Sunday, March 29, 2009

3-5 on 3/25

The 3-5 team had a lively discussion on 3/25 about the nature and intent of RTI and what it should look like next year. All agreed there were some definite benefits but some tweaking is needed when it comes to scheduling and equitable distribution of Title resources. 3rd and 4th have some kids who are not receiving the much needed "daily double dose" of reading and 5th has Tracy Swope fitting one group of intensive kids into her tight schedule.
It is possible to be a part of RTI and still teach reading to your "homeroom" kids while also best meeting their individual abilities. RTI is not a verb, it is not something we "do", but an approach to help students receive the interventions they need when they need them. We should be looking at how students respond to the interventions we provide and use those responses to drive our teaching. 3-5 expressed some concern that RTI is not more consistent K-5  and that during the spring teachers from each grade level should get together to look at the future of this idea. Many would like to see math included next year and 5th is very happy using RTI for math this year.It was noted that as we are not consistent, we are unable to use the RTI process and its accumulation of data to identify kids for services. RTI is intended to circumvent the traditional "wait to fail/discrepancy" approach to qualifying students for special education.
As a team we also discussed just how incredibly talented our K-5 teachers are at teaching reading. The students of Bigfork Elementary are incredibly fortunate. This was celebrated while at the same time we look to the future to see how we can continue to provide top notch reading instruction consistently for all students.
We briefly discussed the blog but for the most part we had run out of steam. It was bantered about that there wasn't enough time in the day (always true), but it was also discussed how it is meant to be a time saving option. 
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3 comments:

  1. ChristyMarch 29, 2009 at 6:05 AM

    Let me note: K-5 we already do use data to drive our reading instruction. The consistency part comes in with: A. how we do this and B. sharing a common language (ie intensive, benchmark, strategic).

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  2. DarceyMarch 30, 2009 at 8:37 AM

    It's nice to work in a school where, like Christy mentioned, we have such an incredibly talented group of teachers teaching reading to our kids. In our 3-5 reading we were all also happy to hear that Kindergarten is getting additional reading help for those kiddos who need it. We believe that this will help immensely come 1st and 2nd grade (and 3rd, 4th, 5th...)!
    It will be nice to share a common language and common data K-5, which is why I'm looking forward to meeting with a team of K-5 teachers this spring to "iron out" the wrinkles we've discovered with the RTI program this year and get it into a format that works for everyone, K-5, and most importantly, best meets the needs of all of our students.

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  3. AnonymousApril 1, 2009 at 2:11 PM

    What do you mean by,"that RTI is not more consistent K-5?"

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