New program would help improve student literacy

MILLSTONE — First-graders with reading difficulties will be given extra attention under a new program at the primary school.

At the Jan. 25 Board of Education meeting, primary school Principal Gina Villani and reading specialist Stephanie Dunk gave a presentation about the Response to Intervention (RTI) program.

Dunk said that each first-grade class has a daily, 90-minute literacy block. During that block, teachers would use RTI, a system of delivery that provides high-quality instruction and intervention matched to student need, monitors progress to make decisions about instruction, and applies child-response data to decisions about a student’s educational program.

The RTI program has three tiers, the first of which is a core curriculum for all students. The second tier is for students who need more support, and the third is for those who need individualized interventions.

The second tier would be made up of 20 percent or less of the first-graders. They would receive an additional 30 minutes of instruction, five days a week for six to eight weeks. Each group would have no more than five students, weekly assessment and data collection, and an end-of-cycle analysis.

The third tier would be made up of 5 percent or less of the first-graders. They would have the same amount of additional instruction as the second tier but would work in groups of one to three students that undergo biweekly assessments and data collection for six to eight weeks.

The staff would use the AIMSweb benchmark and progress monitoring system, which is based on direct, frequent and continuous student assessment. Results are reported to students, parents, teachers and administrators via a Web-based data management and reporting system. The results are utilized to determine the students’ response to intervention. The monitoring system measures early literacy skills, which entail letter-naming fluency, letter-sounding fluency, oral-reading accuracy, nonsenseword fluency, and phoneme-segmentation fluency.

There are three phases of staff development for RTI, which consist of training the trainer, training the teacher, and implementation. The RTI Committee is composed of primary school staff members with a literacy background.

Once students exit the RTI, the committee reviews their progress. The committee also conducts exit interviews with teachers to provide data, discuss student growth and share strategies to support optimum classroom learning.

The school district’s overall goal is to extend RTI to all first- and second-grade students in reading and math. Next year, the district would like to add second-grade students, which would require an additional reading specialist.

By the 2011-12 school year, the district would add first-grade math students, which would require an additional part-time remedial math teacher. By the 2012-13 school year, second-grade math students would enter the program, which would require another part-time remedial math teacher.

Board of Education President Tom Foley asked how the program would be impacted if the school district could not hire additional staff. Villani said only one grade level could participate with the current reading specialist.

Last week, Superintendent Mary Anne Donahue told the board that the school district would have to cut staff to accommodate the budget for the 2010-11 school year.