Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Maggie.
[00:00:00] Speaker B: And I'm Nicole. Welcome to the DAC Dyslexia and Coffee Podcast. We're so happy you could join us. We're both moms and dyslexia interventionists who want to talk about our students and children. What dyslexia is, how it affects our kids, strategies to help and topics related to other learning disabilities will all be covered in this podcast.
Parents are not alone, and we want to give voice to the concerns and struggles we are all having. This is a safe place to learn more about how to help our children grow and succeed. Need in school, in the world. Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the conversation.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: Hi, everybody. Welcome to episode 87 of Dyslexia and Coffee Podcast.
We are going to start today's episode like we do every single episode, with the concept of the week.
So the concept of the week is our opportunity as practitioners to kind of peel back that curtain a bit and let our listeners into an intervention session.
We like to teach about things that we would either be teaching directly to our students or things that we would teach their parents and families about.
So today's concept of the week is the RTI, or Response to intervention Model.
I think this is thrown around quite a bit.
I think this kind of falls into the Alphabet soup bucket of education in general. We really, really like to just give some. Something, an acronym, really, really do.
And I don't think we really do a good job actually explaining what this actually is. Okay, so Response to Intervention is a model of education, all right? And it is designed as a proactive model.
So what it involves true rti if done properly, it all starts with universal screening. So that means everybody, the whole population of a school is screened for any at risk learning difficulties. Okay?
And this doesn't have to be subject matter specific. What I mean is it doesn't happen just in reading, okay? It happens across all academic areas and it starts with that universal screening from there.
Your tier one instruction is also known as your core instruction. That is your high quality classroom instruction for all students.
When done properly, about 80 to 90% of that population, that is what they are getting and that is working well for them. How do we know that? Because we're progress monitoring and we're seeing that Data for that 80 to 90% of the population, that tier one core instruction, that is what they're going to need to be successful.
Tier 2 is our targeted instruction. This could involve small groups or targeted support for certain individual students. It really depends.
For about 5 to 10% of the population of a school somewhere in there, that's where they're struggling and they're getting intervention at tier 2, tier 3 would be the most intensive intervention. This is individualized. It's intensive intervention. Usually it's several times a week.
And it is for students who need very specific support in certain skills areas. About 1 to 5% of a school's population is where is what's looking at Tier 3 instruction.
So in the ideal world. Right. That is actually what RTI should look like. That is what it's designed to look like.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: So it's good that we have that as our learning topic today because episode 87 is we're going to talk about what we learned at The Wisconsin Title 1 Conference.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: Yeah. In April. So April. Oh my gosh.
It feels like it was a long time ago, but also not that long ago.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:04:12] Speaker A: That we were there.
[00:04:13] Speaker B: It's really only like a couple weeks
[00:04:14] Speaker A: ago, but yeah, in real time. We're recording this on the 1st of May and this was what, like the. I think the 11th. The 11th and 12th of April.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: Yeah. So really only a couple weeks ago in real time.
But I thought it was a great conference.
Dyslexia Achievement center was one of the sponsors and presenters at this conference.
It was at the Wisconsin Dells at the Wilderness Lodge and it was a lot of really good, important speakers and I felt like I really, really learned a lot.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I learned a lot of keeping people in attention.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: Yes. For sure. So probably one of like career high moments.
[00:05:06] Speaker B: Right.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: Was Nicole and I got to see Dr. Anita Archer speak on the Friday. So the conference was two days, a Thursday and a Friday and Friday all day.
Yes. Was Dr. Archie and she was amazing. Amazing. Yeah.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: Yeah. I've never had a speaker keep me that engaged the entire time.
[00:05:33] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: I didn't want to leave for breaks.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: I didn't want to leave for breaks. I didn't want to leave in general.
I wanted more.
That was really cool.
Dr. Anita Archer is a very well respected educator, has been involved in education a very long time, is funny, is very energetic.
