A Teacher’s Guide to Effective Reading Interventions for the New School Year
The new school year is approaching…fast!
There seems to be no escaping all of the back-to-school sales this time of year!
And while our favorite stores are rolling out all the school supplies, we teachers are hard at work planning for the beginning of the school year.
What getting-to-know-you activity should we start with…
How should I introduce classroom rules…
What procedures do I need to introduce…
And in the hustle and bustle of all this planning, it’s easy to forget to plan for effective reading interventions for the new school year.
The Challenge of Planning Effective Reading Interventions for the New School Year
There’s SO MUCH planning that goes into the start of the school year…
The challenge is not only trying to get it all in, but also having the time to plan it all.
Which is why I get it, it’s easy to push planning for your interventions to the side. And we always promise ourselves that we’ll make time for it, but it keeps getting put on the back burner until it’s time to start interventions.
But starting the year with a plan will make starting intervention so much easier.
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Starting the year with a plan for your interventions will help make the process of beginning interventions so much easier!
Reading Intervention Resources
Reading interventionists are becoming commonplace in today’s educational landscape.
Whether your school has adopted a formal intervention framework (RTI/MTSS) or you simply want to implement your own interventions in your classroom, it’s important to have resources to organize student data, plan interventions, and assess student progress.
Here are some amazing resources - all of which are part of my Reading Intervention Toolkit - that will take all the guesswork out of staying organized this year so you can focus on what really matters…
Your students!
Data Assessment Tracker
The beginning of the school year is a chaotic time - don’t even get me started on the beginning-of-the-year assessment schedule!
Beginning-of-the-year testing usually takes place during the first month of school - and there are A LOT of assessments to squeeze in during such a short time frame.
Teachers are inundated with multiple data points from multiple assessments which can be difficult to keep track of. Keep your teacher life organized with this assessment tracker! It’s the perfect way to keep track of student data over time!
Parent Letter for Reading Intervention
After the beginning-of-the-year assessments are complete, teachers must contact parents to inform them of their child’s literacy goals - depending on your school’s intervention protocol.
Use this parent intervention letter to contact parents and keep parents informed of their child’s progress.
Small Group Lesson Plan Template
Once beginning-of-the-year assessments are finally out of the way, it’s time to get to the most important thing - working with students!
And you know what that means…
LESSON PLANNING!
Once you have gone through all of the initial steps for intervention implementation and you want to begin planning for small group intervention lessons, this editable small group lesson plan template will help guide your intervention groups! (It also has space for you to plan for/incorporate the 5 Pillars of Reading into your lesson!)
Reading Intervention Log
If your school is a Title One school that uses RTI or MTSS frameworks, you will be required to keep a record of your interventions.
This can be a messy and time-consuming process…
Having an organized system - like my reading intervention log - can be used to keep track of skills and standards that were taught during small group instruction. It can be used as a data collection method to bring to monthly intervention meetings.
Progress Monitoring Data Tracking Sheet
A big part of the intervention process is progress monitoring.
A lot of time this process is overlooked due to how time-consuming it is, but this is the MOST important part of the intervention process.
DO NOT skip this step.
Using a system to keep track of your student’s progress monitoring data - like my progress monitoring tracking sheet - will help you to monitor your student’s progress so you’re better able to choose targeted interventions based on real-time student performance.
Intervention Resources for the New School Year
With everything seeming important at the beginning of the school year, it’s easy for things to slip through the cracks and get forgotten.
But don’t let planning your Reading Interventions be one of them!
Create systems for organizing student data, have a process to streamline lesson planning, and have a plan for how to contact parents.
Having an idea for how to tackle each of these things will make your year so much easier in the long run - and to take something off your plate, you can get all of my resources in one easy-to-use bundle!
Bonus Reading Intervention Resource
In addition to keeping student data and planning targeted lessons, having the right assessments is just as important!
Assess and progress monitor your students’ letter/sound recognition with my Alphabet Arc Letter Assessment.
This assessment is a great way to help you plan for alphabet recognition and phonemic awareness intervention lessons.
Happy Back to School!
Shannon
