A Practical Guide to Planning Interventions and Monitoring Progress

Planning Interventions

&

MONITORING

PROGRESS

INTERVENTIONS AND MONITORING PROGRESS

• Learn a process to plan practical, meaningful interventions and measure student progress • Access a downloadable intervention plan and progress record • Identify the critical skills students need to develop, and design interventions and individualized education programs around those skills • Design long-term goals and short-term benchmarks that track educator and student efforts to address students’ intervention needs • Learn to translate intervention and progress findings into usable data to share with students, families, and other stakeholders

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J U N G

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MONIT OR IN G PROG RES S

K–12 educators will:

A Practical Guide to

Planning Interventions

&

&

targets innovative strategies to design and measure effective classroom interventions. Author Lee Ann Jung offers K–12 teachers, individualized education program (IEP) coordinators, and administrators research-based strategies that build on current planning, organizing, documenting, and communicating practices and support response to intervention efforts.

A Practical Guide to Planning Interventions and Monitoring Progress features case studies of students with varying challenges and presents strategies for developing and implementing intervention plans for students with special needs and gifted learners.

PL ANNING INT ERV ENT IONS

A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO PLANNING

— Thomas R. Guskey, Professor, University of Kentucky

A P R AC T I C A L G U I D E TO

A Practical Guide to

“All teachers struggle with how best to plan interventions and measure the progress of the struggling learners in their classes. This book offers the practical, research-based guidance they want and so desperately need. Every teacher who reads this book will come away saying, ‘I can do this for my students. I can make a difference in their lives!’ And they will.”

MONITORING

PROGRESS

LEE ANN JUNG

Copyright © 2015 by Solution Tree Press Materials appearing here are copyrighted. With one exception, all rights are reserved. Readers may reproduce only those pages marked “Reproducible.” Otherwise, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission of the publisher.

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1 2 3 4 5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jung, Lee Ann. A practical guide to planning interventions and monitoring progress / by Lee Ann Jung. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-935249-50-4 (perfect bound) 1. Individualized education programs. 2. Teacher participation in educational counseling. 3. Effective teaching. 4. Academic achievement. 5.

Children with disabilities--Education. 6. Gifted children--Education. I. Title.

LC4031.J86 2015 371.4’046--dc23 2014037802

Solution Tree Jeffrey C. Jones, CEO Edmund M. Ackerman, President Solution Tree Press President: Douglas M. Rife Associate Acquisitions Editor: Kari Gillesse Editorial Director: Lesley Bolton Managing Production Editor: Caroline Weiss Production Editor: Tara Perkins Copy Editor: Rachel Rosolina Proofreader: Elisabeth Abrams Text and Cover Designer: Rian Anderson

TA BL E OF CON T E N T S

About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 The Intervention Plan and Progress Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Common Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 IEP With an Intervention Plan and Progress Record . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Students Without Disabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Other Intervention Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Snapshots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Meet the Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Part I: The Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Chapter One Selecting Meaningful Priorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 The Importance of Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 The Role of Traditional Assessment Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 The Role of General Educators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 The Role of Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 The Role of Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Guiding Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Standards to Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Other Critical Skills Needed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 vii

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Katie’s Journey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Learning Disability Defined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Katie’s Interventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Chapter Two Writing Measurable Goals and Benchmarks . . . 25 Specifying the Critical Skill or Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Deciding When the Skill Should Be Measured . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Determining the Method of Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Duration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Frequency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Latency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Level of Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Percent Correct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Proportion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Task Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Choosing Criteria for Goals and Benchmarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Choose Practical Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Aim High With Long-Term Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Support With Short-Term Benchmarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Determine the Scale for Each Benchmark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Putting It Together to Write Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Katie’s Journey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Chapter Three Selecting and Individualizing Intervention Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Selecting an Intervention Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Ta b le of Co n ten ts

Behavioral Supports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Common Intervention Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Individualizing the Intervention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Katie’s Journey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Chapter Four Collecting Data to Inform Instruction . . . . . . . . . . 57 Collecting Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Representing the Data Visually . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Using the Intervention Plan and Progress Record to Inform . . . . . . . 60 Analyzing the Data to Inform Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Using the Intervention Plan and Progress Record to Inform Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Using the Intervention Plan to Inform Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Katie’s Journey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Part II: Success Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Chapter Five Intervention Planning and Progress Monitoring for a Student With Down Syndrome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 The Team Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Interests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Math . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Priorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 A Closer Look: Bradley’s Mathematics Goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

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Chapter Six Intervention Planning and Progress Monitoring for a Student With Autism . . . . . . . 79 The Team Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Adapting to Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Communicating and Interacting Socially . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Priorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 A Closer Look: Elise’s Transition Goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Chapter Seven Intervention Planning and Progress Monitoring for a Student With Developmental Delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 The Team Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Priorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 A Closer Look: Maddie’s Reading Pace Goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Chapter Eight Intervention Planning and Progress Monitoring for an English Learner . . . . . . . . . . . 99 The Team Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Priorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 A Closer Look: Mario’s Sentence-Structure Goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

References and Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

A BOU T T H E AU T HOR

Lee Ann Jung, PhD, is an associate professor and the director of international school partnerships in the College of Education at the University of Kentucky, where she joined the faculty in 2002. Her research and university courses focus on intervention planning, progress monitoring, and working with families.