When we saw that she was going to be the main speaker for that conference, I was giddy, I think would be an appropriate word.
I was very, very excited to see her. And sometimes when you're so excited to see a speaker, it's like you kind of worry are they going to live up to.
[00:06:23] Speaker B: Right. That your perception.
[00:06:25] Speaker A: Your perception.
And blew it away.
[00:06:29] Speaker B: She did. Yeah, she was amazing.
[00:06:31] Speaker A: Blew it away. She just.
I felt like I learned so much and I felt like after that Conference. I was like, okay, new life. Like, I need. Like, I.
I know what I need to do to polish my practice. Right. Which is kind of one of her phrases. So we thought it'd be kind of fun today to kind of debrief, talk about what we learned some of our takeaways from, mostly her presentation.
You know, one of mine really was about how important it is to not only get that kid's attention.
Right. But to keep it. And just how many times we should be seeking our students attention and how. I mean, of course. Right. Like, well, no, learning happens if you can't. If you're not attending.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: Right.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: To a task.
[00:07:35] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: Like, I mean, of course.
[00:07:39] Speaker B: And she was modeling so many different things with us, like, to help bring attention back to her.
[00:07:46] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: The raising of the hands when she wanted our attention, and she wanted us to be quiet, yelling, yes. Oh, my gosh, that was fun to kind of watch.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: I mean, hilarious, you know, and setting kids up from success from the very beginning.
So several different studies have tried to look at this. Right. From several different camps. And that was kind of a fun thing about this presentation, too.
She had research from cognitive scientists back in the 70s to recent studies, like in the mid 2000s.
So. And they all really accumulated around the fact that an expert teacher gets between three to five opportunities to respond per minute in their classrooms.
So these responses are quick.
They're in unison. You're looking for a whole group response. You're monitoring who is and who isn't responding, which is going to tell you so much more information, you know, and you're.
You are setting them up for success. Right. You are teaching these students what is expected.
I mean, she even did it with us adults in the room. This is what I am expecting you to do. You will put your phone away. You will get a piece of paper out. You will get another piece of paper out. You will write this at the top of the paper. You will write this at the other top of the paper. I mean, she had us on lie, and there were, what, a couple hundred people.
[00:09:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:37] Speaker A: At this.
I think the. I think it was max at like 400, I think.
[00:09:41] Speaker B: I think so.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: So.
And I mean, and teachers, which is sidebar. Teachers are not great at conferences, okay? They're just not.
They're. They're just not. They don't practice what they preach, guys. They don't.
Myself included. But not that day.
Not that day.
[00:10:06] Speaker B: Yeah. I think it was really cool that she had that expectation out. She explained why she was doing expectation, and then she had us Practice it before we actually did it in real time when she needed us to do it. So it was kind of fun, kind of to see how she modeled all that before we even. And then not one of us didn't do it after she started doing it. Like, it was just the funniest thing that all these adults are following exactly
[00:10:36] Speaker A: what she wanted to do. Exactly. I mean, it is.
It was a masterclass of, oh, this is what it looks like when you are the expert.
[00:10:47] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: Right. This is what that looks like. Okay.
You know, and the tools that she gave were so simple.
And I really. I love the way that she just kind of kept saying that it's just polishing your practice. Right. We already know you can do the job or you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't have the credentials you have. You wouldn't be sitting in this room. We already know that you can do the job and that you are doing your job. But it's just that polishing those little things make such a huge difference.
And it's most certainly something that I see here.
The expert level practitioners get students to move faster and they get their retention to be more secure because they're experts at what they do.
[00:11:43] Speaker B: And they can also be that flexibility and use a different technique based on the student's day.
[00:11:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: You know what I mean?
[00:11:50] Speaker A: Like, exactly.
I really loved what she had to say. To where one of the core tenets of explicit instruction. Right. Is the I do, the teacher does it, we do, we do it together, and then the you do. Right. Where the student is doing it on their own, but never without teacher eyes.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: Right?
