my family played quite a bit of Mario Kart. It’s one of the few games we could all get excited about and play simultaneously. The best part was that no matter how good (or bad) you were, you always had a chance to win. You see, the way that Mario Kart works is that the players who are doing the best only get the basic power-ups, but if you are in last place, you often get the best power-ups! I remember on multiple occasions playing the game, leading the whole race, and then getting hit by a blue shell from one of my kids so that they could win the game, while I ended up in 3rd or 4th place!

The game can sense who is the most successful and who might need an additional leg up to be successful. Game designers know the game isn’t fun if the same person always wins. If it isn’t fun, people don’t play it as much, and kids don’t come home from their friend’s house saying, “We have to get Mario Kart!” And ultimately, Nintendo is a company that wants to make money. They make that money by selling more games and getting people to continue to play.

In most of the real world, this is not what happens. The people who are at the top often get the most, and the people who are at the bottom struggle the most. Think about individual finances—the saying goes, “The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.” This is part of why a healthy MTSS program is so important.

In education, we often find that students who start with the strongest reading skills tend to improve faster than their peers with weaker skills.

When we think about the accumulative advantage in reading instruction (or really in any subject), we have students who show up in our classrooms with a different level of skills than others. Some students’ families may have provided a more literacy-rich pre-K home environment. Some children may have access to more books, technology, and extracurricular activities that have improved their language comprehension skills.

So, let’s return to the connection between Mario Kart and MTSS. Ultimately, what happens is that the game can assess where the players are in terms of skill. Based on those assessments, the game provides players who are not as competent with better power-ups, giving them a chance to be successful in the game.

MTSS is a system that empowers educators. We can assess where our learners are. We understand that all our learners will receive high-quality instruction (Tier 1). Still, some will need targeted small-group interventions (Tier 2), and a few will receive more intensive individual support (Tier 3). Think about Tiers 2 and 3 as being power-ups. Our students who come to us with a strong foundation typically get to where they need to with our typical Tier 1 instruction. But some of our students will need additional power-ups. By providing targeted interventions, we can give our students the tools they need to succeed.

Interventions are one of many ways to provide power-ups to our learners. Other ways to support students might include:

  • Access to high-quality resources such as books and technology that support students’ reading
  • Libraries help encourage selecting high-interest books, borrowing, and reading at home
  • Professional development will provide teachers with the tools they need to know what the best interventions for a student based on their current data and then will support teachers in ongoing assessment of student growth
  • Getting families involved in the literacy development of their children is critical – implement programs and workshops that include families and help them know how to support their child at home best
  • Promote a culture of reading through things like reading challenges, book clubs, and author visits

The more power-ups we provide, our learning environment can be more equitable. This will help all students grow as readers, especially those who struggle, so that they can close gaps in their reading skills.

Let me know what some of your favorite power-ups are to implement. What gets your kids excited to read? How do you develop a passion for lifelong reading? Please share with us in the comments below!

Thinking about problems

One of the things you should know about me is that I love to solve problems. To the point that sometimes, when I need to listen, my mind goes to suggestions for how to fix the issue. Often, those suggestions are specific to the exact need but don’t necessarily help with general needs in solving all types of problems.

As a classroom teacher, this was sometimes my focus as well. In the first few years of teaching, I often did a “Problem of the Week,” where students worked in a small group to solve a deep-thinking problem that was somehow tied to the curriculum. As a class, we would go over the problems. But when we went over them, we’d focus on how to solve that specific problem. In my mind, I assumed the skills would translate. Sometimes they would, but not always.

Over time, I have learned more, and one thing that I have considered is that schools need to be learning environments and that students need to develop deep thinking skills. These deep-thinking skills don’t happen when our teaching is based on how to solve a problem. While on a bike ride recently, I listened to an episode of the Tim Ferris Show podcast, and he interviewed Edward O. Thorp. He’s known for many things, but I was thinking about him from his perspective as a math professor. During the podcast, he was talking about teaching a class about investing. In the episode, he said the following:

Ultimately, the goal is to help teach students how to be lifelong problem solvers—whether we’re talking about math or any other skill, thinking is the key to our students’ success! That’s part of what I love about a book we’re reading, Building Thinking Classrooms by Peter Liljedahl. While the book focuses on ways to develop thinking skills in mathematics, we are looking at it from the perspective of how we bring similar shifts to learning in all subject areas.

