Hi, and welcome back to the smarter literacy podcast from a Send Smarter Intervention where we simplify effective literacy instruction.
So every student gets what they need without overwhelming you.
I'm Lindsey.
And I'm Corey, and today we're diving into tier three, the most intensive level of literacy support, whether you're a special educator supporting IEP goals or a private practitioner working one on one, you know that tier three students need something more intensive.
But what does that actually look like? In our last couple of episodes, we talked about what literacy instruction looks like in tier one, general education setting, and tier two, the first level of intervention support.
Now we wanna dive into tier three, which is the most intensive level of literacy support.
At tier three, students are typically well below grade level by the time they qualify for the support.
And need structured intensive literacy support from their teachers? Yes.
Absolutely.
And tier three instruction can feel super overwhelming because we may have unclear goals.
So sometimes this is because we inherited these goals from other IPs, and sometimes we just aren't crystal clear on exactly what students actually need, or it might be difficult because we have materials that don't necessarily feel aligned to our students' goals.
Or we don't have a clear system for placement and planning.
So we get a little bit confused about where should I start them and how do I just tell if they're making growth? So our progress monitoring might feel a little bit disconnected or a little bit clunky.
That's right.
And that's why today we're walking you through the exact step by step process we use to take the guest work out of tier three.
The first thing we want to do is assess with intention.
When students qualify for tier three support, that's usually based on standardized norm referenced assessment data.
Ideally, that assessment tool will also show you where the breakdown actually is.
Yes.
Absolutely.
And the great thing about your tier three students is that usually they're coming in with that eligibility data already.
And what we would really recommend is if you have any agency over helping to determine what that assessment is, we recommend the Wyatt four.
So that's the current edition right now, but the Wyatt is the Wexler individualized achievement test, and it's a really great test because it's gonna give you a really full picture of both word recognition and language comprehension skills.
So, specifically, we like to measure the phonemic proficiency.
We like to look at word reading abilities, pseudo word reading ability.
We like to look at students' ability to read sight words.
They have an orthographic fluency measure.
They also have reading comprehension, vocabulary, and listening comprehension.
So it's a really good measure that will give you everything you need in one assessment.
So it's a really great way to start to be able to figure out.
One, does a student qualify, but also two, what is it that they actually need in their instruction? Right.
And that's exactly what we want because we need that data and that information that's gonna provide us where that breakdown is happening specifically and helps us know what we actually need to try teaching.
Once we see below grade performance in decoding or comprehension, we know we're not just supporting general access to content.
We're rebuilding those foundational skills.
Exactly.
And this is super helpful because it's going to make sure that we understand the path way for our instruction.
So what we mean by that is what is the pathway that's going to get students the results that they're looking for? Is it word recognition? So they're struggling with the decoding skills and sounding words out? Or is it more of that comprehension? So they're struggling with reading comprehension or listening comprehension.
And so that can really help us to determine which way are we going in our instruction.
Now if it's fluency, we might be looking at more content based units where we are actually looking at more of that content access, but just giving them that repeated exposure and trying to build fluency in that way.
Or if we see, no, the students are really struggling with sight words, then we know that we might need to include what we would call lock word instruction, which is going to be more about the orthographic recognition or those orthographic patterns of high frequency words.
And so we're just going to be working through that.
So think that's the important thing there when you're looking at that assessment data is that it's driving your instruction, and it's helping you know not only, again, to students qualify, but also what is the type of instruction that they're gonna need to close the gaps? Right.
And this is so helpful because then we know what our instruction needs to look like.
And from there, we can identify a starting point for that instruction.
Yes.
Exactly.
So for example, if we recognize that we had a word recognition deficit, what we would wanna do is we would wanna look at a brief placement where we just look at, okay, well, what are the sound patterns that the students know? What kind of words are they able to decode? And so that's where we would start to dig in a little bit deeper.
So the Wyatt would be helpful or whatever assessment that you use could be helpful in determining, okay, it's a word recognition need.
But then from there, we need to figure out, okay, well, which specific patterns do the students need that support with.
Or if it's a language comprehension difficulty, then we might need to see, okay, what level of text are the kids currently able to access.
