Examining the Effects and Feasibility of a Teacher-Implemented Tier 1 and Tier 2 Intervention in Word Reading, Fluency, and Comprehension

This descriptive study documents the effects of response-to-intervention type practices in four first-grade classrooms of English learners (ELs) from 11 native languages in three schools in a large urban school district in southern California. Observations and interviews in four classrooms across two consecutive years were compared to first-grade gains in oral reading fluency ( N = 111). Reading fluency data were examined in relation to ratings of literacy practices, including the degree to which Tier 1 alone or Tier 1 plus Tier 2-type instruction was implemented. The correlation between classroom ratings on the English Learners Classroom Observation Instrument (ELCOI) and gain from pre- to posttest in first grade on oral reading fluency was moderately strong in both Year 1 ( r = .61) and Year 2 ( r = .57). The correlation between Cluster II teacher ratings and ORF gains was strong in both Year 1 ( r = .75) and Year 2 ( r = .70), suggesting a strong relationship between Tier 2-type literacy practices and end-of-first-grade oral reading fluency. Results indicated a strong correlation ( r = -.81) between the number of students below DIBELS benchmark thresholds at the end of first grade and the teacher rating on the amount of instruction provided for low performers. Followup data at the end of third grade in oral reading fluency and comprehension indicate moderate correlations to first-grade scores ( N = 51). Patterns of practice among first-grade teachers and patterns among ELs who were ultimately labeled as having learning disabilities are discussed. Educational implications and recommendations for future research are also presented.

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SFBT Within the Tier 2 Framework

10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190607258.003.0005 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Michael S. Kelly ◽

Johnny S. Kim ◽

Cynthia Franklin

Keyword(s):

Classroom Climate ◽

Tier 2 ◽

Social Emotional ◽

Prevention Services ◽

Coaching Intervention ◽

Tier 1 ◽

American Schools ◽

Tier 2 Intervention ◽

Tier 3 ◽

Teacher Coaching

The educational policy changes of the past 20 years have increased the focus on the provision of prevention services within schools, both for individual students and for social-emotional programming delivered in their classroom. Whether characterized as Response to Intervention (RTI), Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports (PBIS), or Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports (MTSS), the focus on a 3-tier framework of universal (Tier 1), selective (Tier 2) and indicated (Tier 3) has become one of the largest evidence-based framework ever scaled up within American schools, with over 19,000 schools across all 50 states having implemented PBIS by this writing. This chapter focuses on an example of a SFBT Tier 2 intervention, the Working on What Works (WOWW) teacher coaching intervention, that strives to create a better classroom climate for teachers and their students.

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Response to Intervention

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1187 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Evelyn S. Johnson

Keyword(s):

Response To Intervention ◽

General Education ◽

Progress Monitoring ◽

Instructional Program ◽

Evidence Based ◽

Tier 2 ◽

Academic Challenges ◽

Essential Components ◽

Tier 1 ◽

Tier 2 Intervention

Response to intervention (RTI) is a framework that can help ensure the academic strengths and needs of students are met effectively and efficiently. Patterned on a public health model of prevention, the focus of RTI is on preventing and intervening for academic challenges through a system of increasingly intensive supports, where the least intensive but most effective option is the most desirable. RTI models consist of the key essential components of effective inclusive instruction, universal screening, progress monitoring, data-based instructional decision-making, tiered levels of evidence-based and culturally responsive interventions, and fidelity of implementation. When the RTI framework is well implemented, most students are successful in the general education environment. In the general education classroom, teachers provide quality core, or Tier 1, instruction for all students. Even with high-quality instruction, however, not all students will be successful. Between 10 and 15% of the student population will likely need more intensive academic support at some point during their schooling, typically referred to as Tier 2 intervention. Tier 2 provides a system of evidence-based intervention, designed to meet the needs of most students at risk for poor academic outcomes. Tier 2 interventions are meant to be short in duration, focused on improving skill deficits that interfere with students’ success, and comprised of systematic approaches to providing student support. For some students whose needs cannot be met through Tier 1 or 2 instruction, an even more intensive level of intervention will be required. Tier 3 consists of specially designed interventions to support the needs of students who require a more individualized, intensive instructional program. Through this multi-leveled prevention system, the RTI framework provides supports to students that are appropriate to their needs within an environment of equity, efficiency, and accountability. With a well-structured, rigorous implementation of RTI, schooling becomes much more fluid and responsive to meet student needs.