If you’ve never read this great book from Liljedahl, you should know that it’s based on research he carried out in many classrooms and grade levels. The book’s core concept is that 14 practices, when implemented, will lead to greater student success based on learning measures. While the book is designed so that you can implement different practices as you see fit, Liljedahl suggests implementing the first 3 practices together. Those tasks include:

  • What types of tasks – the tasks should be highly engaging. When starting this process, you might begin with non-curricular tasks, but the goal is to get to tasks developed around the curriculum. These tasks will exist at a higher depth of knowledge, say DOK 3 or 4. For example, in a language arts class, you might have students creating a word web for various vocabulary words – connecting one word to another helps make the learning stickier. In social studies, you might have a task that involves a quick reenactment of an event from history that you’re studying. In science, you might have students exploring a hands-on, engaging lab task before explaining why something works so that they can make connections to what is happening in the real world.
  • How we form groups – According to Liljedahl’s research, the best groups are randomly formed in a way that students know is random (if they are preselected, students may not trust that they are truly random). In primary grades, you might want groups of 2, but from grades 3 and up, it’s best to have groups of 3 or fewer.
  • Where students work – The best place for a group of students is at what’s called “Vertical Non-Permanent Spaces.” These might be whiteboards around the room or something like a Wipebook (some creative teachers even use pieces of white shower board (they can be cut and then mounted to the wall like a whiteboard). Verticality is important because it allows for a flow of knowledge throughout the room. If a group gets stuck, they can see what others are doing. That’s not cheating. That’s using resources! And non permanent is important because it leads to lower stakes. Students are willing to take risks because they know they can erase something that doesn’t work.

When we create a learning environment that encourages thinking, has tasks at a higher DOK, and puts students into groups to collaborate, we encourage 21st-century thinking skills that will help our students know how to solve this problem and, more importantly, how to solve any problem.

What are your thoughts? How do you ensure that students in your classroom are learning to think about how to solve all kinds of problems? Share with us in the comments below!

Growth is not attainment

I was recently listening to an old episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, which is hosted by Susan Lambert. The episode was titled “Leading with the head and the heart” and the guest was Mitchell Brookins. You can find this episode here. Brookins began his career as a teacher on the south side of Chicago, became a school administrator in both New Orleans and Chicago, and now is a consultant working with teachers and educators on the Science of Reading. Much like many of you, he was trained as an educator who believed in a Balanced Literacy format for instruction, but he was seeing students in his classroom who were not learning how to read and not growing despite doing everything that he had learned was supposed to be helping kids learn to read.

Around 2015, Brookins was working on his doctorate, researching instructional leadership, and realized that he needed to research how to teach students to read. This work led him to the National Reading Panel Report, which was published in 2000 (you can find it here). He later came to realize that this research was the beginning of his journey of learning about the Science of Reading.

What I found myself reflecting on as I listened to Brookins was that I was in much the same boat as him. I had students who came to me in 5th and 6th grade, and while most could read, there were always a handful that struggled. Even though I tried the strategies that the literacy coach suggested, and the things that Guiding Readers and Writers by Foutas & Pinnell told me were good practice, I never seemed to make headway with those students. What strikes me now is that the ideas that could have helped me shift my practices, that could have helped me reach more of the children who walked into my class without reading proficiency were sitting there in a report that had been published while I was still in college. The problem is, I didn’t even know about the National Reading Panel Report until sometime around 2020 or 2021.

Brookins and his team of 3rd to 5th grade teachers took the information from the research and first began implementing fluency reads. They spent 10 minutes a day with a short passage. The teacher would read it aloud first, then the class would choral read, then students would re-read and annotate for a purpose. Annotation allows you to closely monitor what is happening in a text – you might notice main points, shifts in perspectives, key areas of focus, and your thoughts as a reader. After seeing some quick gains in student comprehension of reading, the team decided to go deep with fluency reads. Each week they would select a couple of passages and devote 10 minutes a day to reading, re-reading, annotating, and discussing the text. After 20 weeks the teachers had seen major growth in their reading comprehension scores. That year, the school saw a 10% increase in state assessment scores on student reading. Even with all this work though, and seeing kids grow, they noticed that there were still a few students, about 10-12 across the grades, who were not growing.

