Tag: 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!

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.

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!

Reflections on Collective Teacher Efficacy

Reflections on Collective Teacher Efficacy

Recently, in many trainings (various Science of Reading work, the Indiana Literacy Cadre, and LETRS by Lexia), I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what research tells us about learning to read. One of my biggest aha moments was reading that “all but 2-5 percent of students can learn basic reading skills in first grade, even in populations that are at greatest risk for chronic reading difficulties” (Mathes, Denton, Fletcher, Anthony, Francis, & Schatschneider, 2005). Other studies tell us that “Older students, in grades 3-5, can also improve to the average range and sustain those improvements if their remediation is sufficiently intensive, expert, and long term” (Torgesen, Alexander, Wagner, Rashotte, Voeller, & Conway, 2001). How does that happen? Through solid core instruction and a system of screeners, interventions, and progress monitoring data. The core instruction introduces the important skills students need, and with screeners, we can identify students who are falling behind, put into place supports that meet their needs, and track student work to see if our students are growing.

In January, the MTSS Leadership Team at the school where I work met with every grade level team. We talked about the importance of making sure that all those steps (screeners, interventions, and progress monitoring) are aligned. We also discussed designing goals for each student we had identified in our MTSS process as needing higher tiers of support. In other words, we want to make sure that we use interventions that meet the individual needs of each student. Then we want to use a progress monitoring tool that will appropriately measure data on the skills we are working on.

But alignment on those things is not enough to get all our students to reading proficiency. We also must be aligned in our mindsets. What does that mean? That’s where collective teacher efficacy comes in. The quote above is an important reminder. Through the unified efforts of your PLC, the MTSS Process, and the school, we can and will get our students to the level of proficiency that we expect for our learners.

The things I have learned about reading proficiency have caused me to reflect on some conversations over the years. One of the things that I have heard from teachers is a comment about how they “aren’t surprised” by the results of reading assessments when some students don’t show proficiency. I get it, as teachers, we believe in doing our best, moving kids as far as we can, and sometimes we don’t put a ton of weight on a standardized assessment score that is simply a snapshot in time for your learners. But when the number of students you “aren’t surprised” about is more than 5% of your class, maybe it should give you pause. Again, the research tells us that with explicit and sequential core instruction, reliable and valid screening, and interventions aligned with student needs, 95% of our students should be reading at proficiency by the end of third grade. And when I think about what an elementary school is here to do, teaching literacy skills to all should be job number 1. As Thomas Jefferson said:

“A nation of people who write and read is a nation with the attention span to earn an education and free society if they choose. Public education does not serve a public. It creates a public.”

When you see that research tells us all but 2-5 percent of our students can get to proficiency, what does that make you reflect on with your current students? Are there students in your class that probably should be at proficiency that aren’t? How can collective teacher efficacy help those students get to where they need to be? Remember, you aren’t going it alone! You have your PLC team, your MTSS team, your instructional coaches, and your leadership team to support you in these goals! But also know that a part of collective teacher efficacy is the belief that you can help your students to succeed. While it’s important to lean on your team around you, it’s even more important that you believe that you have the power to make a difference!

Credit for this design goes to @citizenruthbrand on Instagram. I love it so much, I ordered one!

And there’s something else we must keep in mind – the research says that this 95% of students who can reach proficiency includes all subgroups – ENL, Exceptional Learner, Transient students, etc. With that in mind, should we ever be ok with feeling like we “aren’t surprised” if a student isn’t performing at the level that they should be based on standards and learning progression?

Through collective action, starting on the very first day that our students start with us – for most of our students that means starting in kindergarten – and continuing through the last day they are with us at the end of fourth grade (or whatever the grade breakdown of your school may be), we must be diligent in our work to recognize where our students are. If they are not meeting standards, or falling behind others, that must raise red flags for us. The sooner we notice, the sooner we can intervene. And the sooner we intervene, the sooner we can close gaps. On the other hand, the longer we wait, the harder it becomes for us to close the gaps because with each day those gaps grow wider. And while we can close gaps in grades 3-5, those students who get to proficiency will most likely always read at a slower rate.