[00:12:18] Speaker A: Right. On their own.
[00:12:19] Speaker B: She needs to practice that a lot.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: A lot. And it's really important. It's really important. The, the you do, you do, you do, you do, you do.
That really is the difference between those three tiers of instruction.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: Right?
[00:12:33] Speaker A: Right. A typically developing student, that 80 to 90% of students, they need maybe 5 at bats before something's automatic for them.
Those students in the tier 2 and the tier 3, they may need 200 at bats with that same thing. And that's really what the difference. It's not. You're not doing something dramatically different teaching wise. Right.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: You're just getting them that practice that they need so it becomes automatic and they can just pull it up as soon as they need it.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: As soon as they need it. And I thought her point, which I have been saying for a long time, and it's something we do try to do here, but teaching that also to parents, just that method Right. Of. Okay, when you're going to introduce a new task at home with your kids, you have to show them exactly what you want them to do. If the task is, you need to clean the bathroom, that's way too broad, right? It's way too broad. What does it look like to have a clean bathroom? You're gonna. I will watch you. I mean, it made me have flashbacks to my teaching. Teaching my son how to clean around the toilet.
You know, I'd be like, no, you have to clean this up. You are the one who made a mess here. There is exactly one person in the house who makes a mess. Mess around the toilet, and it is you. So it is your job to do this.
But I. I would say to him, like, you need to clean it up. And he would look at me like, okay, and he'd go in there and he'd kind of, like, wipe it, but it's not clean.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: Right.
Would you wipe it with toilet paper?
[00:14:28] Speaker A: Ew.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: That's not disinfecting. The thing that's on the floor that I needed. I just stepped in. Thank you so much.
[00:14:34] Speaker A: But it's like, well, of course he doesn't know how to do it. I have to show him how to do it, you know, and then we have to do it together.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: Right?
[00:14:43] Speaker A: And then he has to do it in front of me several times before. Now I can say to him, you will go clean around the toilet. He will do it. Don't worry. There's a lot of sass talk. I'm not saying.
I'm not saying I have things on lock, but.
But he knows how. How to do it. And I think it's.
Sometimes we think of explicit instruction as only classroom work.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: And it's really not. It's everything work.
[00:15:18] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: Anytime we're gaining a new skill, that is actually how our brains process information.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: Right.
[00:15:26] Speaker A: So I loved. I loved her example of her, like, nieces and nephews, they were setting the table right. And showing exactly where things go.
And then people are, like, amazed. Oh, my gosh, these kids can do these things? Well, of course they can do these things if they're taught properly. Right. They can do these things. We expect, you know, we set the bar high, and then we teach to that bar.
Which felt really validating to me as a professional, because I feel like that is my entire outlook on it. Right. Like, no, we teach the high bar.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: Mm.
Yeah.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: I think another really validating part of her presentation was talking about the importance of. Of pre teaching for our students who are struggling instead of Trying to play catch up all the time, which is essentially what we're doing. When we have an RTI model that is not based on universal screening, which unfortunately that's more the norm than the exception, then what we're doing is we're waiting for the students to show us they're not doing well and then we're trying to reteach information instead of pre teach the information.
Pre teaching has so much more validity and reliability studies and it gives that student. Right. So if you are a student who needs 200 times more practice, wouldn't it be so much better if you were doing that 190 times before the class was getting to that information? So that when the class was getting to that information, you had a chance.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:33] Speaker A: You know, that's really the thing that closes the gap. And I think it was a good reminder to me like, we've got some work to do.
We've got some work to do.
Some, some systems work. Right, right. What we do in the center does a lot of good on the individual level, for sure.
And it, it is leading to system change, but it is, it's where we go next.
You know, that was kind of, that was validating to me for sure.
[00:18:09] Speaker B: Well, let me think too. A lot of schools don't use the same, same curriculum. Right.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: For each. Right.
