Assessment

For this week, I chose to read Lose's article: A child’s response to intervention requires a responsive teacher of reading.  This article stresses the importance of EIS (early intervening services) and RIT (Response to Intervention) to aid in the promotion of literacy in children who struggle with learning disabilities.  It provides many principles that support the RTI approach, and ways to provide intervention early.  For teachers, it is important for them to consider certain principles to ensure that struggling learners achieve success.  The following as especially important for the RTI approach:

• Children come "by different paths to outcomes" in literacy

• A child who has been provided with the intervention he or she needs will respond successfully, making progress daily and learning how to lift his or her own literacy performance with skilled support from a knowledgeable teacher

• To be successful, the most struggling child requires the most expert teacher

• Teacher expertise requires high-quality, sustained professional development

Overall, it is important to remember that emphasis should be placed on early literacy interventions to help the children who struggle with literacy learning.

• Why do you think it is important to focus on these principles to strengthen literacy in struggling readers?
• What other ways can teachers help students struggling with literacy?