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Building From the Bottom Up: The Importance of Tier 1 Supports in the Context of Tier 2 Interventions

Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions ◽

10.1177/1098300720916716 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

pp. 53-64

Author(s):

Alyssa M. Van Camp ◽

Joseph H. Wehby ◽

Bailey A. Copeland ◽

Allison L. Bruhn

Keyword(s):

Academic Engagement ◽

Middle School Student ◽

School Level ◽

Tier 2 ◽

Accurate Identification ◽

Self Monitoring ◽

Intervention Teams ◽

Tier 1 ◽

Tier 2 Intervention ◽

The Impact

School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS) relies on effective implementation of Tier 1 practices to ensure accurate identification of students in need of more intensive supports at Tier 2 or Tier 3. While measures of school-level fidelity are widely used, measures of classroom-level implementation of Tier 1 supports are less common. If classroom levels of Tier 1 supports are variable, schools may identify students for Tier 2 supports when, instead, teachers need support implementing Tier 1 in classrooms. The purpose of this case study was to assess the impact of a self-monitoring intervention, Monitoring Behavior on the Go (MoBeGo), on the academic engagement and disruptive behavior of a middle school student. Initially, the impact of the self-monitoring intervention was inadequate. In the context of evaluating the impact of a Tier 2 intervention, we identified an opportunity to assess whether a class-wide Tier 1 program, Class-Wide Function-Related Intervention Teams (CW-FIT), enhanced the effectiveness of the Tier 2 intervention. Using an A-B-BC-B-BC design, we compared the effectiveness of a Tier 2 intervention alone with a combined Tier 1 + Tier 2 intervention. When the class-wide Tier 1 program was layered on top of the Tier 2 intervention, the student’s academic engagement showed an increase in level and stability.

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Acoustic Features of Oral Reading Prosody and the Relation With Reading Fluency and Reading Comprehension in Taiwanese Children

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2021_jslhr-21-00252 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-10

Author(s):

Wei-Lun Chung ◽

Gavin M. Bidelman

Keyword(s):

Reading Comprehension ◽

Reading Fluency ◽

Oral Reading ◽

Word Reading ◽

Pause Duration ◽

Third Graders ◽

Read Aloud ◽

Acoustic Features ◽

Fluency And Comprehension ◽

Reading Prosody

Purpose: The study aimed to examine whether oral reading prosody—the use of acoustic features (e.g., pitch and duration variations) when reading passages aloud—predicts reading fluency and comprehension abilities. Method: We measured vocabulary, syntax, word reading, reading fluency (including rate and accuracy), reading comprehension (in Grades 3 and 4), and oral reading prosody in Taiwanese third-grade children ( N = 109). In the oral reading prosody task, children were asked to read aloud a passage designed for third graders and then to answer forced-choice questions. Their oral reading prosody was measured through acoustic analyses including the number of pause intrusions, intersentential pause duration, phrase-final comma pause duration, child–adult pitch match, and sentence-final pitch change. Results: Analyses of variance revealed that children's number of pause intrusions differed as a function of word reading. After controlling for age, vocabulary and syntactic knowledge, and word reading, we found that different dimensions of oral reading prosody contributed to reading rate. In contrast, the number of pause intrusions, phrase-final comma pause duration, and child–adult pitch match predicted reading accuracy and comprehension. Conclusions: Oral reading prosody plays an important role in children's reading fluency and reading comprehension in tone languages like Mandarin. Specifically, children need to read texts prosodically as evidenced by fewer pause intrusions, shorter phrase-final comma pause duration, and closer child–adult pitch match, which are early predictive makers of reading fluency and comprehension.