At this point, Brookins went back to the research and found a section in the National Reading Report that suggested students who were not growing with phonics support might need instruction that falls earlier on the reading progression. This led him to dig into phonics instruction. He found that for his students that were not achieving based on fluency reads, the team needed to look at foundational skills that might be lacking. By adding those skills for intervention work with the 10-12 students who weren’t growing, the team began to see a shift in the data. Students were growing.

But then, Brookins said something that he came to realize, and that shook me to the core:

You see, what I have noticed is that each year, we have students who show growth – in their NWEA data, in screeners, and in formative assessments. Because they grow, they seem to slip through the cracks. But when we start looking at our bubble students – the ones who didn’t pass the IREAD-3 (Indiana’s Assessment of Reading Proficiency) in third grade, we notice that while some students have been growing consistently, their data always puts them in the yellow, on the edge of being at risk. These children have slipped through the cracks because they aren’t waving a big red flag. They are growing. But that growth is not at a rate that will get them to our goal of reading proficiency by the end of grade 3.

So now, that has me reflecting on my own instructional leadership. I know that my eyes often get drawn to the big red flags that pull in our attention. These red flags come from the students who consistently are being flagged by our screeners, who have NWEA scores in the 40th percentile or lower, and who are identified for our RTI support. But when our eyes get drawn to the big red flag, we miss the student who is consistently cruising on the bubble. They are making growth, they may even be meeting their growth goals every year, but they aren’t closing gaps between where they are and where they need to be to reach proficiency.

So here’s what I’m thinking about for next year (as there is less than 2 weeks remaining in this school year here in central Indiana) – I want to make it clear that my vision moving forward is to work towards mastery of literacy. You see, students cannot be strong mathematicians without reading skills. They will struggle with problem or project based learning if they are not masters of literacy. My expectation is 95%.

To get there, I’m going to engage in the work. We’ll be studying the needs of our students. We’re going to learn, and then implement the practices that will meet those needs. We’re going to utilize a system of universal screeners and diagnostics to help us understand where our students are and how to move them forward. And then, we’re going to analyze the growth. Where there are wins, we will celebrate them. Where we still are finding gaps, we’re going back to the drawing board. You see, if growth is not attainment, then as Brookins said a bit later in the episode:

You see, I believe that in order to be successful in our world, children need access to literacy. The best way we can help with that is to provide them with foundational skills and language comprehension skills to support their literacy. The children in our school will become proficient.

Based on what you have learned, either from this post or from your own learning on the Science of Reading, what commitments can you make about your instructional practices for next year? What’s something you are going to implement? What’s something that you are going to let go of? To be truly successful, we cannot let our plate get too full. Make sure you’re thinking about what you’ll let go of as you move into a new mindset where mastery is the mandate. Share your thoughts in the comments below!

The Basic Questions

Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of research and learning on how to best meet the needs of our students. In LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling), I’ve come to understand just how important assessments are for us to know two things – first, they help us know where our students are, and second, they help us know what we need to do next to help our students to grow.

When looking at assessments, LETRS suggests that there are 4 basic questions that we should answer based on the various assessments and the data we collect. Those questions are:

In today’s post, I’ll dig into those questions more to support you when looking at student data. We want to all be on the same page about these things because one of the biggest takeaways, as I learn more about the Science of Reading, is that prevention and early intervention have the greatest impact on avoiding potential reading difficulties. To help with these goals, we should screen our students in grades K-2 individually three times per year with a valid, reliable, and efficient assessment to flag any students who are making inadequate progress in reading. We should be using the results of those screeners to answer the four questions listed above.