Lee Ann has worked in the field of education since 1994 as a special educator, administrator, consultant, and researcher.

Her research is informed by and grounded in her own work with families of children with disabilities. Her methods respond to schools’ urgent need for solid, evidence-based intervention planning and progress monitoring, and they are also responsive to teachers’ need for practicality and efficiency.

Lee Ann has served as associate editor of Young Exceptional Children and guest editor of Topics in Early Childhood Special Education. She is an editorial board member for these journals as well as Journal of Early Intervention and has authored more than thirty journal articles, books, and book chapters. Lee Ann has received in excess of $3 million in funding to support personnel preparation and research and was named Outstanding Junior Faculty Researcher at the University of Kentucky in 2002.

Lee Ann is a graduate of Auburn University, with degrees in special education (PhD, 2001; EdM, 1997) and psychology (BA, 1994). To learn more about Lee Ann’s work, visit www.lajung.com and follow her on Twitter @leeannjung.

To book Lee Ann Jung for professional development, contact pd@solution-tree .com.

xi

I N T RODUC T ION

In the weeks before a school year begins, teachers around the world spend time physically and mentally preparing for their new classrooms of students. They lean on data from the year before to prepare the curriculum, tweak their lessons, and embed the newest standards. They prepare the physical learning space and carefully select materials and tools for learning. And most teachers probably anticipate meeting their group of learners for the first time, wondering: • Which students will be the curious ones?

• Which will be easy to engage and eager to learn?

• Which may need a confidence boost and experience with success to find a love for learning?

• Which are afraid of certain subjects and need new experiences and instruction to help them truly master the standards?

As teachers imagine this group of learners, other questions can trigger a sense of worry or concern.

• Which students will come to my class really struggling?

• Which will be far below grade level?

• Which will have challenging behaviors?

• What will I face with the students who have individualized education programs (IEPs) in my class?

• How will I bring the curriculum to the level of every student I teach?

In this book, you will examine a process for designing interventions and measuring progress that will help you navigate these questions and arrive at an individualized, meaningful, and practical plan for each student. The idea is to bring the best and most current research on planning intervention and measuring progress into the classroom— and to do so in a way that makes your job easier. This is not a new school initiative; rather, this is a way of planning, organizing, documenting, and communicating the 1

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strategies you already use. The process helps teachers use the data they have to make better decisions and improve the interventions they deliver to the students they serve.

The Intervention Plan and Progress Record The intervention plan and progress record is the central feature of this book and is designed for use by teams of educators, families, therapists, and specialists with any struggling or exceptional learner. Figure I.1 illustrates the type of record you will create to plan and monitor interventions. Earlier versions of this form have appeared in the journals Young Exceptional Children, TEACHING Exceptional Children, and Educational Leadership and in Grading Exceptional and Struggling Learners (Jung & Guskey, 2012). In this book, I have provided an updated version of the form. Chapters 1 through 4 will explore the components of the form in detail and will provide practical examples of how it can be used in real-life situations.

The intervention plan and progress record in this book includes three basic components: (1) goals and benchmarks, (2) the details of intervention, and (3) a progress record that includes a list of occasions and a scale. The process of using the intervention plan layers seamlessly over a school’s existing individualized education program (IEP) and response to intervention (RTI) structures. Conveniently, the same process and form can be used for every struggling learner, even those who do not qualify for special services; if a student is struggling to master a critical skill, teachers and interventionists provide support. That student’s label or diagnosis does not affect the process we use.

Author and presenter Kathie Snow calls disability labels “sociopolitical passports to services” (Snow, 2005). They are sometimes necessary to receive certain services, but when it comes to planning interventions and measuring progress, all students who are struggling—regardless of whether there is a disability—deserve to have evidence-based, systematic plans and a team that is highly engaged in what matters the most. This book is about planning sensible interventions that support all learners who need extra support; thus, several different students with a range of needs are profiled in the following chapters.

Most educators or schools choose to harness the power of technology with databases to develop and monitor intervention plans online. A study conducted in 2010 showed that the prompts embedded within a form can determine drastic differences in the quality of the plans educators develop (Jung, 2010). The web-based version (http://epln.org) of the intervention plan and progress record featured in this book is the outgrowth of that study and was designed with Gerry M. Swan (see Jung & Swan, 2011). Every single decision about the form—from where a box appears to how the graph is shaded and so forth—was a careful response to thoughtful feedback and

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Name:

ID Number: Long-Term Goal

Progress Record Date

A

B

Target date:

Benchmark o 1

o 2

o 3

o4

Target date:

Interventions

Occasions A B C D

Scale 4 3 2 1

Š 2014 Lee Ann Jung Figure I.1: Intervention plan and progress record.

Visit go.solution-tree.com/rti for a reproducible version of this form.

C

D

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suggestions provided by teachers over a period of more than five years. By moving to a web-based platform, schools have the option of embedding personalized prompts.

Educators can embed pop-up text or clickable videos that provide reminders or quick how-tos that respond to the most common questions or pitfalls in planning.

