Academic Intervention Toolkits

Interventionists require the use of state-of-the-art, research-based methods and tools to promote achievement in hard-to-move students.  To support this work, we encourage each school to create a customized academic intervention toolkit.  To start this work, we have created several draft documents which are frequently updated to serve as models.  Within reading and writing, we have elementary, middle and high school academic toolkits created by our office.  For mathematics, a team of local math specialists has created a matheamtics intervention toolkit under the direction of the mathematics department.  We also share a useful mathematics toolkit from Washington State.  To access these documents, please go to the relevant link(s) below:

Elementary Academic Intervention Toolkit for Literacy,
click here
Middle School Academic Intervention Toolkit for Literacy, click here
High School Academic Interventio Toolkit for Literacy,
click here
NYCDOE Mathematics Toolkit,
click here
Washington State Mathematics Tookit,
click here

Note that our local toolkits are revised periodically to reflect new trends in the research literature as well as newly evaluated programs.  Look for updated toolkits in literacy and mathematics by the beginning of the school year.


Publications

The office of Academic Intervention produces a fact-filled newsletter in the fall and late spring entitled Sharing What Works. To see the current issue, access the link below:

http://schools.nycenet.edu/offices/teachlearn/SharingWhatWorksNOV07.doc

You will find regularly-featured authors, as well as a 'keynote' author in each issue.  In this particular issue, Dr. Katherine Garnett of Hunter College provides an in-depth piece on methods to build vocabulary in struggling students.


Web-Based Resources for Educators

Teachers today enjoy a treasure trove of resources on the internet.  The following are a few worth-a-look links by category.

Early and Elementary Grades Literacy Links

• Aaron Shepard's home page provides teachers with resources for Reader's Theater (wonderful for building fluency, vocabulary and comprehension).  Click on http://www.aaronshep.com/ to access.
• Ken Campbell (of Great Leaps) has updated his web site and I think you will find it quite useful.  To help you determine a student's readability level, he gives you text pieces from many authentic texts in a broad range of levels to use a placement guides.  I would also use them with students to determine interest in a particular book since these are popular titles.  To access, just click on http://members.cox.net/gholman3/Reading6-12/index.html.  These are useful across all of the grades.

• Chris Biffle will take you by surprise with the methods he uses to enhance student comprehension.  Be sure to see the YouTube footage in which you will see students demonstrate his method of dramatizing narrative. Click on the links below:

  • www.youtube.com/chrisbiffle 
  • http://homepage.mac.com/chrisbiffle/Menu38.html 
  • http://www.powerteachers.org/ 
• For a wonderful on-line library of children's literature, be sure to access the Brownxville Public Library's web site at 
  http://www.villageofbronxville.com/subd2_childrensroom.htm. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click where it says Tumble Book Library.  Then choose a book you want to have read to you. (Then be sure to hand it over to your students!  You and they will have a hard time tearing yourselves away.)
• Similarly, the International Children's Digital Library will provide you with additional high-quality literature for classroom use.  You can access via

   http://www.childrenslibrary.org/.

Adolescent Literacy Links

• A very useful link for those interested in this area is the web site of the Alliance for Excellent Education which you can link by clicking on http://www.all4ed.org/.  In addition to a variety of publications (including Reading Next, Writing Next, and Content Area Literacy), be sure to look at their 'events' section for full video footage of their conference presentations. 
•  Visit the Study Guides and Strategies website http://www.studygs.net/ and its latest developments helping learners to succeed.
  The resource is freely accessible and includes 120 topics are divided into 15 sections:  Learning; learning with others; study and classroom skills; reading, writing, and testing guides; project management; etc.

Mathematics Links

• Secondary-level students in need of mathematics intervention can benefit from seeing repetitions of models of mathematics concepts. By accessing http://www.csm.astate.edu/algebra/qform.html you can provide students with an animation of the derivation of the quadratic formula fo rthe roots of ax² + bx + c =), an essential building block in the teaching and learning of algebra. This brief animation is best supported when teachers review the properties at each step.  Special attention should be provided for those steps where the student is asked to complete the square.
• The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives at Utah State University has interactive, Web-based K-12 math manipulatives: http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html

Other Resources 

Harvard University offers an excellent resource cache of full video footage of recent lectures on various thought-provoking topics in education.  The forums can be viewed online through the following link:
http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news_events/webcasts/index.html 

Dr. Esther Klein Friedman, director of the Office of Academic Intervention, hosts a listserv for individuals interested in topics within academic intervention, including research and resource links in diverse content areas.  These are sent out as mailings, typically a few each week. The large list of members includes administrators, teachers, inquiry team members, UFT Teacher Center staff, coaches, members of academia and other educational organizations, and staff at Central,  If you would like to be placed on this mailing list, please send an e-mail to Dr. Friedman at efriedm@schools.nyc.gov requesting to be placed on this listserv.  Please specify your full name, affiliation and the e-mail address where you would like the mailings to be sent.

Open Courseware and Other Web Links

Open courseware is the new frontier in web-based resources.  Essentially these are on-line professional development resources which you can use as needed by individuals, study groups, or as professional development content for schools. A large variety of open-courseware options exist and can provide rich resources for professional development both for schools and for individual educators.  Open courseware is typically free. As with any information provided in such a way, we encourage you to be critical consumers.  A few interesting new links offering open
courseware include the following:

• IRIS Center at Vanderbilt University creates instructional modules for universities to use as part of a course syllabus, but these modules can also be valuable for in-service professional development and typically focus on methodology useful for both intervention and special education needs.  You can access a wide range of modules by clicking on (http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/ ). If you have any questions concerning the IRIS materials, please contact Kim Skow at 866-626-4747, kimberly.a.skow@vanderbilt.edu, or iris@vanderbilt.edu.
  
• You can access a comprehensive, no-fee course in reading called, aptly, Free Reading.  This course targeted towards teachers of the early grades provides a full course in beginning reading that might be particulary useful for academic intervention providers.  This course particulary emphasizes activities that teach phonological awareness and decoding skills.  Actual video training modules demonstrate the methodology.  To explore this course, point your browser to http://www.freereading.net/index.php?title=Main_Page. 

We will be sharing other open courseware resources with you periodically.

Professional Development Opportunities from the Office of Academic Intervention

This June has seen the close of a highly successful year of professional development offerings in a wide range of academic intervention topics.  From last August until now, the Office of Academic Intervention has sponsored eighty-two events serving 1,699 registrants.  These events covered a range of topics within academic intervention, including targeted assessment, developing phonological awareness skills, multiple perspectives in developing decoding ability -- from Words Their Way to Orton-Gillingham, strategies to develop fluency, vocabulary and comprehension, as well as a wide range of topics in mathematics intervention. 

All of our workshops are designed to offer a 'learn and use' experience.  Join us at these worthwhile and lively events designed to offer educators targeted resources designed to move student achievement.

We are working on events for the fall term which we know will be useful in moving student learning and achievement.   Our professional development offerings are typically advertised in Principals Weekly.  For information about upcoming professional development opportunities or other questions you may have, please contact Dr. Esther Klein Friedman at efriedm@schools.nyc.gov. 

Recipe for Reading Workshop
Elementary schools / Event: May 9

Focus on Fluency Workshop
Grades 5 - 8/ Event: May 22

Soliloquy Fluency Builder Workshop
Elementary and middle schools / Event: May 29
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