Discussion 1 : Response to Intervention

Mary Quest, an early childhood teacher of 15 years, has shared two narratives of her experiences with response to intervention (RTI). After reading Chapter 3, Chapter 4, and the two case narratives below, describe what you see as both the strengths and challenges of RTI.

How do you see children getting the support and services they may need through RTI? As you read the following case studies what would you like to learn more about? If RTI is new to you, what have you learned? If you have experience with RTI, what can you share about your experience with RTI?

Case One:

Within the first few weeks of school, I knew was going to need extra support with a student named Joshua. Having been teaching in Early Childhood for 10 years, it was very apparent that his receptive and productive language skills needed support. He only repeated phrases that the other students or I had used right before.

He didn't speak using any original words or phrases (not even one or two words) and repeated questions back to me rather than answer them. (Even "what is your name?", "how old are you?", etc.). He had not attended preschool and the family had just moved into the district from another state before school started.

I was asked to wait until a month or two into the school year, but then in October, I decided to bring my concerns to the team which included a speech pathologist, social worker, OT, PT, and special services coordinator.

Several of them came into the classroom to observe, and the speech pathologist started some basic language assessments, which tested both productive and receptive language in the developmental range of a two-year-old. RTI requires that you try various interventions in the classroom before going into a full referral process; so I was given cards with objects on them to work with him in the classroom on naming objects.

I was also asked to document his language and keep work samples. As you can guess, the anecdotal records I kept showed little to no improvement in his language, and his work was not within the range of Kindergarten expectations. He also started to receive speech intervention at that time since you can get speech services without a full referral or an IEP, and the speech pathologist also felt that there was very limited improvement.

We met again with the rest of the team after trying the interventions for a few months. The parents had been involved in the process and seemed willing to do whatever the school suggested to help him. The team did not want to pursue a full assessment and go through the IEP process until we had tried other classroom interventions.

I expressed my concern for the best interest of the student. I enlisted some volunteer help from a former parent to work with him one-on-one three times a week. After documenting very little improvement, it was finally approved in April, and he was given a full assessment (IQ, behavioral checklists, OT/PT, speech, cognitive ability, etc.).

Joshua qualified for services in May. The last three weeks of the school year, he was receiving services.

Case Two:

The other student was a boy named Max who had been progressing well socially until about February. He started hitting and generally being disruptive to the other students and me (yelling and rolling around on the floor during group and center time, refusing to participate, interfering with other students' work, etc.).

Some of the expectations for the length of time in a whole group and working in centers had been increasing as the school year went on and he seemed to struggle with that. He was a very kinesthetic person beyond just being a five-year-old. I had tried several things to help him manage his own behavior, which didn't work.

I approached the team with my concerns about his behavior and what I had tried thus far. I did not feel that he needed a full referral or IEP, but was hoping for some suggestions for interventions to try with him. The school social worker and the occupational therapist both observed. The OT saw that he seemed to need to move after a certain amount of time and suggested that I try a picture schedule to help him to manage his own behavior.

I gave him a paper schedule with pictures to represent each part of the day (broken into 15- to 30-minute segments like 'group time', 'centers', 'music class', 'choice time', etc.) with a space next to each picture for him to check off or put a sticker as each part of the day passed and he was able to keep his body under control.

This served two purposes in that he could have a clear sense of what to expect and not feel overwhelmed at the idea of keeping himself under control the whole day but rather for small segments of time, and it also gave him a legitimate reason to get up when he felt he needed to move. If I could see him getting antsy, I would say "Why don't you go check your schedule?" and he would get up and go. He would also voluntarily get up to look at it if he felt himself needing to move over time.

I keep anecdotal records of his improvements in behavior and brought it back to the team for a follow up. Because the suggested intervention was working, we did not need to put others into place. He relied on the schedule less and less as the school year was ending and became better able to manage himself for lengths of time.

Guided Response: Respond to two of your classmates. As you respond, what aspects of RTI did you find you agreed upon in your posts and in what ways did you see RTI differently? How does this help you think about how you might offer support and resources to a child in your classroom? Make some suggestions that your peer may want to consider in their assessments.

Discussion 2 : Environment

Read the article on creating supportive environments, "Including Children with Special Needs: Are You and Your Early Childhood Program Ready?

"Often in early childhood programs, the environment is seen as the third teacher as it guides and invites children to interact in various ways. As you reflect on this idea of the environment supporting children's play, list and describe in your discussion three ideas that you would implement from the reading into your classroom that will support all children (e.g., smooth and predictable transitions).

Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your classmates. As you think about these environmental changes, how do you see these supporting children's growth and development? Include how you see these environmental changes supporting physical, social-emotional, and cognitive domains.

Name one new idea you gained from reading your peer's work and how you might implement that change in an environment for young children. This might be a classroom, a museum, or a home setting. Give one suggestion to expand on their environmental strategies.

Week 2 - Journal

Choice Topic

Choose one of the following topics to write about:

When creating appropriate, individualized curriculum, it is important to remember that "fair" and "equal" are not the same thing. In other words, if all children are given the same thing, it might be fair, but when children are given what they need, it is fair.

For example, if a child is unable to sit at circle time, that child has the option to move outside the group and do something that will not disturb the group, or perhaps use a fidget toy during meeting time. In thinking about this, what does the idea of fair not being the same as equal mean in a classroom? Generate an example of a fairness issue and explain how you might resolve it.

Write about the first time you met a person with learning differences. As you think back to this experience, what did the adults say to you? What was implied and not spoken? What was spoken? How did their comments or actions affect how you saw or understood that person?

How might your own biases and possible fears of people with differences been shaped by some of these early experiences? What are some of your current fears or possible biases? What are some ways you can work to overcome these biases and fears? What is important for adults in classrooms to think about as they support all children in their classrooms?

It is important to think about how we frame or view all children. Therefore the idea of naming the person first and the difference second affects how we view children. For example, instead of saying "challenging children," we move to the idea of "children whose behaviors challenge our skills."

This shifts from the idea that children need to change to how we support each child and engage in a process with them. As you think about this, how do you see this idea affecting your work with children? If you are in a classroom, talk about how this idea might help to support a child with whom you are currently working?