Regardless of the form, software, or database that schools use, the best practice process remains the same and follows these steps: 1. Select priorities.

2. Write measurable outcomes.

3. Determine interventions.

4. Collect data to inform instruction.

These four components fit together to form a framework that continually guides the intervention team. Figure I.2 illustrates this process. Although the specific form used may vary from school to school, having a form that prompts users on each of these intervention steps is important. Each chapter in part I will focus on a different aspect of this process and will show how elements of the planning form align to this framework.

Select priorities

Write measurable outcomes

Collect data to inform instruction

Determine interventions

Figure I.2: The process of planning intervention and measuring progress.

Common Questions Teachers who are learning to plan interventions with the intervention plan and progress record presented in this book ask some common questions. Most of these questions center on who needs an intervention plan and when he or she needs it. Let’s consider three of the most common questions in detail: 1. If a student has an IEP, do we need an intervention plan and progress record too?

I n trodu c tio n

2. Do students who don’t have disabilities ever need intervention and progress records?

3. We already use the intervention method at our school.

Is this a different intervention program?

IEP With an Intervention Plan and Progress Record One category of struggling learners includes students who have disabilities and qualify for special education services through the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA; 2004). Approximately 13 percent of students receive some form of special education services in the United States (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2013), and the amount of time students with disabilities spend in general education classes has increased dramatically since 2000 (Data Accountability Center, 2010), meaning nearly every general education classroom teacher will serve students with disabilities.

IDEIA requires that all students who qualify for special education services have an IEP. The IEP process is designed to document a student’s eligibility for services, describe the student’s annual goals, and list the special services needed to achieve those goals. But the IEP often does not include the details of day-to-day intervention and progress monitoring, and educators may not want IEPs to include such details.

The IEP is a formal, legal document that requires signatures from team members to make changes. Thus, teams need a more fluid document that allows them to try interventions, collect data, and make adjustments to the interventions based on the data.

The IEP and the intervention plan have complementary, but different, purposes.

IEPs provide a broad structure from which a detailed and practical intervention plan can be developed. Students who have IEPs should also have an intervention plan and progress record for each of the critical skills the team intends to target with intervention.

Students Without Disabilities For the purposes of this book, the words exceptional or struggling describe a much broader group than only those who have diagnosed disabilities. Certainly, students with disabilities benefit from intervention plans. But students who qualify for IEPs aren’t the only ones who have difficulty in the classroom and need systematic support and close monitoring. In fact, thinking about disability as something you either have or don’t have can be a bit misleading. Sure, students either qualify or don’t qualify for services, but think about performance within a typical classroom of students.

There is a lot of variation in what students in any classroom know and can do. There are students who are far advanced on a particular skill, while others are significantly

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behind. And there are students who are struggling to master skills—even though they do not qualify for special education services. Some may not quite meet the criteria to be eligible for special education, while others may temporarily lag behind their peers on a set of skills. Some may be English learners (ELs) who are struggling with lesson content because of difficulty with the language. Performance, then, is best thought of as a continuum rather than a dichotomy of “typical” or “atypical.”

These struggling learners all benefit from systematic intervention and careful monitoring. Thus, the intervention plan and progress record works for all students who are struggling, regardless of whether they qualify for any type of special services.

Other Intervention Methods The intervention planning process outlined in this book does not require the use of any specific intervention, curriculum, or program, nor does it exclude any particular intervention. Instead, the intervention plan and progress record is a framework used to organize and individualize interventions and quantify and communicate progress made as a result of those interventions. For students with disabilities, this process streamlines the planning and data collection that happen during and after the IEP meeting. For students who do not have disabilities, this process offers a more formalized approach to planning and evaluating interventions and is compatible with a wide variety of methods and curricula. For schools implementing an RTI approach to intervention and prevention of educational failure, this process streamlines all of the interventions, the many data sheets, and countless outcomes into a single process.

You are already using great strategies in your classroom with exceptional and struggling learners. A systematic approach, though, can bring new clarity to the outcomes you are achieving—and the ones with which you are having difficulty.

Snapshots To illustrate ways of using the intervention plan and progress record to support a wide variety of struggling and exceptional learners, I include snapshots of five students. These snapshots are based on the stories of real students and families and the challenges their IEP or intervention teams faced. Each student featured, representative of many students in the K–12 system, is significantly behind his or her peers on critical skills and is in need of specialized interventions. The purpose of including the snapshots is to illustrate each case all the way through the intervention planning and progress monitoring process in a systematic way—and to give context for each step.

These five snapshots include students with multiple disabilities and mild disabilities, English learners, and students receiving intervention in an RTI framework.

Figure I.3 provides a matrix of the scenarios covered.

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Katie

Bradley

Elise

Grade Level

Kindergarten Elementary School Middle School High School Autism

Category

Down Syndrome English Learner Learning Disability Developmental Delay Behavioral

Outcome Type

Math Reading Social Communication Writing

Support

Special Education RTI EL Services

Figure I.3: Matrix of intervention planning snapshots.