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Word- and Text-Level Reading Difficulties in Students With Dyslexia

Learning Disability Quarterly ◽

10.1177/07319487211037256 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 073194872110372

Author(s):

Elizabeth B. Meisinger ◽

Ashley M. Breazeale ◽

Lyle H. Davis

Keyword(s):

Phonological Awareness ◽

Cognitive Processing ◽

Reading Fluency ◽

Reading Skills ◽

Short Term Memory ◽

Word Reading ◽

Clinical Sample ◽

Rapid Automatized Naming ◽

Fluency And Comprehension ◽

Text Reading

The purpose of this study was to examine whether group-based differences exist in word- and text-level reading in a clinical sample of students with dyslexia, and to shed light on the cognitive processes supporting these essential skills. Second- through seventh-grade students were administered a battery of standardized measures of cognitive processing skills (phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming [RAN], and verbal short-term memory), word reading skills (decoding and word identification), oral text reading (fluency and comprehension), and silent text reading (fluency and comprehension). Word- and text-level reading skills were used to place students into the following groups: text fluency deficit, globally impaired, and partially remediated. Results replicated the existence of a text fluency deficit group. Reader group differences in terms of cognitive processing skills were less pronounced than expected, with only phonological awareness differentiating among them. Phonological awareness and RAN emerged as the important contributors to reading skill, though their relative contributions varied across wordand text-level measures. Together, these results point to importance of considering text-level reading processes across modality in both research and clinical contexts.

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Investigating Patterns of Errors for Specific Comprehension and Fluency Difficulties

Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment ◽

10.1177/0734282916669914 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 35 (1-2) ◽

pp. 138-148 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Taylor A. Koriakin ◽

Alan S. Kaufman

Keyword(s):

Reading Comprehension ◽

Reading Fluency ◽

Word Reading ◽

Reading Difficulties ◽

Total N ◽

Specific Reading ◽

Fluency And Comprehension ◽

Oral Expression ◽

Post Hoc ◽

Significant Weakness

Although word reading has traditionally been viewed as a foundational skill for development of reading fluency and comprehension, some children demonstrate “specific” reading comprehension problems, in the context of intact word reading. The purpose of this study was to identify specific patterns of errors associated with reading profiles—basic reading difficulties (BRD), reading fluency difficulties (RFD), reading comprehension difficulties (RCD), and typical readers (total n = 821). Results indicated significant differences between the groups on most error factors. Post hoc analyses indicated there were no significant differences between the RFD and RCD groups, but these groups demonstrated different patterns of significant weakness relative to typical readers. The RFD group was weaker in spelling and oral expression whereas the RCD group demonstrated difficulties in writing mechanics and listening comprehension. These findings indicate that comprehension deficits cannot be attributed only to fluency difficulties and that specific reading difficulties may translate to other aspects of achievement.

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A Conceptual Replication Study of the Enhanced Core Reading Instruction MTSS-Reading Model

Council review ◽

10.1177/0014402920953763 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 001440292095376

Author(s):

Hank Fien ◽

Nancy J. Nelson ◽

Keith Smolkowski ◽

Derek Kosty ◽

Marissa Pilger ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Reading Instruction ◽

Reading Skills ◽

Word Reading ◽

Controlled Trial ◽

Tier 2 ◽

Early Readers ◽

Word Level ◽

Tier 2 Intervention ◽

Cluster Randomized ◽

Core Reading

States are increasingly recommending that districts and schools use multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) to improve reading outcomes for all students. States have also suggested MTSS is a viable service delivery model in response to new state legislation to screen, identify, and treat students with word-level reading disability (i.e., dyslexia). One model of MTSS that utilizes Enhanced Core Reading Instruction (ECRI MTSS), has demonstrated significant increases in students’ early acquisition of foundational reading skills (Smith et al., 2016). The purpose of this study was to conduct a conceptual replication of the Smith’s (2016) original impact study. In a cluster-randomized controlled trial, 44 schools were randomly assigned to the ECRI MTSS treatment or a business-as-usual (BAU) MTSS control condition. Across conditions, 754 students were assigned to receive Tier 2 intervention in addition to Tier 1 instruction. Impact data indicate moderate to strong effects on student decoding, word reading, and fluency skills for students in the ECRI MTSS schools. Results suggest that schools can use ECRI MTSS to improve foundational reading skills for struggling early readers, including students with or at risk for word-level reading disabilities (i.e., dyslexia).

