Coaching to Support Gifted and Talented Efforts

Prior to serving in the role as a building literacy coach, I taught for seven years as a special education teacher of students with learning disabilities at the middle school level. During these years, I worked with seventh and eighth grade students with learning disabilities, as well as with students who were deemed at-risk and demonstrated difficulty with reading. I became pretty comfortable with supporting this population of students and working to differentiate instruction to meet the needs of struggling learners. After I transitioned into my new role as literacy coach, it was apparent to me that I was best able to support teachers in their instruction with strategies to support struggling learners in their classrooms. Due to my desire to support all student learning in the building, as well to become a stronger and knowledgeable resource for the teachers in the middle school, I decided to pursue my gifted and talented add-on licensure certification. I’ve now completed the first three required courses for this certification and have only my practicum remaining which will be completed this coming fall.

The courses for this certification included learning the background and foundations of gifted and talented education, the psychological issues and needs typically associated with gifted and talented students, and methods and curriculum to support gifted and talented learners in education. I found it helpful to study the psychological issues of gifted/talented students; this helped me to better understand what teachers may encounter when teaching this population of students, and provided ways to support the students, teachers, and parents. My favorite of the three classes, however, was the curriculum and methods course. I found this class to be the most useful in my role as a literacy coach, as we read about strategies and created lessons that were differentiated to meet the needs of advanced learners.

It is essential that all students receive instruction that meets their needs each and every school day. This task can seem overwhelming when you consider the diverse needs our students have. For each learner, it is important that instruction be individualized. Ultimately, the end goal for all students should be the same, but the pace and the level of repetition can be adjusted for students depending on their need. Just as we should not ask struggling learners to move onto new topics until they are ready, we should not ask gifted learners to sit through the same lesson multiple times if they are able to master it the first time through. This is where the power of pre-assessment becomes essential. If we as literacy coaches can help assist teachers to create and administer appropriate pre-assessments, we can help them determine what their students need and how to plan and scaffold instruction.

Maggie Schumacher contributed this post. Click here to read more of Maggie's thinking.

Another way coaches can support teachers is to support efforts involving differentiation.

This is a hot topic that all teachers know about, but it involves a lot of work and experience to do well. Differentiation is not something that we should be asking of brand new teachers until classroom management is in place. Students are coming into each classroom with a wide range of ability levels and learning styles. Ultimately, teachers need to ask students to meet the same standards, but the content, process, and product of how this is met can be adjusted to meet the individual student needs. While we may ask some students to read and analyze the theme of a novel, we could offer a simpler text to a struggling reader and a challenge text to an advanced reader. These students are completing the same task, but at a level that is appropriate for them. In addition, differentiated assignments such as a R.A.F.T. (Role, Audience, Format, Topic) or BINGO, or units using a Parallel Curriculum format could be offered to students. If planned strategically, each of these options allows for student choice and interests to be met within a way that allows for challenge and still meets the standards being addressed.

When it becomes obvious that a gifted student is ready for much more challenge than the regular content allows, enrichment and acceleration options should be considered. Enrichment opportunities remove students from the basic assignment and allow students to complete a task that is related but much more complex. If a student has proven on a pre-assessment that they already have mastered the content being explored, they should not be asked to complete the basic assignment and then a more complex assignment. When this happens in a classroom, students may begin to mask their abilities or talents to avoid the punishment of extra work. Acceleration is an option that should be considered for truly gifted students. This is considered to be the most effective curriculum intervention for gifted students. Gifted students may be accelerated for a single subject or for an entire grade. These decisions involve support by multiple data points and should include a team of voices, including the literacy coach, to determine the course of action to best meet the needs of the student.

Ultimately, as literacy coaches, we must provide feedback and guidance to support literacy instruction for all. If we want to help all students to be successful, we need to support teachers to provide these best practices for students each and every day. The more we can develop our own knowledge of how to support all learners, the more we will have to share with others.

RTI at the Secondary Level - Whatcha doin’ about it?

Andrea Reichenberger contributed today's thinking.

The question I hear the most often in regards to what is happening at the high school level is “What are you doing about RtI?”  For those of you who may have been living under a rock or are new to the planet, RTI stands for Response to Intervention.  RtI is an organizational framework for achieving higher level of academic and behavioral success for all students. Using an RtI framework allows us to build a school system that meets the needs of all students (and allows us to meet the requirements of the SLD eligibility rule).

RtI and I have a love-hate relationship. I love it because it embraces the mindset that all students can learn and forces us to evaluate our instructional practices in order to ensure learning for everyone.  I hate that it has forced a push toward so much data---and I love data, but feel that in some cases our students are being over tested.  Also, with RtI and the SLD rule, we have to assess students in specific areas of reading and math.  If a student gets to the high school level and we realize that there is a deficit in one of these areas, there is a system of interventions that needs to be implemented and much data to be collected before the special education referral process can begin. High school teachers aren't prepared for this and neither are coaches.  The role of interventionist often falls to the coaches if there aren't any designated interventionists in a school or district.

