Just ASK's

Ten Intervention Tips to Help Students Respond

by Bruce Oliver
Introduction: The RtI statements below are designed to provide insights for
educators to consider. As you read through the tips, consider which of the
following statements best captures where you are with each: I'm Already There,
I'm Working on This, or That's Something I Haven't Thought About Or Tried.

Recapture the Inspiration

Think about the earliest days of your teaching career; it may have been twenty
years ago, last year, or just last week. If you are like many teachers, you
approached your chosen profession with energy, enthusiasm, and a firm belief
that you would reach each and every one of your students; that you would not let
any obstacle get in the way of your or their success; and that you would never lose
your belief in the capacity of all students to learn. Perhaps, reality set in and your
optimistic viewpoint began to wane. Over time, the rigor and reality of what it
means to teach children settled in. As a result, some of us forget our initial
passion. If you see yourself in the above description, take some time to recall
those early days and remember what it felt like to come to work every day with
excitement and dedication to students and their learning.

Remember the Individual

When you plan lessons and units, you often think about teaching a concept or
presenting content to the entire class. We all know that students do not learn
uniformly or at the same rate. Experience also teaches us that when students are
given a task to complete, not all students possess the necessary skills or
prerequisite knowledge to complete the required work. By using your knowledge
of the standards, the assessments, and the individual learners, you can complete
a task analysis prior to giving the students an assignment. By analyzing the task,
you can work with individuals or small groups to fill in learning gaps, or give the
students a comparable task to match their readiness level.

Remove the Impediments

Whenever students show signs of lagging behind in their learning, it is important
to take proactive steps to determine the reason for the learning difficulty. A timely
examination on our part may provide solutions to deterrents which may be
keeping the students from making progress. Solutions may range from providing
a range of resources to discussing possible outside of school issues with a school
counselor to allowing the student to pair up with a peer to one-on-one private
conferences with the student. What is most important is that we take action
before the struggles become deeper and more difficult to diagnose.

Just ASK Publications & Professional Development. Reprinted from Just for the ASKing! August 2010. All rights reserved.

www.justaskpublications.com | Phone: 800-940-5434 | Fax: 703-535-8502

Revisit the Indicators

An increasing number of today's educators are gathering and analyzing student
achievement data on a more frequent basis in order to determine if students are
mastering the content being taught. Many of the assessments that teachers use
may be short answer or multiple choice instruments. Some students do not do
well on these types of assessments. Before jumping to the conclusion that a
student is not learning, we should expand our repertoires of indicators that
demonstrate if and how students are moving toward mastery. Alternative or nontraditional indicators may include one-on-one conversations with students
(including teacher feedback) and allowing the student to correct errors and
resubmit the assignment, or allowing the students to complete an outline or
graphic organizer to demonstrate their knowledge of a concept. In the real world,
we show what we know or have learned in multiple formats. Limiting how
students can show what they have learned may lead to misjudgments or even a
misdiagnosis of a student's learning problem. Yes, we do have to eventually help
students develop test-taking skills, but the fact that standardized tests are most
often multiple choice does not mean that we need to use that format exclusively
in the classroom.

Recognize the Investment

Imagine what it must be like for students to put forth considerable effort to show
what they have learned only to have the assessment returned with a disappointing
single letter grade at the top. With substantial workloads, we may provide limited
or no feedback at all on the quality or extent of a student's learning. Many
assessments are returned incorrect items marked in red, a grade, and no growthproducing feedback. When students receive multiple or continuous work
products of this nature, they may become discouraged and start to wonder,
What's the use? When students view themselves as incompetent or even unable
to learn, they may begin to give up altogether. Yet when we focus on what students
have done right, and provide on-going encouragement, the clear message
conveyed is that the students' efforts are valued, they're making progress, and
their investment in their learning will pay off in the long run.