This means we all must have a laser-like focus on our students. Research tells us that early intervention is the key to getting to our goal of 95% reading proficiency by the end of their third-grade year. What commitment can you make in this last portion of the year to help set your student up for success in their reading future? Do you need to set a new SMART goal for your student? Do you need to utilize a new screener to make sure that you are correctly supporting them? Do you need to review your progress monitoring tool to make sure that it is appropriately assessing the skill that you are working with them on? Let us know what you plan to do in the comments below!

Assessment to Provide Early Intervention

I know that many of us have opinions about what it is that students need to know by the time they reach the end of any specific grade level. Those opinions are formed in several ways. One way is using grade-level standards, or another might be through our experience working with students at a particular grade. But how do we know if a student is struggling earlier than that? What should raise a red flag for us when a student isn’t progressing as fast as we think they should?

What research shows us, through a longitudinal study of approximately 400 randomly selected kindergarten students from a broad sample of communities across the state of Connecticut (you can see a bit more about this study here) is that early interventions are key. This study followed students until the end of high school. One of the interesting findings of the study is that between grades 1-9, students who started in the bottom 25 percent (the lowest one-quarter) of reading achievement remained there for the duration of the study. Students who were struggling in kindergarten were more likely to struggle throughout their educational career.

This is why early intervention is key to reading support. “Once children are behind – which happens very early – they do not catch up unless intervention is intensive, timely, and well informed” (Moats & Tolman, LETRS Volume 1, p. 63). Recent trainings on foundational skills continue to remind me of the importance of taking the right steps, at the right time.

Sometimes though, I feel like we get a little too caught up in the formality of interventions. If we see a student who is struggling, we shouldn’t feel like we need to wait for the next official MTSS meeting to add in some interventions. We also sometimes get too caught up in how long we need to spend on these skills. When the group is small, and a gap is identified early enough, just 5-10 minutes a day can make a world of difference. And those interventions don’t always have to happen while gathered around a table. If you have 3 kids that you’re concerned about their letter ID or naming of sounds, have them walk near you in line, and do the intervention while you walk them to a restroom break, to their related arts class, or lunch. When we use the small moments, and chunk them together, we can make BIG differences!

The first step in supporting students is knowing who to support – who falls into that bottom quarter of students. This is where a universal screener is so important. This is an assessment you might use for all students to see who is flagged as struggling with foundational reading skills. In my district, we use NWEA MAP Reading Fluency, however, other districts might use other screeners like Acadience Reading K-6, easyCBM, and others. This helps us locate the students who are at risk for reading difficulties.

Once we identify those students who are at risk, we may not know how we need to support that student That’s where diagnostic screeners are so important. There are lots of resources that you could use to help with screening students. Assessments such as The PAST Test (accessible for free here), or a Phonics and Word Reading Survey can help you see where your students are and identify where you might want to start an intervention. I would suggest using an assessment like this to screen your students of concern, then bring the data to a PLC meeting to see how you might be able to work as a team to support your learners in their continued growth.

The key to identifying the risks of reading struggles is to figure out where your students are as quickly as possible. Quality screeners are a huge part of that. Research suggests that screening should take place at least 3 times per year so that we can identify students who begin struggling later in the school year. Once students of concern are identified, we must get a quality intervention in place to support that student. The science tells us that most of our students can develop strong foundational reading skills – 95% or better – by the end of third grade. But the longer we wait to support students who are at risk, the harder that task becomes. Through appropriate intervention, we can make sure that many of our at-risk students are helped before chronic, serious reading and writing delays develop. This work must start on day 1 of kindergarten. We can’t afford to wait. Our student’s reading skills are too valuable!

Share with us in the comments. What are some of the things that you look for in your grade level to identify students who struggle? How might you intervene? We’d love to learn from one another!