INTERVENTION ISSUES

Introduction
Intervention can take many forms.  Differentiation within your own classroom can be considered a form of intervention.  Intervention can take the form of “push-in”, where students receive intervention services within the classroom from a person other than the classroom teacher.  More traditionally, someone other than the classroom teacher can provide “pull-out” intervention services for the students.  Intervention can be provided outside of the school day, either before or after school.
No matter which way you or your school decides to provide intervention, it is not an easy task to undertake.  There are many variables involved that need to be considered.  There are many questions that will have to be answered.
Personnel Questions
How many people will be available to provide intervention?  Does your school have interventionists?  Will the classroom teachers be the only people available?
Scheduling Questions
Is your current schedule conducive to providing intervention in the way you have chosen?  How much time is available for intervention?  How many times per week will intervention be provided?  How long will an intervention period be?  How does all this fit into your school’s current Student Improvement Team?
Intervention Evaluation
How will the overall intervention system in your school be evaluated?  How will you know if your intervention has been successful?  Will you progress monitor?  What assessment(s) will you use?  How will decisions regarding students be made?
Getting it off the ground
Is there funding available for resources or programs?  For what subjects will you provide intervention?  Reading?  Math?  Will the intervention, if it is a separate class, be graded?  How will you determine who is eligible for intervention?  How many students will there be in intervention?  How will all this look considering the new Common Core State Standards are here?
Okay, I’ll stop now.  You get the point.  THERE IS A LOT TO CONSIDER WHEN IMPLEMENTING A SUCCESSFUL READING AND MATH INTERVENTION PROGRAM IN YOUR SCHOOL AND/OR DISTRICT.
Most teachers are familiar with the RTI process.  Here in Kansas we call it MTSS or Mult-Tier System of Supports.  Some people refer to the process as a “three-tiered” approach.  Regardless of what you call it, you will need to start somewhere to get the whole process going.
WHERE DO YOU START?
Where do you start?  I’m not sure if there is a right or wrong answer to this question.  I suppose it depends upon which process you decide to follow.  If you are “lucky” enough to be a school that is undergoing improvement efforts, you may be able to procure some professional help to get you going in the right direction.  In some cases the state has intervention specialists, school improvement specialists, RTI specialists, etc.
And don’t forget, there is a wealth of information available in the internet.  Do your homework and see what’s out there.  Chances are, there is a school very similar to yours that has undergone the same process.  It has been my experience that schools and teachers that have found something that works are very willing to share information.  It is also my opinion that if someone somewhere else has already figured out something that works, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel, so to speak.  Take what works and customize it to work in your situation.
YOUR CORE PROGRAMS OR CURRICULUM
You may not be able to do anything about it, at least at first, but you need to look at your core programs.  Why?  If your core is serving your students effectively, then you won’t have that many students in need of intervention.  Your RTI pyramid will look more like it is supposed to:  The bottom of the pyramid, the students effectively served by the core, should contain about 80% of the students (in reality your core should be serving 100% or your students.  I mean, all students get core instruction, right?  The next tier in the pyramid, the students effectively served by whatever intervention you are providing, should contain about 15% of the students.  The top of the pyramid, should be about 5% of your kids.  These kids will receive more intense intervention.
In the case of my school and district, our three-tier model didn’t really resemble a pyramid.  We have well more than 5% or our kids eligible for tier 3 intense interventions.  We also have more than 15% or our kids receiving tier 2 intervention services.  Essentially, we found out that our core is not effectively serving our students.
Dealing with an ineffective core is an entirely separate issue that will not be discussed any further here.
ASSESSMENT
One of the first things you will need to do is to figure out what is going on with your district’s assessment system.  Does it provide you with the information you need?  Are teachers actually using it?  Is the data being used to make decision appropriately?  Is it easy to administer?  Is it realiable and valid?
