Diana Jimenez is an outgoing 13-year-old who attends 8th grade at an urban Midwest U.S. school. Born on the West Coast and raised in the Midwest, she lives with her family, who speak English and Spanish in the home. In middle school, multiple assessment measures suggest that her listening and speaking skills in English and Spanish are at grade level. However, Diana has shown difficulties in reading and writing. TheDiagnostic Assessments of Reading (DAR) was administered to better understand her reading strengths and needs. On this diagnostic assessment administered in English, she scored at the 3^rd-grade-level on the word recognition and spelling subtests, and the 7th-grade level on the word meaning and silent reading comprehension subtests (Roswell, Chall, Curtis, & Kearns, 2006). Aside from her regular classes, she receives tutoring from her school’s English as a second language (ESL) teacher who focuses on increasing Diana’s reading and writing skills using assignments and self-made units that support Diana in the content-area classes. Lately, it has been reported that Diana is causing disruptions in her Language Arts class―making off-topic comments, not completing work, and initiating arguments with other students and adults. Due to her poor academic performance andchallenging behaviors during class, Diana’s language arts teacher has referred her to the school’s student support team (SST). This group of teachers provides positive academic and behavioral supports for students who show need for intervention. The SST includes Diana’s ESL teacher, the intervention specialist, the 8th-grade social studies teacher, the assistant principal, and guidance counselor. The team meets weekly to discuss the planning and progress of interventions for students who have been referred by a teacher for academic and/or behavioral concerns.

What principles might guide the student support team in their efforts to improve the school experience for students like Diana? The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) is a nonprofit group of educators who have created standards to help educators develop and demonstrate the knowledge and skills needed to work in 21st-century schools. As the SST gathers information about Diana’s progress, the group attempts to bolster intervention by targeting three areas described by the NBPTS (2011) in the field of early adolescence through young adulthood: (a) knowledge of students; (b) home, school, and community connections; and (c) supportive learning environments.

KNOWLEDGE OF STUDENTS

Effective teachers of English language learners work to understand their students’ language development, cultures, abilities, values, interests, and aspirations (NBPTS, 2011). Guided interviews are conducted to obtain information from Diana’s perspective. To clarify the school context within which Diana must progress, her current performance is compared to the academic content and English language standards for her grade level (Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, 2007). As a middle school student, Diana’s academic challenges are two-fold: she must develop English language and literacy skills along with the knowledge and skills required to meet her state’s grade-level academic standards in math, science, social studies, and language arts. Curriculum-based assessments conducted by her teachers provide important information for the team about her daily academic progress, along with her results from the state’s English language assessments. Developmentally, Diana is navigating through the complex period of young adolescence, experiencing physio- and psychological changes associated with puberty. The SST determines that classroom interventions must be better coordinated between teachers, support staff, and home to improve her English reading and writing. With guidance and interpretation from the ESL teacher and intervention specialist, Diana’s formal and informal assessment results are used to create an intervention plan. Among the recommendations of the SST is that Diana’s content-area teachers receive minutes of the SST process. The team encourages teachers to take advantage of Diana’s strengths in oral expression using two languages. She might, for example, work as a cross-age peer tutor for younger bilingual students who are learning to read. As the SST recognizes that Diana’s literacy challenges are impacted by a combination of factors―lack of educational opportunities, unstructured home environment, and undefined learning difficulties―there is a commitment to remain focused upon school variables in the intervention plan.

As part of the student support process, data regarding Diana’s response to the team’s intervention efforts will be gathered using curriculum-based measures (CBMs) in the classroom. CBM probes (available at Jim Wright’s Intervention Central Web site) are administered at least three times a week to provide quick, frequent measures of her oral reading fluency, reading comprehension, and spelling. In addition to the information provided by informal and curriculum-based assessments, this data guides the team as to whether Diana is responding to instruction.

After discovering Diana’s strong interest in hip hop music, the language arts teacher wondered about ways to incorporate music into assignments and projects to increase classroom engagement. A teacher explained how she used choice boards to allow students to demonstrate knowledge via options that focus on different skills and permit the use of multiple means of expression (Access Center, n.d.). While preparing a study unit on Romeo and Juliet, the teacher added a music-related assignment to the choice board. When theactivity was presented, Diana chose to illustrate main scenes of the play and compose a hip-hop-style song that described the plot (see Table 1). The intervention specialist on the SST helped the teacher monitor Diana’s academic performance and classroom behaviors to determine whether interventions and modifications were having positive effects (see Table 1). Taking time to gain knowledge of Diana’s strengths and interests increased ideas for ways to individualize instruction. Offering Diana a meaningful choice of assignments appeared to contribute to an environment where Diana displayed fewer off-task comments and confrontational verbal interactions. The choice board activity was beneficial for other students, too, as the entire class showed increased classroom engagement when informal time-on-task observations were conducted.

