CEC presentation by Rollanda O’Connor on Supporting ELLs in RTI- K-3rd
Rollanda O’Connor, researcher and faculty member fromt he University of California Riverside is providing a very rich perspective on RtI for ELLs with clear guidance for K-3 grade teachers — bridging research and practice at the Council for Exceptional Children Conference in Denver, CO.
Some recommendations:
1. Teach patterns in the 100 most common words: th, or, ch, wh, ee, al, ou, er, ar– match this to the 100 most common words
2. Interventions for second grade recommendations: common letter patterns and fixes, fluency (if we can increase 20 words increase we increase comprehension level) for ELLs this is usually slower so fluency is CRITICAL! conversations and justifications — why do you think that…..? type questions
3. evaluate of reading fluency and accuracy is important–
4. Work on common affixes– inflected endings: -ed, -ing, -s, -es
prefixes
5. In 2nd and 3rd grade work on morphemes– meaningful parts of words– improves decoding, spelling, and reinforces word meanings- ex. “not” — un, dis, in, im (disloyal, unaware, invisible”
6. Work on cognates– for English/Spanish– google for list of cognates ex. adult/adulto, enter/entrar, intelligence/inteligencia– there programs that you can purchase but you can start with a google search for the lists
7. Examine multi-syllable words and refer back to morpheme work
8. Create exit criteria for ELLs that is a bit higher that reported– always ensuring access to RtI
She emphasizes from her research outcomes that there is a cost of waiting to provide Tier 2 supports for ELL and that we will get a significant boost if we start preventive Tier 2 interventions in K and have better outcomes by 3rd grade even above English only students! WOW– we have a lot of promise.
9. In K use pictures in phonemic awareness and stretch blending so that it sounds more like music than chopped up sounds
If we start we have 25% less of students needing later support or being identified for special education if we start in K!
This research suggest we can close the achievement gap by having similar identification rates for ELLs as English only students if we adopt early intervening
Under identification in lower grades, over identification in upper grades– can be prevented!
