Superintendents are tasked with a dizzying array of responsibilities — maintaining school safety, mentoring their staff, ensuring student success and more. As they address these areas, data can play a crucial role in helping identify key trends and areas to target for improvement.
School leaders can help drive student success with meticulous analysis and insightful interpretation of test data followed by implementing and executing interventional strategies.
Year-end assessments are a treasure trove of data with great potential to augment student achievement. These data points offer an all-encompassing snapshot of a student's academic progress throughout the school year, paving the way for designing robust intervention strategies.
A critical challenge school administrators face is the effective interpretation and utilization of end-of-year test scores. However, understanding what these scores signify and how they can be used to formulate efficient intervention strategies presents a challenge. The task at hand is not merely identifying what a student needs for growth; it involves crafting innovative interventions within the constraints of existing schedules and securing the necessary staff to deliver targeted instruction that shows measurable improvement.
Districts possess the power to create bespoke RTI plans with evidence-based tutoring to fuel student learning targets by leveraging experienced third-party tutoring providers.
Implementing Response to Intervention (RTI) in Schools: A Practical Approach
The prospect of implementing a new RTI block in schools can seem overwhelming. Some districts have successfully employed different frameworks. Take, for example, the HIKE framework — Help, Intervention, Knowledge Building, Enrichment — for their RTI. However, the practicalities of scheduling students during this time, organizing activities, and ensuring effective implementation can pose significant challenges.
In a K-5 setting, an example of an RTI structure could include the following:
- The Title I teacher organizes Tier 2 Interventions, using DIBELS data to guide group formation.
- The EL lead teacher organizes their groups based on WIDA ACCESS scores.
- Speech/SPed professionals manage their groups, focusing on IEP-specific goal work time.
- Tier 3 interventionists meet with students to work on MTSS goals.
- The General Education teacher works with the remaining students, facilitating differentiated activities in small groups.
This structure could be divided into two half-blocks from Monday to Friday. For instance, Title/Tier 3/SPed and EL/Speech could have dedicated time slots. By splitting the week into two-day segments, accommodations could be made for students who need multiple services, such as EL students who also need speech. Additional provisions could be made for GT and Dyslexia students to optimize their learning time.
A critical aspect of implementing RTI is to avoid inappropriate referrals, mainly when environmental factors rather than disabilities might be contributing to learning deficits. RTI is designed to provide additional support to all students, not just those needing special education (SpEd). Every student should have access to solid Tier I, II, and III interventions per their individual needs.
For secondary school scheduling, a suggested model could involve four 40-minute weekly sessions divided into three tiers. Tier 1 focuses on social-emotional learning, digital citizenship, technology, and post-secondary plans. Tier 2 includes one-on-one or group sessions addressing SEL/behavior and academic reteaching for EOC-tested subjects, while others could participate in grade-level projects or clubs. Tier 3 targets key learnings based on MAP data, focusing on basic math and reading skills and reteaching concepts that still need to be mastered in class.
A well-planned, effectively implemented RTI strategy can significantly enhance a student's academic journey, providing targeted support where it's needed most and ensuring every student gets the help they require to succeed.
Boost Your Student Achievement Rates With Evidence-Based Tutoring
The High Impact Tutoring Toolkit, developed by the Student Support Accelerator, provides an evidence-based framework to design and implement effective tutoring programs. FEV Tutor incorporates this toolkit into its strategy, ensuring that every intervention plan is grounded in research and best practices.
The toolkit emphasizes the importance of personalized, high-dosage tutoring, frequent progress monitoring, and strong tutor-student relationships. At FEV Tutor, our online tutoring services bring these principles to life. Our tutors provide personalized instruction tailored to each student's unique learning needs, creating a supportive learning environment that fosters academic growth.
For instance, incorporating Response to Intervention (RTI) time within the classroom through rotations or small group sessions can provide targeted support to students who need it the most. Unfortunately, station work places a tremendous amount of independent learning on students. While the approach may be ideal in the abstract, rotations become challenging and moot when everyone needs help understanding. The teacher is only one person and can’t easily support all students. With online tutoring programs, the teacher can still meet in small groups knowing a vetted, familiar tutor is helping in the other group.
In an elementary setting, teachers could divide the class into small groups based on their learning needs identified from the end-of-year data. The teacher and tutors meet to determine specific goals, and students receive two different approaches to their objectives from two other people maximizing the potential for a more significant impact.
For secondary scheduling, intervention plans could look different, with a tiered approach focusing on social-emotional learning, academic reteaching, and basic skill reinforcement.
Get Trusted, Proven Interventions For Better Student Achievement
FEV Tutor recognizes the complexity of designing effective intervention strategies and works with each district to discuss intervention planning strategies. Our team of experts can guide you in interpreting end-of-year test scores and crafting intervention plans that cater to the unique learning needs of your students.
Moreover, FEV Tutor's online tutoring services can supplement these in-class interventions by offering personalized, flexible, and accessible additional learning support — both inside the classroom and outside school hours. Our services are designed to align with your intervention plans, providing your students with the necessary resources to bridge their learning gaps and improve their academic performance.
The importance of end-of-year test scores and the need for effective intervention plans cannot be overstated. As we move towards the 2023-2024 academic year, let's leverage these scores to drive student success. With FEV Tutor's expertise in intervention planning, we can work together to ensure that every student receives the support they need to reach their full academic potential.
We invite you to request a personalized consultation with FEV Tutor to discuss your district's intervention planning strategies. Let's work together to use your end-of-year test scores to create evidence-based tutoring that drives student success in the upcoming academic year.