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The Effects of a Multitiered System of Language Support on Kindergarten Oral and Written Language: A Large-Scale Randomized Controlled Trial

Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools ◽

10.1044/2021_lshss-20-00162 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-25

Author(s):

Douglas B. Petersen ◽

Maureen Staskowski ◽

Trina D. Spencer ◽

Matthew E. Foster ◽

Mollie Paige Brough

Keyword(s):

Randomized Controlled Trial ◽

Treatment Group ◽

Controlled Trial ◽

Written Language ◽

Tier 2 ◽

Language Support ◽

Randomized Controlled ◽

Personal Stories ◽

Tier 1 ◽

Tier 2 Intervention

Purpose: The purpose of this randomized controlled trial was to examine the effects of a multitiered system of language support (MTSLS) on kindergarteners' narrative retelling, personal stories, writing, and expository language. Method: Participants were 686 kindergarten students from four school districts in the United States. Twenty-eight classrooms were randomly assigned to treatment ( n = 337 students) or control ( n = 349 students) conditions. The treatment group received 14 weeks of oral narrative language instruction using Story Champs, a multitiered language program. Classroom teachers delivered large group (Tier 1) instruction for 15–20 min a day for 4 weeks. After this short-duration whole-class instruction, speech-language pathologists began small group Story Champs (Tier 2) intervention with a random sample of students who did not make adequate progress from the large group instruction ( n = 49). These students received Tier 2 intervention for 20 min twice a week in addition to continued Tier 1 instruction. Results: Results indicated that the students in the treatment group had significantly higher scores on all outcome measures compared to the students in the control group. Analyses of outcomes from the 49 students who received Tier 2 intervention compared to a matching sample of at-risk control students revealed that the treatment group had significantly higher scores on narrative retells, personal stories, and expository retells. When compared to matched average-performing and advanced-performing control peers, the students who received Tier 2 intervention had significantly higher narrative retell scores and no longer had significantly lower personal story, expository, or writing scores. Conclusion: This effectiveness study demonstrated that MTSLS can lead to meaningful improvements in kindergarteners' oral and written language skills, even helping at-risk students catch up to high-achieving peers.

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Examining the Effects of a Tier 2 Reading Comprehension Intervention Aligned to Tier 1 Instruction for Fourth-Grade Struggling Readers

Council review ◽

10.1177/0014402919893710 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 86 (4) ◽

pp. 430-448

Author(s):

Elizabeth A. Stevens ◽

Sharon Vaughn ◽

Elizabeth Swanson ◽

Nancy Scammacca

Keyword(s):

Reading Comprehension ◽

Social Studies ◽

Small Group ◽

Content Knowledge ◽

Struggling Readers ◽

Group Intervention ◽

Tier 2 ◽

Tier 1 ◽

Tier 2 Intervention ◽

Social Studies Instruction

This article presents findings from a quasiexperimental study examining the effects of a Tier 2 intervention aligned to Tier 1 instruction, a nonaligned Tier 2 intervention, and a business-as-usual (BAU) comparison on the content knowledge, vocabulary, and reading outcomes of fourth-grade struggling readers. In the aligned condition, teachers were trained to provide content-area reading practices during social studies, and struggling readers from these classes received small-group intervention aligned to those practices, allowing for additional practice opportunities with feedback. Struggling readers in the nonaligned condition received the same small-group intervention, though they were not provided the comprehension practices during their Tier 1 social studies instruction. Students in the BAU received typical social studies instruction and typical intervention. Results yielded statistically significant, positive effects in favor of the aligned condition on proximal measures of content knowledge and vocabulary but no significant differences on standardized measures of reading comprehension and vocabulary.

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