Preparing for an Intervention: Progress Monitoring and Student Selection

Hello again!

Last time, I talked about the RtI 3-tiered system. As you may recall, all students participate in Tier I instruction - that is, the evidence-based instruction in the general education classroom setting. But, as we know, what works for some will not work for everyone, so it is important to be able to identify when students are struggling in the classroom and need additional help. Today, I am going to talk about progress monitoring and student selection for intervention. Along the way, I will provide links to some resources you may find helpful.

Tier I Progress Monitoring
If you recall from the diagram in my previous post, progress monitoring at Tier I occurs approximately three times per year. This involves a screening assessment to ensure students grasp a variety of concepts related to reading and writing, including phonics, sight-word reading, reading comprehension and fluency, and spelling. Many schools (even those that do not claim to follow an RtI structure) use these tools already. You may be well aware of the most popular Tier I progress monitoring program:

DIBELS - DIBELS is a relatively inexpensive universal screening tool for Tier I progress monitoring. It is easy to administer and many schools have their teachers conduct these assessments following a brief training session. It is typically administered individually to the student and assesses a wide range of academic skills. For each skill area assessed, DIBELS will determine if the student's performance is green (at benchmark; no need for intervention), yellow (below benchmark; possible need for intervention), or red (significantly below benchmark; likely in need of intervention).

The data for all students should then be collected and analyzed (which is typically done by a school's data coach). This data can provide a lot of information. For instance, if the majority of students are in the yellow or red across classrooms, then a school-wide curriculum shift may be in order. If there are a considerable amount of students below benchmark in one class but not in others, maybe that teacher needs to work on better implementing evidence-based instruction. Most importantly, however, this data can be used to identify which students are struggling and in need of additional support. Given the multifaceted assessment approach of DIBELS, the data also shows in which areas the student is struggling, which allows for the formation of groups based on the students' area of deficit.

Organizing the Data
With the whole school's worth of data coming in, there can be a lot of information to sift through. Even if you as a teacher are simply wanting to keep track of the data for your own class, that's 20-30 different reports to keep track of. Luckily, there are some amazing data organization systems out there.

CBM Focus is an excel sheet that was shown to me during my training and I have to say, it is amazing for keeping track of data. The website contains a tutorial video, free downloads for the CBM Focus spreadsheets, and a filled spreadsheet to serve as an example to help demonstrate how the program works. Here are some of the cool features of CBM Focus:

• Tracks student data and flags those who are below benchmarks
• Provides several different benchmark norms that can be followed
• Automatically creates graphs per student to visually show progress
• Has a tab for tracking progress monitoring for interventions (to be discussed in a bit) 
• Provides a list of resources (with links) for progress monitoring probes, assessment tools, and intervention ideas.
• Has tabs for reading, writing, and mathematics so that each skill is tracked separately. 

Seriously, I can't recommend this program enough (and it's free)!

Progress Monitoring at Tiers II and III

A tri-annual assessment is good for progress monitoring at Tier I, but Tier II and III require considerably more frequent data-collection methods. So, after conducting the initial assessment (using DIBELS data to figure out what area of weakness must be targeted), you need to choose an appropriate probe to use for collecting baseline and progress monitoring. At Tier II, progress should be monitored at least once per month, if not twice per month. At Tier III, progress should be monitored at least once per week, if not every day. As the level of intervention intensity increases, the number of data points must go up. 

Several different kinds of probes are available online at:

• Intervention Central/CBM Warehouse
• AIMsweb
• The University of Maryland Curriculum Based Measurement for Early Literacy

Or, Create Your Own!

It is also very possible to make your own probes from materials used in the classroom. Get creative! For example, for reading comprehension interventions, I have loved the use of Maze passages (modified cloze reading). Progress monitoring probes using Maze passages can be created using the student's own reading textbook. Here is what you do:

1. Select a passage (about 300-450 words in length) and copy it on a computer.
2. Leave the first and last sentence alone...do not change anything.
3. Starting with the second sentence, remove every sixth word (except proper nouns)
4. For each removed words, type in three possible choices (presented in a random order)
1. The correct word
2. A close distractor (an incorrect word that is the same part of speech [i.e., noun--> noun])
3. A far distractor (an incorrect word that is a different part of speech [i.e., noun --> verb])
5. There you have it! Repeat until the desired number of probes has been created.

Then you have the student read through the passage and circle the word he/she thinks fits in the blank space, tapping into their comprehension and ability to utilize context clues to determine the meaning of the sentence. One advantage this has is ensuring that the reading passages are at an appropriate grade level and are similar to what is being taught in class. Caveat: do NOT use passages the student has already read. This may throw off the results due to previous exposure.