Maddie

Mario

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Meet the Students I’ll use the case of one student, Katie, throughout part I to illustrate the intervention planning and progress monitoring process. Each chapter in part II will then present one of the remaining four students—Bradley, Elise, Maddie, and Mario—as case studies. A few of their experiences are also provided in part I as additional examples to help the reader gain a deeper understanding of different components of the process, but the bulk of their interventions will be covered in part II. The students featured in part II each have one chapter dedicated to illustrating how their teams put together all of the pieces of the individualized intervention planning process for the student.

Katie

Katie is a ninth-grade student in an urban school district who qualifies for special education because of a specific learning disability—dyslexia. Because the most common category of disability is specific learning disability, Katie is featured as an exemplar throughout part I of this book.

Katie entered special education in fourth grade after her parents and teachers became concerned about slow progress in her reading fluency, comprehension, and writing skills. Although her reading pace is slower than her peers, intervention has significantly improved Katie’s reading comprehension—more than two years’ progress in one academic year. Her writing ability is currently at approximately a sixth-grade level. She is still working to improve her skills in conventions of writing.

Spelling, punctuation, and grammar are all difficult for her.

When given the opportunity to express her knowledge orally, Katie performs at or above her grade level in all subject areas. In fact, Katie qualifies for gifted education in the district as well. Katie struggles with the mechanics of writing as well as expressing her thoughts fully and clearly when writing. Katie receives intervention targeting her writing within the general education classroom as well as in a learning resources classroom for one hour each week.

Bradley

The plans for Bradley, an energetic sixth-grade student who qualifies for special education because of the diagnosis of Down syndrome, are covered in chapter 5 (page 69). He enjoys being with friends in his general education classes, his special education class, and his neighborhood. Bradley spends six hours each day in the general education classroom and one hour each day in a special education classroom (learning support). In addition to academic interventions, Bradley also receives occupational therapy and speech therapy to support his fine motor, oral motor, and speech

I n trodu c tio n

development. People who know Bradley well understand his speech, but others have difficulty understanding him. Bradley is learning to read and currently is able to read books at the third-grade level. He is developing the ability to write and can write his name correctly as well as other words spelled phonetically. Bradley’s skills in mathematics include the ability to sort, group, classify, and count. He understands the concept of adding and is able to add one-digit numbers with objects. Bradley enjoys reading and mathematics, but he does not enjoy writing. He has difficulty focusing and remaining engaged during most activities that require writing.

Elise

Chapter 6 (page 79) examines the plans for Elise, a kindergarten student who qualifies for special education services because of a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). When Elise was a toddler, her family noticed she was not using words like other children her age and interacted differently with them than other children.

Elise was diagnosed with ASD as a preschooler. She is able to use some words to communicate and is working to put words together in sentences. She also uses an iPad application to communicate with others. She learned to use the iPad communication application quickly and is now able to proficiently express her thoughts. Many of Elise’s peers have been in the same class with her for almost two years now and interact well with her as she uses her communication device. They are able to interpret many of her behaviors and respond to her well. Elise’s family and teachers would like to see her classmates include her in more activities in the classroom and on the playground. Elise has difficulty understanding when people use long sentences. In addition, if a change happens and she doesn’t understand what will happen next, she becomes agitated, often screaming.

Maddie

Plans for Maddie, a second-grade student experiencing difficulty in the area of reading fluency and decoding, are presented in chapter 7 (page 89). Despite her difficulty with fluency, her reading comprehension is excellent. Maddie’s school, using an RTI model, is offering her extra reading instruction. Maddie has been receiving small-group, direct instruction with other struggling readers for twenty minutes three times each week, and her reading specialist would like to add individual direct instruction for forty-five minutes twice each week. Her reading specialist is using a curriculum-based measure to track her progress weekly. Maddie’s reading level is about one grade level behind, and she is still considered at risk, but since beginning reading intervention, her skills have steadily improved.

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Mario

Chapter 8 (page 99) takes a look at the plans for Mario, a fourth-grade EL who moved to the United States from Central America five months ago. Because his family speaks very little English, he has few English models at home. Mario began the school year quiet and a bit reserved with his classmates. Recently, though, he has gained conversational English and has become friends with two boys in his class.

Mario’s skills in talking with his friends, however, far exceed his academic English skills. His English writing skills are beginning to show improvement, but he is not on grade level in any subject because of his challenges with English. His vocabulary is at approximately a second-grade level. Although he struggles with English, Mario is an eager and engaged learner. He tries his best to complete assignments, but he often appears frustrated or disappointed because of his struggle to understand the language.

Summary As you read the following chapters, it’s important to keep in mind a few key points about the process they outline and illustrate. The intervention plan and progress record presented in this book serves as a framework for creating and organizing individualized interventions. It is also a practical tool that can help teams quantify, identify, and communicate students’ progress. While the IEP and the intervention plan can be used to complement one another, they serve different purposes, as noted previously; the IEP is a legal document that dictates services while the intervention plan is a flexible form used to incrementally achieve very specific goals. All struggling learners, regardless of whether they qualify for any special services, benefit from systematic intervention and careful monitoring. Thus, the intervention plan and progress record in this book is designed to be used with all students who are struggling.