[00:18:16] Speaker B: Doesn't that also impact.
[00:18:19] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:18:20] Speaker B: The understanding for the student?
[00:18:21] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. You've got three different people potentially explaining things three different ways.
There were. I was just reading in the New York Times. I didn't even get through the entire article. But basically exactly that. Right. If you have your core classroom instructor, your regular ed teacher instructing and talking about the silent E syllable type. Right.
You're giving that kid a couple at bats with that silent E. It's the silent E. It's the silent E. It's the silent E. Well, now you may have a tier 2 or tier 3 person come in and tell them, oh, it's the magic E.
Right. So using different terms, you're using different terms and now you've got a kid going, well, which one is it?
[00:19:15] Speaker B: Right. And is it the same thing?
[00:19:17] Speaker A: Right.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: And do I do the same thing with it?
[00:19:19] Speaker A: Exactly. Because then, yeah, now you, now you've overloaded them and it's not like you have to pick the correct term.
Right. That's not the point. The point is let's use the same language. Right. If you're going to use R controlled syllables or R controlled vowels, use that. If you're going to use bossy R, use That use that.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: Right.
Because of course, there's different for every teaching area.
There's different terms for the same things. And that can get very confusing for students.
[00:19:54] Speaker A: And it's flipped because your gen ed, regular ed, typical learner, they can handle that.
They can handle that. That's actually kind of good for their spongy brains.
But your atypical learners, that's not good for their brains. They. That gets too. It's another thing for them to think tangentially about and they don't need help with that.
[00:20:21] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: But yeah, I thought it was. I thought it was really validating. It was a validating presentation.
Another thing that I was really validated by was the need to ask those very literal questions when we are doing reading comprehension.
Right.
There is a lot of talk about this higher order thinking. Higher order thinking. Higher order thinking. And I think it is a little leftover from whole language time where we need our kids to be critical thinkers about the things they read. We absolutely do. We absolutely do need our kids to be critical thinkers about life.
Right.
But that's not where you start. It's not where you start. And there is absolutely no validated research that says otherwise.
That was not only Dr. Archer's presentation, but Dr. Tim Shanahan's presentation touched on that as well.
It's what the ACT kept trying to uncover. And they never could.
They never could.
But yeah, those literal questions, they are necessary. They're the way into that higher order thinking.
So we should always be asking them and we should be asking them in all ages and stages. We should be asking them of college kids, we should be asking them of master's level work.
They're necessary. You're not going to get there if you can't get the very literal questions correct.
[00:22:09] Speaker B: Right?
[00:22:15] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, and just as far as behavioral expectations in the classroom, oh my gosh, it's just another curriculum. Right. It's just another. Like this is the expectation.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:30] Speaker A: And when you set that expectation and then you're firm on it, I mean,
[00:22:36] Speaker B: you can get a whole bunch of teachers to follow it.
[00:22:39] Speaker A: If Dr. Anita Archer at 79 years old, she shared with us her age. So at the presentation, at 79 years old, if she could get up there all day and keep 400 adults attention.
And man, she was spunky. She was so gracious.
She let people take pictures with her. She was signing autographs at the end of the day, just what a gracious person to give up all of herself for that day. But if she could do that with 400 adults who are not inclined to pay attention on a Friday, right.
When they're like, gotta get back to their real lives kind of thing.
You know, those classroom teachers with enough support, we can do it too, you know, and least of all us interventionists with a one on one student. Right, right. We, we can do that too. Right. We got, we could, we can provide all that support.
So I, I don't know. I really, I enjoyed a lot of what she had to say.
I think as far as classroom management and getting everyone to respond. Right. Like continue to impress upon the fact that like it should be choral responses. The schools that she works with. I thought this was really interesting. Have a no hand raised policy.
So.
Because it's inherently biased. Right. Who's raising their hand in class?
[00:24:25] Speaker B: The one that knows the answer.