The Can't Do/Won't Do Assessment

So a student has been found to be below benchmark and an area of deficit has been identified. Do we intervene and put them through various layers of additional support? What if the student is simply not motivated? I'm sure you have all seen this kind of student: he knows things - more than he lets on - but he just doesn't want to work. When it comes down to it, a typical academic intervention won't be much help for a student like this because he/she already knows the information being taught...they just don't want to work. So, in order to figure out which students are legitimately having difficulties with the academic material, you may wish to conduct a Can't Do/Won't Do assessment. Here's what you do:

1. Have student complete a progress monitoring probe
2. Score the probe quickly.
3. Then, give the student a second probe (same type, but different in content)
4. This time, tell the student that if they do better than they did on the previous probe, they will receive a reward (this can be small, but talk with the student beforehand to find something that they would likely work for).
5. Have student complete the 2nd probe.
6. Score the probe.
1. If the student's score does not improve by more than would be expected from random error, it is evidence that the material is something the student CAN'T DO.
2. If the student's score improves, it is evidence that the material is something the student WON'T DO (but can if the proper contingencies are in place). 
7. If the student does better, offer the reward. If not, STILL OFFER THE REWARD (in my opinion)

Here's why. You have established a contingency for the student: do better and receive the reward. If they do better, then you have to reward them to establish trust (this will be important for subsequent intervention). But if they don't do better, well they're trying their hardest and, in my view, should still be rewarded for making an honest attempt. Some people may disagree with that practice, but this is just my view. 

If the student's performance leads you to believe it's a CAN'T DO, move forward with an academic intervention. If it's WON'T DO, then a behavioral intervention may be more appropriate in which you create a reward contingency system in the classroom to help motivate him/her to perform. Behavioral observations are a little off-topic, so I won't talk about them now (but I can later, if anyone wants me to). 

Baseline Collection and Charting the Data

After you have selected your probes, it is critical to establish baseline levels of functioning on the assessment probes.  That is, it is important to see how well the student does on the skill being measured BEFORE the intervention begins. To do this, administer a different probe to the student on no fewer than three consecutive days all while providing NO intervention. If the baseline is stable after three data points, start the intervention. There are some guidelines to follow with regards to determining baseline stability:

• If there is a trend in the scores (score is increasing or decreasing), a baseline is only acceptable if the trend is in the OPPOSITE DIRECTION of the desired goal. In other words, in academic interventions, higher performance from baseline is expected, but if baseline shows the student is already improving, then you're not getting an accurate estimate yet of where his/her abilities fall - more data points need to be collected to find this level. If the trend is going downwards, however (i.e., the student's performance deteriorates), then go ahead and begin the intervention.
• If performance is highly variable (i.e., one baseline score is significantly higher or lower than the others), continue collecting baseline until there are three consecutive scores that are relatively similar.

Once you have baseline, begin charting the data (if you use CBM Focus, this gets done for you). Place the three (or more) baseline data points on a graph and take the average - this is your baseline level. Then, there are two goals to figure out: the ideal goal (the ultimate level you would like the student to achieve) and the realistic goal (the level that you think would be attainable and acceptable for the student). Create lines connecting the baseline to both of these goals at the end-point of the intervention (6-12 weeks away) to get the aim lines - the level of growth expected to reach the goals.

Data-Based Decision Making

As previously stated, RtI relies on data-based decision making, hence why the organization and charting of data is so important. Also as previously stated, the frequency of data collection increases as the intensity of intervention increases to ensure that data is reliable. I would recommend constantly monitoring the data trends, but about midway through the intervention, you should definitely analyze the progress to determine if the student is responding to the intervention or not. As a general guideline, if the student is consistently below the realistic aim-line (as defined by three consecutive progress monitoring probes that fall below the aim line), something needs to change!

For those who are new to interventions, I would recommend consulting with a school psychologist or an interventionist in your school to figure out what changes to make, but changes to an intervention may include:

• Changing reward contingencies
• Changing progress monitoring probes
• Changing duration/intensity of intervention
• Changing the intervention in its entirety

Obviously, the decision to make any of these changes should be supported by data suggesting the student is not making adequate progress towards his/her goals. It is at this stage that you may want to think about the next step (i.e., moving from Tier II --> III or referring the student for a special education evaluation). 

Wrapping Up

I went over a lot of information today about getting started with interventions, from data organization to progress monitoring to starting to collect data. Again, I cannot recommend programs like CBM focus enough - it supplies all of the information and resources needed to get interventions off the ground! If you are interested, I definitely suggest you take a look at it. I have also provided some links to other resources for selecting progress monitoring probes and a description of how to conduct a Can't Do/Won't Do assessment. At this point, I think I have laid enough ground work to start talking about specific interventions that you can use in your classrooms. While many are commercially available, I will be focusing on the cheap and easy interventions that may be more feasible for today's teacher-on-the-go. At some point, I will talk about some of the big intervention packages, but that's a topic for another day. That's it for me!

See you all next time!