It is interesting to read this week’s articles on RTI because I felt that RTI seems to concern carefully how to approach struggling reader and it seems helpful for both teachers and struggling readers. Based on the descriptions in both articles (Gersten & Dimino, 2006; Mesmer & Mesmer, 2008), RTI seems a very systematic and data-driven approach to discern problems that students have and to provide them with appropriate intervention before it is too late for them to improve their reading skills. It also can provide framework for assessing students and collect data for instructional decision making. I can appreciate the fact that there are several responsive steps of measuring students’ reading and monitoring their progresses and responses. As Gersten and Dimino imply, this model seems a quite sound way of identifying students with reading difficulties and their areas of growth.
The basic assumption of this model is that “if students become proficient readers by the end of first grade, then they will remain good readers (Gersten & Dimino, 2006, p. 101).” Despite the soundness of RTI, this assumption actually makes me wonder what RTI means by proficiency or proficient readers. According to Gersten and Dimino imply, it seems that the areas RTI focuses include decoding skills such as accuracy and fluency. Given the fact that RTI is a kind of assessment model of identifying students with reading disabilities, this assumption might be understandable. However, as Gersten and Dimino concern, it is somewhat questionable that students in the intervention implemented via RTI would develop comprehension skills and vocabulary.
I really wonder how this program would contribute to children’s reading motivation, self-efficacy and development over time as they engage in the intervention that is implemented based on their needs and how students, teachers and parents would respond to the results that this model would bring to students’ reading.
I wonder how this model would approach ELL readers who are often placed in special education because they do not speak either English or their home language at school. I wonder how researchers who develop RTI address this issue.
I like your question of proficiency and proficient readers. I know in my head that reading is so much more than decoding, accuracy, and fluency but I wonder if that comes out in my teaching or if I focus so much on helping them decode and become fluent that I forget to instill in them the importance of comprehension and vocabulary. I know that in guided reading I do ask comprehension questions but due to the simple nature of the texts they are very forced. Read Alouds go much better and allow for a much richer conversation so they get comprehension then. But then do they think that comprehension is something for me and not them? Do they learn that they can’t comprehend without my help? Your question of what is proficiency has really gotten me thinking!
I’m also glad you brought up ELL’s. I hadn’t thought about how the approach may need to look different for English Language Learners so I’m glad you mentioned that.
I like your wondering regarding reading motivation and self-efficacy — I wondered, too, about interventions that are aimed not only aimed at addressing a particular reading difficulty. but how the materials used in the intervention might be culturally relevant to students and affirming of their identities. For ELL learnings, I would hope intervention materials address their experiences, culture, and allow them to see themselves.
You bring up some very good points and I also was wondering how this would look for an ELL student since they claim that an ELL student should not be diagnosed with a LD, but they do not give the alternate of how an ELL can be diagnosed LD without using these finite criteria.
When I was an exchange student in Japan, teachers use to call on students to read aloud different passages and I always dreaded being called on because I was very limited in my Japanese decoding skills. The teacher would always just tell me to read what I could and someone else would pick it up from there. Everyone understood I was learning the language, but I wonder if I had been in the U.S. if I would have been labeled with a LD?