HOME, SCHOOL, AND COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS

Developing communication with the parents of English learners can serve to strengthen instruction and promote learning. “Accomplished teachers of English language learners establish and maintain partnerships with their students’ families and communities to enhance educational experiences for their students” including use of the parents’ preferred language (NBPTS, 2011, p. 3).

In Diana’s case, her language arts and ESL teacher arranged for interpreters to help teachers send weekly written progress charts for her family to review. The teachers made efforts to be visible and ready to greet and chat with Mrs. Jimenez when she brought Diana to school. By opening home connections, the ESL teacher recognized Mrs. Jimenez’ work and role in the family. The SST looked for ways to mitigate challenges posed by her limited English language skills and knowledge of U.S. schools. The teacher worked with an interpreter to find out how Diana’s mother preferred to receive and share school information. With confidentiality and respect, the ESL teacher informed appropriate staff, including office personnel, of Mrs. Jimenez’ wishes to receive information by phone and text. Trained district interpreters attended subsequent SST meetings so that Mrs. Jimenez could attend and participate in the SST process. The team’s collaboration with interpreters increased home support for Diana to complete homework assignments. Along the way, the team provided Mrs. Jimenez with useful information regarding community counseling and youth tutoring services within the local community.

SUPPORTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

Gathering relevant information about students’ history, interests, strengths, and goals is a foundation upon which to build an effective learning environment. Effective teachers collaborate and use knowledge of the learner to design supportive learning environments (NBPTS, 2011). Language arts assessments indicated that Diana was working on reading skills at the 4th-grade level. Good readers use strategies such as seeking out the structure of expository text and looking for organizational patterns that can provide a framework for ordering new information (Fisher & Frey, 2007). Diana’s teachers discussed reading strategies and how to teach these to students, including English language learners. Demonstration activities, for example, can illustrate a procedure, concept, or phenomenon to convey information and increase student engagement in reading and writing activities. Over the year, the language arts teacher made efforts to expand students’ linguistic repertoire and class engagement by inviting local experts to talk about their experiences relevant to World War II and the Civil Rights Movement. The guest speakers lent variety, interest, and motivation to her thematic units as they shared information and personal experiences. During guest lectures, the teacher provided literacy support by creating guided notes (Heward, 1994) with sections for students to fill in missing information. The guided notes provided students with examples of organized notes and opportunities to summarize main ideas. The notes were important for continued review and preparation for class assessments.

Using guided notes supported Diana’s developing literacy skills and provided additional exposure to content-related vocabulary, grammatical structures, and topic organization. To follow up, the teacher reviewed the notes during the lesson and encouraged students to refer to them during subsequent writing activities. For Diana, the guided notes became an essential part of her participation in the writing activities. Her ESL teacher referred to the notes during individualized instruction. The language arts teacher and the ESL teacher followed Diana’s progress in completing and using the guided notes. They reported their data and interpretations to the SST and assessed the effectiveness of the interventions (see Table 2).

CONCLUSION

As the SST meets to discuss ways to develop Diana’s literacy skills, they plan and review the results of instructional interventions. The interventions are conducted using a collaborative approach, including the parents, to help Diana make progress toward grade-level standards in English language and academic content. The actions of the team reflect NBPTS areas: (a) knowledge of students; (b) home, school, and community connections; and (c) supportive learning environments. Student intervention teams that use academic and behavioral data to guide their decision making are more likely to be successful with students. As a member and contributor to SSTs, the ESL teacher plays a key role in communicating with teachers and implementing literacy supports across the curriculum.

REFERENCES

The Access Center. (n.d.). Improving Outcomes for All Students K-8. Retrieved from http://www.k8accesscenter.org/training_resources/readingdifferentiation.asp

Durand, M. & Crimmins, D. B. (1992). The motivation assessment scale administration guide. Topeka, KS: Monaco & Associates.

Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. (2007).The WIDA English Language Proficiency Standards, Grades 6 through 12 (2nd ed.). Madison, WI: WIDA Consortium.

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2007). Improving adolescent literacy: Strategies at work (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Merrill-Prentice Hall.

Heward, W. L. (1994). Three low-tech strategies for increasing the frequency of active student response during group instruction. In R. Gardner III, D. Sainato, J. O. Cooper, T. Heron, W. L. Heward, J. Eshleman, & T. A. Grossi (Eds.), Behavior analysis in education: Focus on measurable superior instruction (pp. 283-320). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.

National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. (2011). Early adolescence though young adulthood: English as a new language. Arlington, VA: U.S. Department of Education.

Roswell, F. G., Chall, J. S., Curtis, M. E., & Kearns, G. (2006). Diagnostic Assessments of Reading, 2^nd ed. Austin, TX: PRO-ED.

Donna Villareal is an intervention specialist and assistant professor at Ashland University in Columbus, Ohio.