[00:24:27] Speaker A: The one that knows the answer. Right. And it's the same one to two
[00:24:31] Speaker B: kids who are outgoing.
[00:24:32] Speaker A: Who are outgoing. Right. Sometimes your smarty, smarty pants who do know the answer, they're not raising their hands. If they're more inclined to keep to themselves, they're not raising their hands. So all you're doing is validating those one or two kids, Right. That everybody already knows knows the right answer. Right. So they have a no hands raised policy in the classes that Dr. Archer works with.
And the outcomes really do speak volumes because what they do is all kids respond, right? So they do. Like sometimes it's a response on a whiteboard, sometimes it's just a simple hand raise, sometimes it's a thumbs up or thumbs down.
But they're getting all the kids to respond to all of the questions. And if they are doing an individual call out, they're never doing what's called a cold call. Right. So they're not just randomly calling on a student without prior knowledge. They're priming that student with sometimes even the right answer. Right. Sometimes it's more of a social, like a social situation where they're priming them with something to say before they're asking them to say it.
And that it could be such a positive change if we could get more schools to adopt just that.
[00:26:12] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:13] Speaker A: You know, the more, the more those kids are accessing that information, the less time. Right.
Your brain cannot do two things at once.
So if you are not. If you are paying attention to what is going on in the classroom and you are responding, you literally can't be daydreaming and doing other things. Like it actually is not possible for your brain to do that.
So yeah, I thought a lot, I thought a lot of really important takeaways from Dr. Archer. And I would.
Boy, if she comes anywhere near the Midwest again, again, I will.
I will gladly go see her again. I feel like I learned a lot and it was. It was fun to be in that learning seat.
[00:27:15] Speaker B: It was all day.
[00:27:16] Speaker A: That was. That was fun. That was kind of exciting.
I feel like we do a lot of teaching and so it's really fun to be fully in that learner seat again.
[00:27:26] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:27:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:27] Speaker B: So, Maggie, what's happening beyond dyslexia?
[00:27:30] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness.
Well, as we record this, it is May 1st and it is very chilly for.
It's supposed to warm up this time of year. It's very chilly.
I feel like I a little bit dodged a bullet because this weekend was supposed to be a camping weekend with Scouts and.
[00:27:56] Speaker B: And it's freezing.
[00:27:57] Speaker A: And it's freezing. It's literally supposed to be like 20 degrees tonight. Like, it's supposed to be actually cold tonight. And I care not to be in a tent when it is that temperature.
So I missed the sign up a couple, you know, when we were supposed to do it, and then I kind of felt a little bad about it and now I no longer feel bad and feel like procrastination was the best course of action in this one instance.
What's going on with you, Nicole?
[00:28:31] Speaker B: So it's been kind of a Fun Week.
My 13 year old is in outdoor ed, so they left on Wednesday and at least they have cabins where they're at.
[00:28:41] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:28:41] Speaker B: But it's been really cold, so the pictures are fun of them outside, bundled up on horses, doing the outside stuff. And it's just been kind of fun to watch because they send pictures through the Facebook page.
They're not allowed any phones.
[00:28:58] Speaker A: Good.
So it's all good how it should be. Yes. Right, Good.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: So they're. They're really engaged with each other. They're being social. There's so. It sounds like the.
The food is the biggest love of the students, which teenagers, I'm guessing that is not. Yeah. So anyways, that was kind of what we did. So she's coming back today, so she'll probably tell me she did stuff and that's about it because that seems to be her answer for everything these days.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: Oh, my least favorite answer.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: I know we did stuff.
[00:29:39] Speaker A: So frustrating.
Oh, my gosh. Well, thank you everybody for listening. Please follow us on social media and reach out if you have any questions or you would like us to discuss a topic. If you do like our show, be sure to follow and rate our show on your favorite podcast players. This is how we reach our listeners and we get to help more families. Thank you, everybody.
[00:30:00] Speaker B: Thank you.