CH A PTER

In this chapter, you will learn how to select the most important priorities for intervention. The priorities a team selects to target form the compass that guides the Collect data Write entire intervention process. We can have to inform measurable instruction outcomes a mechanically perfect plan, complete with measurable goals, benchmarks, and Determine evidence-based strategies, but if we have not interventions built this plan around priorities that are relevant and the most critical for students, our interventions have little meaning. Thus, this chapter tackles the important first steps of the intervention planning process: understanding the importance of context and asking the correct guiding questions to select meaningful priorities. We will then look at Katie’s journey through these steps.

Select priorities

The Importance of Context During IEP meetings for students with disabilities, the specialists on the team have traditionally been the ones to select priorities that become IEP goals. These staff members are special education teachers, school psychologists, vision and hearing specialists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech and language pathologists, and so forth. In traditional identification of IEP priorities, each of the specialists providing a service to a student uses the results of a traditional, standardized assessment instrument (such as the Battelle Developmental Inventory™ or Wechsler Individual Achievement Test®) to write the IEP outcomes they feel are most important for that student. Many times, these specialists choose items from

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SELECTING MEANINGFUL PRIORITIES

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the test that the student was unable to perform to determine these outcomes. This process seems logical, doesn’t it? After all, each of these specialists is certainly the expert in his or her discipline and would be the best person to identify what the student needs to be able to do.

This is not to say that traditional assessments do not have an important purpose.

Such instruments serve the necessary function of helping us determine whether a student is eligible for services—they put a student’s developmental level in a place on a normal curve. They help us decide whether that student qualifies for services. And these instruments may even give us ideas of skill areas to investigate further. But, as Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) work suggests, that is where the utility of the items on diagnostic instruments ends. To construct a strong assessment, we must pay attention to traditional assessment results while also listening to general educators, families, and the students themselves.

The Role of Traditional Assessment Results The tasks on traditional assessments are selected because they are efficient, reliable measures of certain skills, not because the tasks are especially important. For example, using the Battelle Developmental Inventory (Newborg, 2005), young children are asked to stack nine one-inch cubes in a coffee mug. This block-stacking task can help us understand how developed several of the students’ skills are. We can observe, for example, performance in spatial matching, grasping, and mastery motivation.

While these are all important skills, the task of stacking nine cubes in a coffee mug is not. You can, in fact, live your entire life and never stack nine one-inch cubes in a coffee mug. Perhaps you have!

Even though traditional assessments provide a good measure of skill level, they rarely give us information on how a student’s skills look within the context of daily routines and activities—or how they should look within these contexts. The items from assessments designed for diagnostic or eligibility purposes should not be the

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But should student performance on individually administered, traditional developmental assessments define the skills we target? Urie Bronfenbrenner (1977) once said, “Much of contemporary developmental psychology is the science of the strange behavior of children in strange situations with strange adults for the briefest possible periods of time” (p. 513). And he was right! The problem with this approach of specialists using developmental instruments to select priorities is that it is decontextualized. That is, this way of determining priorities does not take into account the student’s general education classroom routines and activities or the student’s preferences, dislikes, or personality—essentially the pieces that are needed to truly individualize the individualized education program.

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main source of information used to determine goals for any struggling or exceptional learner. Instead, we need to select skills that have an immediate and far-reaching impact on a student’s ability to access the curriculum and succeed within the general education classroom—also known as critical skills.

The Role of General Educators

The federal government has an interest in much more than the physical presence of a general education teacher in educational planning for students with disabilities. The reason this requirement for IEP team membership exists is to ensure that students with disabilities have access to the general curriculum. General education teachers must have an active role in determining individualized goals, because they are the ones best suited to answer questions about the general curriculum. Although there is no federally required process as formal as the IEP for other struggling learners, the same principle applies: general education teachers must play a leading role in determining the critical skills we need to target with interventions.

General educators are also in the unique position of being with students during their everyday routines. These teachers can not only speak to the student’s skill level but can also provide detailed descriptions of the student’s skills in context. For example, the general education teachers for Katie (our snapshot student) may be able to generate a list of words that she commonly misspells across the curriculum so the team can then build a vocabulary list for her to master. In this way, the team is focusing not on a generic list of vocabulary words but instead on words uniquely connected to Katie.

The Role of Families IEP meetings also require the participation of parents, other family members, and whomever parents would like to involve. The purpose of the family members’ presence is not to ensure they know what the team has decided to do at school. Rather, the important piece is the team learning from families and their expertise with their child (Bailey, Raspa, & Fox, 2012). You may be an expert in science, or language arts, or even an expert in disabilities, but you will never be the expert regarding the

© 2015 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

The Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act (2004) requires that every IEP meeting include a general education teacher. Although schools meet this requirement by ensuring a general education teacher is in the room for each IEP meeting, many times this teacher is not invited to actively participate in selecting skills to target for the student. In fact, you probably know of more than a few teachers who have been pulled unexpectedly from the hallway into IEP meetings for students they didn’t know in order to meet this requirement.

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In order to include families of struggling students in the intervention planning and progress monitoring process, teams have to prepare them for their role and how it fits within the process. You would never want to attend a meeting in which you had a leading speaking role but had no idea what was expected of you. In intervention planning meetings, families are already on unfamiliar turf, surrounded by those they perceive are the experts. Do the families who never attend these meetings not care about their children? Or is it more likely that they are either intimidated by the process or feel they have nothing to contribute because the experts are all involved?