Who needs help? – Our initial guide for those who need help should be driven by our academic standards. As an administrator in Indiana, my go-to resource is the Indiana Academic Standards Vertical Articulation Guide. You can find the K-2 version here, or you can get the 2-5 version here. If you live in a different state, look to see if your Department of Education has something similar, or you could utilize your academic standards. In addition to standards, there are other resources that you could use. Your curricular resources typically have a scope and sequence. If you’ve checked how well your resource aligns with your academic standards and know that the resource is highly aligned, then that scope and sequence will help. Another resource you might want to look at is the scope and sequence of a resource such as LETRS. You can find this scope and sequence here. This tool might help you know when most typical students will be ready for a specific skill as a reader, and then as a speller (quick side-note on this – these grade levels are approximate – we know all students develop in different ways at different times, but this can be a good tool to compare to the scope and sequence of your resources, and can serve as a support if there are students who are far off the benchmark). A final tool that can be beneficial in identifying where students should be is the Progression of Word Study, also created by LETRS:

So… to be able to identify just who needs help, we need to look at the students in your class and their data. If there are students who are not meeting the benchmarks of your screeners, that should raise a red flag. If you have a student performing below most other students in your class, that should raise a red flag. And finally, if more than a typical proportion of a class is not meeting the benchmark, that should raise a red flag.

What kind of help do they need? – Once we’ve identified our students who need help, the next goal is how to help them. If that student is below the benchmark, it’s time to do a diagnostic assessment. Recently, the leadership team in my building has been looking at the LETRS Phonics and Word-Reading Survey as a potential tool for diagnostic screening (accessible here). What we like about it is that it’s organized according to the progression of phonic elements. For most students, it will take 5-10 minutes to complete. Once you reach a point of frustration for the student, you stop. When you fill out the summary chart, you should have a clearer picture of where the student’s phonics and phonemic awareness have broken down. Once you know that, you can decide on an intervention for your student, and where you might want to start them.

In our school, we use UFLI Foundations as our core resource for structured literacy, and for most students, it will become our primary tool for Tier 2 Interventions. When we have completed the diagnostic we’d look at the UFLI scope and sequence to identify what lesson might help fill in the gaps for that student. Ideally, I’d form a small group of 3-5 students at a similar level for this work. In our building, we’ve been utilizing a shared RTI time across grade levels to make this happen. Each PLC team can look at their students of concern, group them based on need, and decide which teacher will pull which group for support. If all is going well in your Tier 1 instruction, then this should be around 15-25% of your students who need extra support, which results in a reasonably sized small group.

Once we identify our intervention, and where the students need to start on that intervention, it’s time to create some short-term goals. We’ve been setting goals of approximately 6-8 weeks in the SMART goal format. An example of this SMART goal might look like this: By ___(date)__, __(student name)__ will be able to __(skill)__ using __(intervention)__ as measured by __(Progress Monitoring Tool)__. These clear goals help us know what our students are working on and identify opportunities for early wins with each child.

Is the help helping? – At this point, we’ve identified our students of concern and created groups of students to work with on specific skills. Now it’s time for us to implement a plan of progress monitoring. These assessments should be short, formative assessments that allow teachers to make instructional decisions. Recently, we have been using Aimsweb Plus as our Progress Monitoring tool. Ultimately, the progress monitoring should tell us more about the validity of the intervention and its teaching than it tells us about the student.

If not, what needs to change? – So now we’ve done all the previous steps, screeners have been used, areas of need identified, interventions implemented, and progress monitoring is utilized every 1-3 weeks. Now it’s time to think about what to do for a student who is not growing as we’d like. If a student seems stagnant on the goal after a few rounds of Progress Monitor data, we must change the instructional plan for that student to better meet their needs. This is why we want to set a short-term (6-8 weeks) goal, and then check on student progress towards that goal regularly. If their data does not show growth toward their target, it’s time to do additional digging. In our school, this is where we’d set up a Child Study Team. That team includes the teacher, support staff who work with the students, our instructional coaches, and our administrators. Based on the conversations around the table, we might use an additional screener, put into place a different intervention, or shift the skill we’re working on within the intervention.

Again, the goal is to identify our students who need help, assess what kind of help they need, put that help into place, and make changes as needed. These steps will help us be ready to intervene as early as possible. The earlier we intervene, the easier it will be to close gaps. Ultimately, our goal is 95% proficiency by the end of 3rd grade. That can’t happen unless we look for those red flags in our students and take the appropriate steps.

As you reflect on your students, who raises a red flag for you? What steps should you take to help them be better prepared for next year? What goals could you put into place now to help next year’s teachers better support the students you’re thinking of? Let’s go do it! The sooner we intervene, the better we can support our students!