Effective Teaching Solutions - ETS Nevada

At some point or another, most students experience times when they struggle with learning concepts in the core subjects- reading, math, and writing.  How much they struggle and whether it becomes a lifelong learning problem depends, for the most part, on how we as teachers and parents address it.

As parents and teachers, it is important that we act as soon as we suspect a problem is occurring.  We need to question the specifics of the problem.  What subject does the student seem to be struggling with?  Once that is identified, which can be done easily by looking at the student's performance, we need to determine what the problem might be and how to solve it.

One controversial component of No Child Left Behind is that of ongoing assessment.  The reason it is controversial is that teachers and parents feel it takes time away from learning.  But it is through this continued assessment that teachers find out if children are experiencing difficulty and are able to address problem areas.  For example, in the area of reading, a student may begin to struggle with understanding what he is reading.  Assessment should help determine if the student is understanding vocabulary at grade level or if he is able to read passages at that level.  Specific instruction in the area of vocabulary may be necessary so that he can understand what he is reading.  Determining if the breakdown is the result of instruction or if a learning problem exists is critical to helping the student.

Once teachers have specific information they will be able to implement strategies to improve student performance in the area of need.  Strategies are simply the way that teachers choose to teach the students.  For accountability purposes, teachers should be keeping a detailed record of what strategies have been implemented with the student and how successful that strategy has been.  This information should be shared with parents and administrators during conference times.  These notes will help all persons involved with the student be able to determine what the areas of need are, what works and what needs to be done to improve the student's performance.

For students who do not seem to respond to strategies implemented by the classroom teacher, each school should have in place a system of increasing levels of remediation for the student.  This system is currently being referred to as Response to Intervention or RTI.  RTI takes place in three stages.  The first being strategies that the teacher implements in the classroom.  The classroom teacher, using sound instructional and researched based practices, will try to close the gaps students are experiencing with a given subject.  These strategies will be tried for a period of time to see if the student responds to the instruction.  If notes and documentation kept by the teacher shows that the student is still struggling, the student can be placed in the next stage of intervention.  Typically this stage involves small group intensive instruction using strategies to address the area the student is struggling in.  The last step would be one to one instruction with the focus on the area of need.

All of these stages of remediation should be shared with the parents and documented by the teacher.  In this way, parents can act as partners with teachers.  For example, suppose a student is having difficulty with sight words.  Having enough sight words is critical to reading information and stories fluently.  Once the teacher determines what the student needs to know and how to teach that student the necessary sight words, parents can become partners in the process.  Parents can be responsible for drill and practice of the words at home or of making sure the student pre-reads the material to look for known and unknown sight words, practicing those words in isolation and then reading the story of material assigned to the student.  If parents are given the strategy the teacher is using to help remediate the problem, they can use that same strategy at home.  The more often a student receives instruction and reinforcement of the strategy, the greater chance there is of closing the learning gap.  This process works for all subjects, not just reading, but math and and writing also.  This way parents and teachers become partners in the learning process.