For most, it is probably the latter. Families need to hear from schools that they are important, valued, and seen as the experts on their children. We need their input, and it is our job to make sure they understand this vital role they play.

The Role of Students The educational team may decide that the student should participate in part of the meeting. In all likelihood, the eligibility sections and test scores have the least relevance to the student. But selecting priorities is the perfect place for students to share their thoughts. They have important insight for the educational teams working to plan their services and supports. Most students can articulate their preferences, what seems to work for them, what does not work for them, and what goals they would like to accomplish. We only have to ask them. And we need to genuinely listen to what they say with all of the attention and respect given to every member of the team. Katie, for example, may decide that, even though she qualifies for an assistive technology device to help her with spelling during writing assignments, she wants to use word processing technology and a print dictionary instead so that she gains the skills.

© 2015 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

student. The parents are the experts when it comes to their children. As such, families have much to contribute to the development of their children’s plans (Bailey et al., 2012). The I in IEP stands for individualized, and the best way to ensure that the IEP is indeed individualized is to listen to families and make certain you understand the many wonderful and unique characteristics of their child. What are the student’s interests, dislikes, motivators, hobbies, and favorite people? What is the student’s personality, level of adaptability, and so forth? Families are the ones who complete the picture of the student and transform the IEP meeting from a discussion of scores and services to a discussion of a person and the ways we can best support that person to participate in, learn from, and belong in school.

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Guiding Questions

Standards to Master The general education teacher is the team member best suited to answer the question, What do we expect students to know and be able to do at this grade level in the general education classroom? Through this question, the team seeks clarity on how mastery of grade-level standards is expected to look at the end of the academic year. The general education teacher may guide teams to review the Common Core State Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices [NGA] & Council of Chief State School Officers [CCSSO], 2010a) or other national or state standards in place for that grade level (for example, the National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies [National Council for the Social Studies, 2010] or the Next Generation Science Standards [Achieve, 2013]). The general education teacher leads this portion of the discussion by focusing on the critical skills expected of the student. As noted previously, critical skills are those that have an impact on students that reaches across subject areas and grade levels.

To illustrate this planning process, we’ll look at our snapshot student Katie, who has been working to improve her writing skills. She still struggles with many of the conventions of writing. In particular, she has difficulty remembering when to use commas, to capitalize appropriately, and to check spelling. Katie’s general education teacher identified using conventions of writing as a critical skill that would affect Katie in the future and across the curriculum.

Once the team is clear about the major expectations for the academic year, they must ask the question, Which of the critical skills is this student missing? Specialists can lead this part of the conversation by reviewing data on the student’s performance on this skill. For example, Katie’s language arts teacher noticed that she is having particular difficulty in knowing when to use a comma joining clauses with conjunctions. Additionally, her teacher and parents noticed that her work starts out stronger in the beginning, and more errors appear after the first page of writing. After two to three pages, Katie has many errors in punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.

The specialists should invite the general education teacher and the student’s family members into this conversation as well. Often, students demonstrate different

© 2015 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

To identify priorities for intervention, exceptional and struggling learners’ teams need to ask two questions: (1) Which standards or skills expected at this grade level is this student not on schedule to master? and (2) What other critical skills does this student need to acquire in order to access the curriculum or participate meaningfully in daily classroom routines? Each person involved in the planning has a role in answering these questions.

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For most students, one or two major skill areas will be the clear focus of conversation. But for a small percentage of students, critical skills are missing in all or nearly all subjects. For students who are significantly behind their peers on many critical skills, teams must take on the task of prioritizing the most critical skills. Although there is no ideal number of goals for an IEP, it is generally understood within the field that more goals does not correlate with better outcomes. Thus, it is best to select a reasonable number of goals (around six to eight) to monitor that cut across the curriculum and are most important to the family. The team should ask, “What six to eight skills are imperative for this student to gain this academic year?” Of course, the student will still receive access to the full curriculum and individualized instruction in every area. But by prioritizing skills, the team is focusing on intensive intervention and data collection on the most important skills—the skills that affect many areas of the curriculum across multiple grade levels.

Other Critical Skills Needed In addition to the academic skills students need to be successful, there are numerous other skills and behaviors that can be considered necessary prerequisites for learning. The ability to interact and work cooperatively with others, the ability to remain engaged at a high level with the content and materials, and the ability to organize assignments and manage time are tiny pieces of the mountain of such prerequisite skills. All too often, members of the educational team notice a deficiency in these types of skills but do not target them for intervention. These deficiencies are frequently seen as an inherent quality of the student (for example, he is a student who has trouble keeping track of assignments or she is a student who is not prompt with completing work). Yet, these skills and behaviors can be learned and are as important to students’ success as any of the content they learn. They are as much an educator’s responsibility to teach as any other piece of the curriculum. If a student is significantly behind his or her peers in demonstrating skills and behaviors that are foundational to learning, the educational team must treat this as an urgent matter, too, just as they would with academic standards. General educators and family members will be the driving force for identifying these goals, as the need for the goals is

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behaviors in different settings or with different people. For example, the specialist could ask Katie’s family if they have noticed Katie having more success focusing on her writing and editing during certain times of the day or in specific spaces at home.

