Early Intervention
An Early Intervention Program is a way to find students at highest risk of reading failure early enough to prevent it.
Find
At-Risk Students
Find
Volunteer Tutors
Ten Steps To Start
Early Intervention Research
What is an Early Intervention Program?
An Early Intervention Program is a way to find students at highest risk of reading failure early enough to prevent it.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) state that 95 percent of poor readers can be brought up to grade level if they receive effective help early. The window of opportunity is during kindergarten and first grade.
The longer help is delayed, the harder it is for the child to catch up. If help is provided in fourth grade (instead of in kindergarten), it takes four times as long to improve the same skills by the same amount.
That is why the California State Board of Education and the Superintendent of Public Instruction stated in their report, Every Child A Reader, that a balanced and comprehensive approach to reading must contain:
“a powerful early intervention program that provides individual tutoring for children at risk of reading failure.”
The Barton System has been used successfully in many Early Intervention programs at public and private schools.
To learn how to find kindergarten or first-grade children at greatest risk, and how to use parents as volunteer tutors, read on.
Find At-Risk Students
The best predictor of a child destined for later reading failure is a child who lacks age-appropriate phonemic awareness.
“The lack of phonemic awareness is the core and causal factor separating normal readers from disabled readers” – Keith Stanovich, NIH Researcher
More recent research has expanded that list to include 3 reliable early predictors: phonemic awareness, rapid naming, and auditory memory.
All three are essential pre-reading skills. Children who are below age-appropriate norms in any one of those three areas are at extremely high risk of later reading failure.
Since these are pre-reading skills, children can be tested as young as age five – before they’ve been exposed to formal reading instruction.
Susan Barton recommends public and private schools screen all kindergartners or beginning first graders using the CTOPP-2. CTOPP stands for Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing. The 2 stands for version 2. It is published by Pro-Ed Books, 800-897-3202, www.proedinc.com. Their part number for the CTOPP is 13080.
If a school gives the same test to all students, they do not need parental approval.
The CTOPP-2 has a 4 to 6 year old version. So you can now prove that a beginning Kindergarten student is already one year behind.
Students whose composite scores in either Phonemic Awareness, Rapid Naming or Auditory Memory are below the average range are at extremely high risk of later reading failure or reading disability.
In fact, their scoring manual states that a score below the average range in any one of those composite areas is a hallmark of dyslexia.
Find Volunteer Tutors
Once you’ve identified the at-highest-risk students using the CTOPP, you need to create a pool of volunteer tutors.
If your school has involved parents, recruit interested parents by making a presentation at a PTA meeting or by sending home a flyer.
Some school districts use high school students to tutor the first graders.
Others recruit volunteers from retirement and independent-living centers. Lonesome grandparents make wonderful tutors.
Just be sure each volunteer tutor can pass our Tutor Screening – to ensure they hear sounds well enough to be a tutor.
Hold a tutor training day. Run the training day using our Facilitator’s Guide while showing our Level 1 Tutor Training Videos. Everything you need is included in the Site License version of the Barton Reading & Spelling System. If you prefer, contact us to schedule a consultation with one of our experts.
Then match each tutor with a student and have them start tutoring following our recommendations.
Ten Steps To Start
Here are the ten steps to use The Barton Reading & Spelling System for your Early Intervention Program:
- Appoint a coordinator – a staff person or a volunteer.
- Find the high-risk students.
- Find the tutors.
- Obtain a site license for the Barton Reading & Spelling System.
- Conduct a tutor training session for Level 1.
- Start tutoring.
- Observe each tutor once.
- Four weeks later, conduct a tutor training session for Level 2.
- Observe each tutor once.
- Students progress at different rates, so allow tutors to borrow the training DVDs or register to watch the Barton Training Videos online for the other levels.
For detailed information on each step, click here.
If you need help convincing your principal, click here.
Early Intervention Research
Research on the long-term consequences of early reading difficulty provides an incentive for early intervention.
Juel (1988) found that students who are poor readers in first grade are almost certain to remain poor readers at the end of fourth grade.
Cunningham and Stanovich (1997) found that first-grade reading achievement strongly predicts 11th-grade reading achievement.
Other researchers have shown that students at risk for reading failure can be identified early, using tests of phonological awareness, and treated successfully with intensive, explicit instruction in phonological awareness, followed by systematic phonics instruction.
Early intervention for reading problems reduces the number of students identified as learning disabled (Dickson & Bursuck, 1999; Jenkins & O’Connor, O’Connor 2000).
One-on-one tutoring is the gold standard for reading instruction, and the benefits of that type of tutoring is supported by research (Cohen, Kulik, & Kulik, 1982; Juel, 1996; Waskik, 1998; Wasik & Slavin, 1993).
That’s why the No Child Left Behind Act includes a mandate that failing schools make one-on-one tutoring available for their students.
Yet most schools do not have enough trained personnel available to offer one-on-one tutoring.
Innovative schools are using the Barton Reading & Spelling System to train volunteer tutors for their Early Intervention Programs – and are getting very impressive results.
Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children
by Catherine Snow, Susan Burns, and Peg Griffin
Catch Them Before They Fall
by Joseph Torgeson
Identification and Assessment to Prevent Reading Failure in Young Children
Why Reading is not a Natural Process
by Dr. G. Reid Lyon, Ph.D.
Get Started
The Barton Reading & Spelling System provides a proven path to literacy success.
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Bright Solutions for Dyslexia, Inc.
Publisher of the Barton Reading & Spelling System.
For more information about dyslexia, visit BrightSolutions.us →