Unfortunately, most high schools aren't designed to handle this process of intervention as the interventions themselves, for the most part, are very elementary focused.  This also means that there are very few progress monitoring tools and probes available at the high school level that won’t make students feel like they are in a remedial class.  We have to get creative. The good news is that schools leaders in our area have been reaching out to each other and sharing ideas.   In fact, one area coach, who is also a dear friend, recently sent me these links that I think others at the secondary level will find useful.

http://www.centeroninstruction.org/files/Practice%20Brief-Struggling%20Readers1.pdf

http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/PracticeGuide.aspx?sid=8

http://www.centeroninstruction.org/files/Secondary_Literacy_Instruction_Intervention_Guide.pdf

Our CESA (CESA 6) has also purchased school licenses for programs such as AIMS Web and Achieve 3000 so schools in the area can purchase a smaller number of licenses for Tier 3 interventions. This will be helpful as we continue to evaluate resources and try to be more cost conscious.

Please feel free to share your thoughts, ideas, and resources you have found helpful in the comments section.  We look forward to hearing about your struggles and successes!

Creating a Systematic Approach for Secondary Interventions

Today's post is brought to you by Carrie.

Part of my role as a district Literacy Specialist includes working as an interventionist at the high school level. Through being a part of the RtI (Response to Intervention) teams at the elementary, middle school, and high school levels, I've come to recognize the ways that the process can change based on the needs and ages of the group of students. Unfortunately, RtI seems to come last and least frequently to students the older they get, mostly because of the lack of resources and materials available for these needy students. For this reason, I find myself working even more diligently to create a systematic intervention system specifically designed to meet the needs of high school learners. Over the past two years, I've found the most unique challenges to secondary interventions include: overcoming the “it’s too late” mindset, finding a system to use as an intervention, and determining what constitutes as success.

First and foremost in secondary intervention is defeating the attitude that has been a part of these students’ identities for many years. The students, parents, and even some teachers find themselves thinking that maybe this student will never be a successful reader. This stereotype is frustrating and counter-productive. Within the intervention system, I work to find a way to begin to change this identity. One of the largest factors of this mindshift has included a pre-teach of classroom standards. Weekly, I sit down with the classroom teachers to discuss the upcoming “power” standard for the week. We determine what will be the most important skill we want our students to know and be able to do proficiently be the end of our instruction. Using a pre-assessment, I then measure where my students are on that specific standard and work, using the data, to fill in gaps of learning for that standard. The pre-teach method gives students some confidence in the classroom by providing early exposure to language, skills, and strategies. In this way, intervention students become productive group members and active learners in the classroom. This strategy works to dispel the stereotype or label many of these students have carried for numerous years, and leads to more confidence and increased success in the classroom.

Second, I work to be sure that the high school intervention approach is systematic. Often, students in the secondary level find themselves exposed to “random acts of intervention” due to scheduling issues, lack of appropriate data, or lack of an intervention system. As mentioned above, I use a pre-assessment/pre-teaching method. This works because it also allows for a true “double-dose” of instruction. If a student does not demonstrate mastery of a standard throughout the intervention time, a teacher is able to use that standard for additional guided instruction during the classroom setting as well. A post-assessment of the standard indicates to the interventionist and the teacher if the student is able to apply the skill independently and ready to move on to a new standard. Using a standards-based intervention approach has also provided a framework for interventions because it is the language, skills, and strategies that are applicable to the material being taught in the classroom. It is not an additional book, different vocabulary term, or new strategy; instead, the intervention is focused around the objectives and the “I Can” statements of the standard.

Finally, the third obstacle in secondary interventions is the determination of what constitutes success. In high school, there are many definitions of the word “success.” For example, it may mean passing an English class to earn the credit in order to graduate; it can mean refining reading and writing skills to earn a proficient score in the Reading or English sections of the ACT or Accuplacer test; or, it can mean gaining reading and writing skills to allow for successful employment or post-secondary schooling. Unlike the elementary or even middle school, there is no magic level or lexile to determine if a student has now become an “on-grade level” reader. For this reason, I challenge high school RtI teams to have frank discussions about the purpose of their interventions, and then tailor instruction to meet the needs of those students who qualify for that purpose. If the intervention is preparing students for a class or test, then the intervention should include direct instruction to allow students to be successful at those things. If the purpose is for students to be able to be employable, then the intervention approach should look differently. Either way a high school RtI team needs to be sure to identify the purpose of the intervention and then create a class roster of students most needing that specific intervention. A melting pot of needy “skill” students and unmotivated “will” students sets the intervention, teacher, and students up for failure.

When working with high school intervention students, I become extremely passionate about how to best fit the needs of these learners. Keeping in mind that these students will be the students who will shortly be out in the “real world,” I maintain the perspective of giving the students the skills and strategies they most need to truly be successful.