Understanding a student’s skill level is necessary to choose appropriate, attainable outcomes. But understanding the general curriculum and home contexts in which these skills are needed is necessary to select meaningful outcomes. The team should use this segment of the conversation to determine which of the critical skills are missing and urgent.

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evident in daily routines and activities rather than within an intervention setting or testing situation.

Katie’s Journey

Learning Disability Defined LD is usually first identified in grades 1 to 3. More than 40 percent of children receiving special education services have a learning disability (National Center for Learning Disabilities [NCLD], 2013). Learning disabilities are a group of neurological disorders that affect a student’s ability to take in, process, and store information.

Students with LD may have trouble with many academic tasks, including reading, writing, organizing information, solving problems, or recalling information.

A common misconception is that individuals with learning disabilities have lowerthan-average intelligence. Learning disability, however, is not related to a person’s intellectual abilities (NCLD, 2013); many individuals with learning disabilities, like Katie, are also intellectually gifted (Horowitz, 2006).

Teachers need to hold high expectations for students with learning disabilities and support them in reaching the same goals as their peers. With appropriate intervention, students who have learning disabilities are capable of fully mastering all of the standards. Although students typically qualify for special education services and an IEP under the label “specific learning disability” without further discussion of the specific underlying cause, it is important for educators to understand the types of learning disability as a lens through which to examine curriculum and intervention.

Given that this is the most common disability, additional focus on understanding learning disabilities is prudent for every teacher. There are three types of learning disabilities: dyscalculia, dysgraphia, and dyslexia.

© 2015 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

Katie

Before we read about how Katie’s team selected meaningful priorities for her to help individualize her IEP based on her learning disability (LD), it is important to review exactly what LD is, as it is the most prevalent disability category. Nearly 2.5 million students in the United States receive special education for learning disability (Data Accountability Center, 2010), meaning almost every teacher will have several students every year who have this disability (Jung & Guskey, 2012).

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Dyscalculia

Dysgraphia

Dysgraphia is more likely to be diagnosed in later primary grades. Dysgraphia is also a neurological processing disorder and affects a person’s ability to write. Early signs that a student may have dysgraphia include difficulty in making shapes or letters. Understanding the difference between upper- and lowercase letters is difficult for young children with dysgraphia. Later, extremely poor handwriting and the inability to stay on lines when writing are also warning signs (Mindes & Jung, 2014).

Dyslexia

Dyslexia is the most common learning disability, affecting the areas of reading, writing, spelling, and sometimes speaking. Signs of dyslexia include such symptoms as difficulty naming letters, remembering sight words, and distinguishing homophones (such as rose and rows, or there and their). Because dyslexia is a language-based processing disorder, students with dyslexia also frequently demonstrate difficulties in language as well as in reading. Language difficulties are often seen in experiences like learning new words and pronouncing words correctly (saying alsome for awesome, or cath for calf ) (NCLD, 2013). The pronunciation difficulties associated with dyslexia are different from the typical articulation differences that young children develop. For example, certain consonants, such as r, develop later than others, like w. It is typical for very young children to substitute a w for an r in speaking until the r is developed. For a student who has LD, the difficulties in pronouncing words are a result of difficulties in processing the language, not a typical developmental issue with making letter sounds or difficulty with complicated words, like spaghetti (Mindes & Jung, 2014). In the following section, we will examine how priorities for Katie’s interventions are chosen to address her dyslexia.

Katie’s Interventions Katie’s IEP meeting included both of her parents, her general education language arts teacher, her special education teacher, the school principal, and Katie. Katie’s

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Dyscalculia is the name for neurological processing disorders that affect a student’s ability in mathematics. A student with dyscalculia may show signs of difficulty in learning to count, understanding the symbolic representation of a number (for example, the 4 represents four crayons), or with concepts like more and less (NCLD, 2013).

Dyscalculia may be suspected when the student has significantly greater difficulties in these mathematical concepts than other language-based concepts in the curriculum (Mindes & Jung, 2014).

S e le ctin g M e an in g fu l P rio rities

Next, the team discussed the first guiding question: What standards is Katie not on track to master for ninth grade? The team discussed Katie’s writing skills and the improvement she has made. Her language arts teacher noticed that when she writes lengthy texts, the number of errors she makes in punctuation increases dramatically after the first page. Katie’s father said he had noticed the same sort of problem in mathematics. On all of her work, she starts out strong and then makes simple calculation or sign errors toward the end of the work. The special education teacher talked about how the conventions of writing and the simple pieces of mathematics are automatic for most ninth graders. But for students who both have learning disabilities and are gifted—like Katie—the more complex concepts can be easier for her to address than remembering to punctuate, capitalize, or attend to spelling in her writing. The team seemed to think the same pattern was evident across the curriculum for Katie. Katie agreed that it was hard to remember the punctuation and spelling when she was thinking about the topic of her writing.

Katie’s language arts teacher continued, saying that she would like Katie to organize her thoughts better in writing. In particular, she would like to see Katie use a clear, yet rich, topic sentence and supporting details for each paragraph. Right now, she said that Katie was jumping around in her writing, not fully developing her thoughts.