Resist the Inclinationto rush to judgment

At the first signs of a student's struggle, some educators begin thinking about the
possible supports or services the student might access beyond the current
classroom setting. Reading specialist and author Richard Allington suggests that
the first step in our thinking should be to ask ourselves what we are doing or not
doing instead of trying to determine what is wrong with the child. As Allington
wrote, Teachers instruct in ways they deem appropriate. If a student struggles
and falls behind, especially in reading, the conclusion may be that the child has a
neurological problem and this may require special services. A wise teacher
explores alternative methods to isolate the learning problem and then continues
to seek the approach to learning that will work with that individual student.
Just ASK Publications & Professional Development. Reprinted from Just for the ASKing! August 2010. All rights reserved.

www.justaskpublications.com | Phone: 800-940-5434 | Fax: 703-535-8502

Revise the Instruction

In order to help struggling learners be more successful, we may need to take a
look at how we are teaching and perhaps add some new ways of thinking to our
practice. New teaching approaches may include the following revisions:
' Present information concretely as opposed to abstractly and relate the content
to real-world experiences
' Break lessons and tasks into smaller, meaningful chunks
' Connect new learning to content which has already been taught
' Pair students with peers who can assist them in meeting learning goals
' Allow students to demonstrate competence in a variety of ways
' Include repetition and frequent practice of discrete skills
' Use computer-assisted instruction to reinforce basic skills
' Have students set short-term goals in writing and review the goals periodically
to assess progress toward their achievement
' Give students who work slowly extra time to complete their tasks
' Make sure that learners have close and trusting relationships with several
adults on the staff
' Communicate a you can do it attitude to students and reward their effort
and progress

Refute Their Indifference

Teachers often pose the question, What do you do when students won't do
anything? I believe in my heart that students do not enter school with a defeatist
attitude. Things happen along the way that cause them to become mired in failure
and soon they see no point in even trying. But I hear stories of success in which
teachers have turned students on to new learning. What are some specific things
we can do to address the apathetic attitude of certain students?
' Model enthusiasm; despite the passivity that students might exhibit, it should
not stop the teacher from getting excited about the new learning that will take
place
' Make students feel important; pay close attention to what they think and how
they act to look for clues, and if that does not work, be forthright and ask
them what's important in their lives
' Give students choices; often students will stop trying because they are asked
to repeat the same difficult tasks over and over; they might feel empowered
when they have some say in how they will show what they have learned
' Share laughter and make it okay to show joy (and maybe even act silly) in the
classroom
' Look for and acknowledge small victories; some students have been down for
a long time and it may take time to build them back up

Just ASK Publications & Professional Development. Reprinted from Just for the ASKing! August 2010. All rights reserved.

www.justaskpublications.com | Phone: 800-940-5434 | Fax: 703-535-8502

Re-inspire Their Imaginations

Some of the most successful teachers are those who catch their students off
guard by behaving in an unorthodox manner as they deliver instruction or
challenge students to problem solve by thinking creatively and using their
imaginations. When students are given the opportunity to work with peers to
apply or transfer prior learning in interesting ways, the conversations among
small groups are often animated, inspired, and even dynamic. Moreover, when we
devise intriguing questions to pique students' curiosity as they plan lessons, we
often discover that there is a great deal more going on inside students' heads than
what is conveyed in a pencil and paper test.

Re-imagine the Ideal

A current TV advertisement shows a group of students participating in a spelling
bee. Well into the bee, after multiple rounds, the proctors appear to be worn out
because no student has yet to miss a word. Eventually the exhausted head
proctor declares everyone the winner. The tag line for the ad is Rethink
Possible. It caused me to wonder what it would be like if we all applied that kind
of thinking to our teaching and learning roles. It may seem idealistic or even a bit
unrealistic but a change in thinking may just be the spark that can ignite our
passion. It further brought to mind the essential question which guides all Just
ASK workshops:
What do schools and classrooms look like when they organize around a
commitment to the achievement of high standards by all students?
Reimagining what it would be like when students are successful, and following
through with great instruction can cause us to feel renewed, energized, and more
fulfilled. Isn't that why we got into this profession in the first place?

Just ASK Publications & Professional Development. Reprinted from Just for the ASKing! August 2010. All rights reserved.

www.justaskpublications.com | Phone: 800-940-5434 | Fax: 703-535-8502