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I’ll admit before I became a reading interventionist, I didn’t realize the amount of work that goes into it. As a classroom teacher, the interventionist came into my room and pulled out a few students here and there throughout the day. Then, once in a while her and I would have a quick chat about a student. I didn’t think much about it. In hindsight, I realize that my students could have benefitted more if I knew more about how reading intervention fits into the grand scheme of student learning. That’s why I want to share what your interventionist wants you to know, but may have never told you.
Data is Super Important
Gathering and analyzing data is important for the classroom teacher because it informs instruction. It tells you weak areas and strong areas, so you know when to emphasize a concept that students are struggling with. You will use it to form small groups by ability level. You will use it to monitor the growth of your students over the course of the year. Learn more about data in this post Using Data Effectively.
An interventionist uses data in all those same ways, but it becomes even more important. We take a deeper dive into the data of individual students on a regular basis. This happens with progress monitoring. So we are not just gathering data through benchmarks three times a year, we are gathering it weekly to show growth or the absence of. This is a huge step in identifying students who may need to be brought up for testing by the school psychologist for a learning disability.
So if you are noticing a student not doing well, talk to your interventionist about it. Or follow whatever process is in place for bringing attention to students who are performing poorly in reading and/or math. Those students will most likely be placed in an intervention group for closer monitoring. We are here to support classroom teachers and students!
Communication is Essential
The more years I am in this position, the more I see the benefits of communicating with classroom teachers regularly. Sometimes we are the bridge between classroom teacher and psychologist or classroom teacher and MTSS team. If your interventionist does not communicate with you regularly about the students you share, it’s time to reach out.
Having chats about specific students helps both interventionist and classroom teacher be on the same page. Both will gain useful information about the student and you can brainstorm together to best meet the needs of the student.
A couple ways I’ve done this is by stopping in during the classroom teacher’s planning time roughly once a month to check-in on the students we share. Early release or half days are a great time for this! Another way is to have a digital communication tool. This past year, we piloted a Google Sheet with a check list of concepts and a spot for notes. This was a helpful tool to quickly share information with the classroom teacher. We are expanding it to all grade levels this year because of how successful it was!
Collaboration is Key
When the lines of communication are open, both interventionist and classroom teacher will know what each student is working on at any given time. That way the student can be working on the same concept in both places. This will give that student the double dip we want them to have to improve reading/math at a faster pace.
Really, that is the goal of intervention! We find the gaps in knowledge and work to fill those gaps, so students can make advances as quickly as possible. Of course, this process isn’t usually as quick as we want it to be, but having the interventionist and classroom teacher collaborating will up the chances of success. Either that, or it will really show that the student may need more support due to a disability.
Furthermore, please, invite us to parent/teacher conferences. That reinforces the collaboration between classroom teacher, interventionist, and families. We enjoy meeting the families of our shared students and sharing our observations with them!
Scheduling is Typically a Nightmare
We do our best to accomodate all schedules, but, please, bear with us. As we get started, it’s difficult to plan a schedule to fit the needs of the school. Especially with a school that has multiple pull out services, such as an ML teacher, math and reading intervention, counseling services, etc. There are, also, multiple no-no times for pulling out students, such as tier 1 whole group instruction. This severely limits when we can pull students, so we apppreciate your flexibility with our schedule.
This includes your flexibility with benchmark testing at the beginning, middle, and end of the year. This typically works outside our normal schedule to allow us to test students one-on-one. As mentioned above, gathering reliable data is super important.
We Want to Help
That may seem obvious, but I don’t just mean with students. We want to help and support you! Many interventionists have extensive training and experience in their area of expertise, whether it be reading or math. If you have a question or just want someone to bounce an idea off of, come see us!
I can’t speak for all interventionists, but I know I enjoy helping other teachers and sharing my knowledge. And if I don’t know the answer, I’ll either do some research and/or find someone who does have the answer.
Final Thoughts
Before reading this you may have thought, “Interventionists have it easy. Small groups all day long.” I hope after reading this, you can see that this is not the case. While classroom management may be easier, the demands on an interventionist are as intense as those of a classroom teacher. We are juggling planning individualized groups on a daily basis, attending multiple meetings, gathering and analyzing data regularly, communicating with parents, and more. If you are interested in a more detailed picture of what a reading interventionist does, check out my post Reading Intervention: A Day in the Life.
Please share in the comments which item of what your interventionist wants you to know made the most impact on you while reading. And if you are an interventionist, feel free to add any that I may be missing.