So I know level text can be a little bit controversial right now, but I think there's still a lot of value in knowing, are we reading at a kindergarten level? Are we at a first grade level so that we can be providing the right type of text for that student to access? Right.
Absolutely.
And from there, you'd wanna start thinking logistics.
Once you know what to teach, you have to figure out how to fit it in.
So you really have to start thinking about what your schedule allows for.
Is it thirty minutes, four times a week, forty five minutes, two times a week? You really have to look at that and then build the plan around your time.
So given that, we do have lesson planning guides that we can link into the show notes that can help you see how you might structure this, depending on the time that you do have available.
But really, it all depends on your schedule.
And as educators, we always just make it work.
Right? We have to figure it out with what we have.
But then once you have everything all scheduled in, then you just have to start.
And sometimes it feels a little messy, but in time you do start to get into that groove, and in our next episode, we'll walk through exactly what the structure of our systematic structured literacy instruction looks like, so you can really get an idea of what that looks and feels like.
But really, it's just like you said.
It's about going through that full process.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And you don't need to guess.
You just need a system that works in a process you can trust.
So, again, start with assessment, ideally, assessments with providing immediate clarity on the appropriate pathway for your intervention, And then progress from there, what type of instruction do your students need? And where are you starting with that instruction? Then how are you fitting it into your schedule? Then like you said, great.
Just start.
Right? That's it.
That's your process.
So funny because we just recently had our summit.
Right? And we had so many educators saying, you know, I wanted to have this all perfectly lined out.
I wanted to know exactly what it was going to look like.
But, you know, you told us to just start and we did and we realized like, oh, that's where some of the clarity really comes from.
And honestly, I feel like it's like riding a bike.
Right? You can, at a certain point, read all the instruction manuals and figure out like, okay, it needs to be at this angle and everything, but at some point, you actually just get on to and that will help to solidify your process as well.
You'll think about, oh, that didn't work, or, oh, that worked beautifully.
Mhmm.
And then you can just iterate from there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just like we tell our kids, practice makes perfect.
Happy.
Absolutely.
And we're still propped.
Missing.
Right? I mean, here we are.
So Absolutely.
Anyway, so if you are supporting students at tier three, what we would recommend is that you take ten minutes and pull one recent evaluation report.
So, ideally, you're looking for one subtest that's gonna show a clear need.
So that might be word reading and decoding.
That might be comprehension.
You really wanna take a look at your data and see if you have information that's providing support on making that decision about whether it's word reading, decoding, comprehension.
And then from there, you can ask yourself, do I understand the purpose of this student's instruction? And if not, you wanna start there.
You wanna really take a look at your assessment data see what is it telling you.
Hopefully, your eligibility or special education testing is guiding that, and you don't necessarily need gobs of data either.
Right? So I know we were recently talking about.
I have analyzed a lot of IEPs and there are some that there is just so much data in there that I am like, oh my goodness.
This is so hard to sift through.
And I think as educators, we often also feel like, how much data do I need? Right? And I think at the end of the day, you definitely need to know, you know, does the student qualify.
But beyond that, it's really just, okay, if they do now what? Mhmm.
And so we've really been able to do that here in our setting with K.
We have the Wyatt, which is telling us where they are compared to their peers.
And then from there, we know, alright, that's also guiding us in what our instruction needs to look like.
So we actually even put together a little spreadsheet where we can enter in the scores.
And then from there, it will tell us, oh, this is a word recognition student or, oh, this is a language comprehension student.
So that helps us know exactly what our pathway for our instruction needs to look like.
So, again, you don't need you don't need tons of stuff.
We have one test that helps us understand that And so, again, take a look at what you have, take a look at your data and see if you have that information.
And if not, again, start there, start having those conversations about what that assessment process needs to look like and what assessments you may need in your setting to be able to make that determination.
I think the important thing is that tier three doesn't have to feel like starting from scratch every single time.
So once you follow a clear student centered process, you can stop spinning your wheels.
You can start really focusing on the progress itself.
And again, if you're curious about our process, we are going to be sharing all about what that looks like at elementary and secondary in our setting in the next couple of podcasts.
So definitely stay tuned for those.
Until then, take a deep breath.
Remember your work matters and know that you don't have to do this alone.
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