She added, though, that if she asks Katie about her topic, she orally describes rich, well-developed thoughts that are supported by many details.

Next, Katie’s team turned to the second guiding question: What other skills does Katie need to access the curriculum? Katie’s mother expressed a concern about Katie forgetting to do homework. She seems to want to remember her homework, but even with a calendar, she forgets to write down the assignments. Sometimes, Katie completes the assignment but then forgets to turn it in. Katie’s general education teacher agreed and said that even when asking the class as a group to find the assignment to turn in, Katie sometimes sits at her desk and doesn’t look for hers. Katie’s mom explained that Katie really has a difficult time remembering to do lots of things— and remembering items. Katie’s father agreed, saying that Katie carries her books with her all day and won’t use her locker because she is afraid she will forget something in it or forget the locker combination.

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special education teacher began the meeting talking about the amazing progress Katie has made with reading. She is on grade level in reading comprehension, and her reading pace has improved enough that it no longer stops her from reading for pleasure. Katie smiled, hearing everyone praise her hard work and accomplishments.

Katie then talked about some of her favorite books that she has read lately. It was clear to everyone that Katie really has a love of nonfiction texts about political leaders, especially women.

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The team concluded this part of the IEP meeting by drafting the priorities outlined in figure 1.1.

General Curriculum Area

Priorities Chosen We want Katie to write with correct punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.

Writing arguments with clear evidence

We want Katie to present a topic clearly and write supporting paragraphs, each with a topic sentence, supporting details, and a variety of descriptive words and phrases to add depth.

Skills necessary to access the general curriculum

We want Katie to remember to do and turn in her homework assignments and projects.

Figure 1.1: Priorities for Katie.

By organizing the IEP conversation around the guiding questions for success in the general curriculum, the IEP meeting has meaningfully included all members of the team and their collective expertise. The specialist presented data on Katie’s current writing skills, the general education teacher included anecdotes of Katie’s work in the classroom as well as expectations for the ninth-grade year, and Katie’s parents shared their observations of Katie’s editing of her work as well as their concern about her homework completion and organization. This conversation led to a richer set of priorities and one that is more meaningful than if the team had only considered her performance with the special educator or on standardized tests. The end result is a list of focused priorities that have real meaning for Katie’s success now and far into the future.

Summary This chapter focused on identifying meaningful, critical priorities for intervention as a vital step in ensuring that our interventions actually improve students’ lives. By selecting those most critical skills, we can have an impact that reaches across the curriculum and continues throughout the rest of the student’s life.

Key take-aways include the following.

• In our interventions, we need to select skills that have immediate and far-reaching impact on a student’s ability to access the curriculum and succeed within the general education classroom—critical skills.

© 2015 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

Conventions of writing

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• General education teachers must play a leading role in determining the critical skills we need to target with interventions.

• Families have a great deal to offer in IEP meetings. They need to hear from schools that they are important, valued, and seen as the experts on their children. We need family input, and it is our job to make sure they understand this vital role they play.

• By prioritizing skills, the team can focus intensive intervention and data collection on the critical skills.

The next chapter moves us from identifying meaningful priorities to assigning goals for intervention. The focus is on writing clear goals that can be seamlessly and easily measured within the context of the general education classroom.

© 2015 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

• If a student is significantly behind his or her peers in demonstrating foundational skills and behaviors, the educational team must treat this as an urgent matter, as they do with the inability to meet academic standards.

Planning Interventions

&

MONITORING

PROGRESS

INTERVENTIONS AND MONITORING PROGRESS

• Learn a process to plan practical, meaningful interventions and measure student progress • Access a downloadable intervention plan and progress record • Identify the critical skills students need to develop, and design interventions and individualized education programs around those skills • Design long-term goals and short-term benchmarks that track educator and student efforts to address students’ intervention needs • Learn to translate intervention and progress findings into usable data to share with students, families, and other stakeholders

solution-tree.com

J U N G

Visit go.solution-tree.com/rti to download the reproducibles in this book.

MONIT OR IN G PROG RES S

K–12 educators will:

A Practical Guide to

Planning Interventions

&

&

targets innovative strategies to design and measure effective classroom interventions. Author Lee Ann Jung offers K–12 teachers, individualized education program (IEP) coordinators, and administrators research-based strategies that build on current planning, organizing, documenting, and communicating practices and support response to intervention efforts.

A Practical Guide to Planning Interventions and Monitoring Progress features case studies of students with varying challenges and presents strategies for developing and implementing intervention plans for students with special needs and gifted learners.

PL ANNING INT ERV ENT IONS

A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO PLANNING

— Thomas R. Guskey, Professor, University of Kentucky

A P R AC T I C A L G U I D E TO

A Practical Guide to

“All teachers struggle with how best to plan interventions and measure the progress of the struggling learners in their classes. This book offers the practical, research-based guidance they want and so desperately need. Every teacher who reads this book will come away saying, ‘I can do this for my students. I can make a difference in their lives!’ And they will.”

MONITORING

PROGRESS

LEE ANN JUNG