Basically, you need to have these types of assessments:
            Screening assessments to determine who is at-risk (administered three times per year)
            Progress monitoring assessments to see how kids are responding to intervention
            Diagnostic assessments to determine more specific areas of weakness
We decided as a district that we needed a comprehensive system of assessments.  Essentially, you need to use a universal screener to determine who is in need of reading or math support.  You can use some online screeners.  Some of the online universal screening assessments are free.  Most likely you will need to purchase an assessment system.  Many good systems have both a screener and progress monitor.  I don’t know of any commercially available assessment systems that have a screener, progress monitor and diagnostic assessment.  However, this is sure to change, eventually.
Some of the more widely known assessment systems are DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills), AIMSweb, MAP (Measures of Academic Progress), Key Math 3 and Renaissance’s STAR Reading, and STAR Math.
We have used DIBELS in the past.  You can download all of the testing materials you need for free (older versions only, but if you’re doing this on your own, it’s not a bad place to start).  It is a good, research-based program.  It will allow you to both screen and progress monitor your students in reading (and now) math.  Although it is not a diagnostic test, the data you get from DIBELS allows you to determine specific areas of need in reading and math.
AIMSweb works pretty much the same way.  There are a few differences, however.  AIMSweb goes from Kindergarten through eighth grade.  DIBELS stops at sixth grade.
Some of the diagnostic tests that you can use are fairly inexpensive.  I’m not aware of any for math that are fairly inexpensive.  The Quick Phonics Screener (QPS) is available for order online.  It quickly will tell you what areas of phonemic and phonological awareness as well as phonics, your students are weak in.
The Phonological Awareness Skills Test (PAST) is available in Yvette Zgonc’s book “Sounds in Action”.  This test will give you information about whether you students have weaknesses at the word level, syllable level or phoneme level.
TESTING
After you have chosen an assessment, you will need to set up a schedule of who, what, where and when to test.  You may want to have a testing team.  Or maybe your district will decide that each school will test their own kids.  Perhaps the classroom teachers will do the testing.  Maybe you will have an interventionist to do your testing.  Whatever you decide to use and whoever is giving the assessments, make sure they get the appropriate professional development they will need in order to assess effectively.
DATA
Next, you will need to decide what to do with all the data.  You might decide to just follow the guidelines in the assessment for determining who receives what services.  Maybe you will decide as a district to only provide intervention to the bottom 25% or bottom 10% of the students according to the screener.  No matter what decision is made about the criteria for eligibility in an intervention program, make sure you are using the data.  ALL DECISIONS ABOUT KIDS IN READING AND MATH INTERVENTION ARE MADE BASED UPON DATA.  Teachers may not be used to this.  They may not have had access to norm-referenced data from a standardized test before.  Be ready to bring the teachers on board and make sure they get the necessary professional development they will need.
KIDS
After you decide what will determine who receives services, you will need to figure out how many kids that is.  Who will teach them?  Interventionists?  Classroom teachers?  A combination of the two?  How will they be grouped?  How big are the groups going to be?
MATERIALS/RESOURCES/PROGRAMS
Another consideration is what materials will be used to teach tier 2 and tier 3 kids.  Will you have commercially available programs that are specifically targeted to tier 2 and/or tier 3 kids?  Will your teacher or interventionist have to just come up with their own stuff?  Materials are not the most important thing in the world.  I absolutely love some specific programs, but you may not be able to afford them.  Some people do just as well coming up with their own lesson plans.
LOGISTICS
Somewhere along the line you will need to schedule time for intervention.  Will this schedule be dictated by the building’s overall schedule?  Will it depend upon how many kids there are?  You will have to figure out how many teachers are available.  What time of day will it be?  Can kids be pulled out for intervention?  Will it be a push-in system?  How often will intervention be provided?  Every day?  Twice a week?  Three times a week?
CONCLUSION
As you can see, there are a lot of decisions to be made.  There are a lot of things to be considered.  There is a lot of work to be done.  Whatever you decide to do, you just have to get started and keep in mind that it’s all about the kids.  You are doing this for the kids.  You are making decisions based on what’s best for kids.  Remember that with every decision you will have to make and the rest will eventually fall into place.