According to a recent report released by NWEA, today’s students would need an average of 4.1 additional months of reading instruction and 4.6 additional months of math instruction to return them to the proficiency levels of their pre-COVID grade level counterparts. The more unsettling truth is that a high percentage of our pre-COVID student population was already falling short of grade level proficiency. The urgency to respond with high-quality academic intervention in schools is felt keenly, but as urgent as it may seem, we must take a step back before moving forward. Not all academic interventions are created equally, and the burden falls on teachers and administrators to identify the best match for students.
What Is Academic Intervention?
The goal of academic intervention is instruction that supplements our general educational curriculum and is used to close gaps and improve student academic achievement, most typically in the areas of reading/language arts and math.
Academic intervention can take many forms. It can be as simple as supplemental differentiated instruction that is delivered during small-group instruction in the general classroom. It can have adaptive technology components that students can access for additional instruction and practice. It can be a program, like Read 180, that is facilitated by a teacher who brings intensive intervention into the core classroom to service targeted students, or it could be a dedicated intensive intervention classroom designed to accelerate students to grade-level proficiency. There are frameworks that exist, including response to intervention (RTI), that can help to guide educators.
Components of Effective Interventions
As an educator with years of experience and as an interventionist in the classroom, I can tell you it’s important to know what it is we want to target and whom we want to serve with the intervention. If we are working with a specific school population, e.g., primary grades or students with special needs or who are multilingual learners, look for interventions like English 3D with a known track record of success with these subgroups. Explore interventions that provide researched-based instructional materials and academic intervention strategies. We need to be working on the cutting edge of educational efficacy with high-quality instruction. The authors and advisors for the curricular materials being used should be individuals who are highly regarded and well recognized in their field. Recognize that not all students will require the same level of intervention; therefore, you may want to consider a program that provides support at all tiers in order to impact a broader population.
For instructional interventions to be effective, accurate identification and placement of students is essential. The most effective method to accomplish this is to utilize universal screening such as NWEA® MAP® Growth™. Universal screeners, like MAP Growth, provide teachers with accurate, actionable evidence to help inform instructional strategies regardless of how far students are above or below grade level. They also connect to the largest set of instructional content providers, giving educators flexibility in curriculum choices. Universal screening allows us to assess large numbers of students and identify those most in need of educational intervention.
For reading, a screener may evaluate fluency, comprehension, and/or foundational literacy skills, and for math, it may assess a student’s fluency with computation and their ability to apply skills to solve a problem. Look for a screener that will assess what you are targeting, is easily deployed, and has been shown to be both reliable and valid. Does it provide data and reports that are easy to understand and use? Does the universal screener have an automatic placement capability to ensure that the student is placed appropriately within the scope and sequence of the intervention?
Questions to Ask When Implementing Academic Intervention Programs
What does implementation with fidelity look like with this program?
There are a lot of components to program implementation, such as frequency of instruction, group size, time parameters, technology needs, materials, and space required. Some programs recognize that one size does not fit all and will provide implementation variations. If possible, try to visit a school where the program is in place and see the program firsthand. When we determine what implementation with fidelity looks like for the maximum benefit of our students, we must be willing to commit the time, talent, and resources to implement it in this fashion.
What type of professional development is provided with this academic intervention?
Very few of us who jumped into a car for the first time were able to execute flawless parallel parking technique (not even after watching a video tutorial). Even more so, teaching an academic intervention program requires an investment of ongoing learning, practice, reflection, and fine-tuning. Find an intervention that will support all phases of this cycle for teachers.
Is there a progress monitoring capability that can be used to track student performance at regular intervals once students have started the intervention?
The universal screener may place students, but we need to mark progress on a regular basis. In some interventions, there are benchmarking assessments that do this. Interventions with a technology component may provide ongoing reports on student performance and proficiency, which allows instructors to utilize data-based decision making about what to teach. In some cases, the intervention not only provides the data, but supplies resources for differentiated instruction to respond to the data.
The Heart of Intervention Success: Teachers
When we find an intervention that meets all the criteria for which we are looking and we secure the funding to support that implementation with fidelity, there is one more consideration that must be made for true success. We need to identify the right educator(s) to facilitate the intervention. When working with students who need more support, we need instructors who connect in genuine ways with their students, believe their students can accomplish the goals set for them, and embrace the cycle of professional development to deliver the program with fidelity. Students will not form a lasting relationship with the intervention; instead, it is the connection they forge with their teacher that brings the intervention to life. We need to seek out these extraordinary educators with the heart to make a difference and give them the ability to do what they do best: change the lives of their students!
***
Unlock whole-brain reading through Read 180, the leading reading intervention program for Grades 3–12.
Explore Math 180, our revolutionary approach to math intervention for students in Grades 5–12.
Get our free Reading Intervention eBook today.
