Intervention needs to be timely

In February of 2010, I started screening and then teaching a reading intervention program for 1st grade students in the Walnut Creek School District who were “at risk” for falling behind in reading.

My intervention classes were held after the normal school day, rather than instead of other school activities. Each of my intervention classes had six students or less.

In some districts where I have worked in the past, "intervention" is for students whose skills are two or more years below grade level.

In Walnut Creek, the intervention program I was tasked with teaching was for students who showed skill deficiencies that put them at risk of ending the next year (i.e. in June of 2011) performing below grade level. This program was designed to make sure that they ended the 2009-2010 school year with the foundation skills to stay on track when they entered 2nd grade that fall.

I ran into all of the first graders who were part of my after school reading intervention classes when I was substituting at their intermediate school when they were in 6th grade.
All were reading fluently - all but one at the 6th grade level (and that one was a special education student, and was reading at a mid 5th grade level).

All of them remembered me, and told me how much they had loved reading with me.
Two of the parents saw me on parking lot duty at the intermediate school, got out of their cars and came over to thank me for the huge impact that the early intervention had for their kids.

I have worked in other districts where we regularly had kids entering upper grades - going to intermediate school - who have never had any such targeted reading intervention, despite the fact that they have been reading at a kindergarten or low first grade level year after year.

Far too many students are socially promoted to higher grades each year based on their physical age, without regard to whether they are prepared to succeed in their new grade. These students are being set up for failure – as are their classmates and their teachers. Their regular teachers had to try to teach the curriculum for their current grade - 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, etc. – as well as reaching back to try to teach two or more years of lower grade level skills.

Why do we make Math hard for English Learners?

It's beyond sad that, at a time when many of our K-12 students are "English Language Learners" (kids whose primary language is not English - what used to be called "ESL" or "English as a Second Language") or who otherwise struggle with reading, that the move is to adopt a Math curriculum that is made up solely of word problems.

If you wanted to design a system that would cripple the education of those who struggle with reading - or just with the English language - you couldn't do a better job than this - making math as inaccessible to them as reading is.

And making the textbooks and resources bilingual in English and Spanish, or having Spanish speaking teachers still leaves out every "English Language Learner" whose home language is not Spanish.

Math is a language that is international when it uses numbers and symbols, but loses that strength when it focuses solely on word problems.