1. Implement concentrated instruction that is focused on a small but targeted set of reading skills.
Focusing on a small set of reading or reading-related skills is essential to tier 3 in kindergarten through grade 2 because having too many instructional objectives for struggling readers makes it more difficult to learn the skills well enough for proficient reading (Blumsack, 1996; Foorman et al., 1998; Gillon, 2000). In the opinion of the panel, too many instructional objectives can overwhelm students. Achieving proficiency is also difficult for students when instruction is scattered across different aspects of reading.
Diagnostic assessments can help determine why a reading problem is occurring and which reading skills or performance deficits need to be addressed to improve reading performance. Specifically, educators can ask: what aspects of reading are blocking the student from achieving reading proficiency? When these obstacles are determined, high priority skills are identified as the focus of tier 3 instruction. For example, the panel believes that if a student is struggling with decoding, it does not make sense to use tier 3 instructional time for summary writing, comprehension monitoring instruction, or clarification strategies because the primary reading obstacle for the student is sounding out and reading words accurately. Here, decoding is considered a high priority skill because it underlies the student’s overall reading difficulty.
Additionally, the panel believes that there should be depth in modeling and practice with feedback in tier 3 instruction — perhaps requiring limited breadth. Such focus provides opportunities to review, practice, and reinforce newly learned proficiencies so that students can demonstrate sustained and consistent levels of proficiency across lessons. Often a sustained 90 percent or higher criterion of correct responses on taught material is considered mastery. Tier 3 instruction often focuses on phonemic awareness and decoding, especially for younger students or those with very limited reading proficiency. However, comprehension and vocabulary are also critical (National Reading Panel (NRP), 2000).
For a student receiving tier 3 instruction, several sessions each week might focus on phonemic awareness and decoding in depth. The other sessions might focus on comprehension and vocabulary in depth. To date, there are no clear-cut empirical guidelines to determine how to balance competing demands for instructional time.
2. Adjust the overall lesson pace.
To provide greater focus to tier 3 instruction, teachers can adjust the overall lesson pace so that it is slow and deliberate (that is, more intensive). Teachers implementing tier 3 instruction can focus the pace of lessons by focusing on a single component of a lesson. For example, teachers might focus only on introducing the new skill rather than implementing a full lesson that includes introduction, extended practice, and application. Subsequent tier 3 instruction might review the new skills (with modified or shortened instruction from the lesson’s introduction) and practice the new skills. Instructional pace is slowed and focused by implementing a series of lessons concentrating only on a variety of review and practice activities. Rather than practicing how to identify the main idea in one lesson, several lessons would practice identifying the main idea.
3. Schedule multiple and extended instructional sessions daily.
While research does not suggest a specific number of intervention sessions or duration of instructional intervention (such as weeks, months, or years) for tier 3, studies do suggest that students needing tier 3 intervention require more reading instructional time than their peers without reading difficulties. On average, students participating in tier 3 interventions receive an additional 75 minutes of instruction per week. Additional instructional time ranges from about 45 minutes per week (Blumsack, 1996) to 120 minutes per week (Gillon, 2000).
In the opinion of the panel, schools could provide an additional 30 minutes of instruction by creating a “double dose” of reading time for struggling readers. Rather than more of the same, a double dose of instruction means a teacher might introduce skills during the first session and then re-teach with added practice during the second.
Duration, or extended implementation of tier 3 intervention, also intensifies instruction. Further research is required to examine the total hours of instruction needed and relative impact of tier 3 duration.
4. Include opportunities for extensive practice and high quality feedback with one-on-one instruction.
To become proficient in the application of newly acquired skills and strategies, students with the most intensive instructional needs will need multiple opportunities to practice with immediate high-quality feedback. According to panel opinion, tier 3 students might require 10 or 30 times as many practice opportunities as their peers. An example considered by the panel includes the use of technology for aspects of the reading program. Technology can be a good means for students to receive the practice they need, such as practice in letter sound recognition (Barker and Torgesen, 1995; Chambless and Chambless, 1994; NRP, 2000).
One-on-one instruction is an effective way to maximize practice during tier 3 instruction. If scheduling one-on-one instructional sessions is not possible, the panel suggests students be organized in small groups of hom*ogenous reading needs. One-on-one or small-group instruction provides the greatest opportunity for continuous and active learning. For example, in whole-class instruction, individual students have few opportunities to respond, practice, and interact with the teacher.
Meanwhile in one-on-one instruction, a student has many occasions to respond and practice. When working with small groups, educators can increase opportunities to respond and practice by encouraging unison group responses.
With one-on-one and small-group instruction, teachers can also provide immediate and individualized feedback (Blumsack, 1996; Gillon, 2000; McMaster et al., 2005; O’Connor and Jenkins, 1995). A key feature of instructional feedback is error correction. By correcting student errors when they are first made, it is much less likely that errors will become internalized and therefore repeated. For example, if a student incorrectly segmented a word, the teacher could model the accurate response, give the student another opportunity to segment the word, and return to the missed word later in the lesson to reinforce the correct application of the skill. This type of ongoing, guided practice provides students with the support and feedback they need to become fluent with critical reading skills and strategies.
5. Plan and individualize tier 3 instruction using input from a school-based RTI team.
In the opinion of the panel, tier 3 instructional planning requires an increased level of detail because of the individualized nature of the instruction and particular student reading needs. Students with intensive reading needs require substantial supports during the initial stages of learning.
As students progress in their understanding and knowledge, these supports are gradually withdrawn so that students can begin to apply skills and strategies independently (Blumsack, 1996; Foorman et al., 1998; Gillon, 2000; O’Connor and Jenkins, 1995). For students with learning disabilities, instruction that is carefully scaffolded is essential to successful learning (Swanson, Hoskyn, and Lee, 1999). Teachers should introduce concepts and skills beginning with easier tasks and progressing to more difficult tasks (Blumsack, 1996; Foorman et al., 1998; Gillon, 2000; McMaster et al., 2005; O’Connor and Jenkins, 1995).
When teaching oral segmenting, for example, it is easier for students to isolate the first sound than to completely segment the word. Material supports also play a role in individualizing student learning. Graphic organizers, procedural facilitators (like color-coded question cards representing questions to ask before, during, and after reading), and concrete manipulatives are all visual prompts or reminders that provide support to struggling readers as they internalize skills and strategies. For example, a story map can be used to teach students how to identify a story’s critical components.
As students become more adept at applying segmentation skills or using a story map to aid retelling, these material prompts are progressively faded out. Teachers can optimize limited instructional time and instruction by teaching skills or strategies that reinforce each other. For example, emerging research suggests that teaching spelling promotes reading for struggling readers (O’Connor and Jenkins, 1995).
Students see spellings as maps of phonemic content rather than an arbitrary sequence of letters. Practice in using the alphabetic strategy to spell words seems to transfer to reading words.
6. Ensure that tier 3 students master a reading skill or strategy before moving on.
Emerging research on tier 3 instruction focuses on individualizing instruction by teaching students to mastery. Before a student moves to the next lesson, skill, or activity, they must demonstrate that a reading skill or strategy is mastered. When teaching a series of phonemic awareness activities (Gillon, 2000). Teachers should discontinue activities when a student reaches 100 percent accuracy on all of the items in the activity. Teachers can keep notes or records about how students perform on different reading tasks. For example, a teacher could record the exact words that a student practices reading, the student’s word reading accuracy, and the number of times it takes for students to practice a word before reading it accurately (O’Connor and Jenkins, 1995).
