About the authors: Julie Tollefson is editor of the Strategram and Stratenotes publications of the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. Sue Woodruff is a Special Education Teacher Consultant in Muskegon, Michigan. This article originally appeared in the March 1998 issue of Strategram, a newsletter for SIM teachers.
Sue Woodruff and a team of strategic teachers in Muskegon, Michigan, are glowing.
Their glow is a reflection of well-deserved praise heaped on them in a recent report from the North Central Association Outcomes Accreditation Team. The report, which lauds the Strategic Instruction Model and the efforts of the teachers to improve the reading skills of students at Muskegon High School, is the culmination of an exhaustive three-year improvement process undertaken at the school.
The School Improvement Team, with Sue as co-chair, chose to pursue an outcomes accreditation goal that involved extensive data collection and analysis. The process also required that the team define specific target areas for improvement and measures of success in those areas. Reading improvement was selected as one of the target areas.
The challenges facing those charged with improving reading were significant. Assessment tests indicated that half of the 400 ninth-graders at Muskegon High School read below grade level. One-third of the 400 students read significantly below grade level. The school has defined "significantly below grade level" as two or more years behind.
In considering these challenges, the Communications Committee became interested in the Strategic Instruction Model because of tremendous gains noted in a group of students with learning disabilities who had been instructed in some of the reading strategies. The committee devised a "SIM intervention" as a way of reaching low-achieving poor readers within their English classes.
Students were pretested, needs were determined, and general education classroom teachers received feedback on students' reading levels. As a result of all this preparation, small groups of students were identified to participate in the SIM intervention.
English teachers released the students to a "strategies" classroom for four to six weeks. Upon completion of the strategies instruction, the strategies teacher provides a full accounting of attendance and a progress report for the general education English teacher. The English teacher accepts the grade given by the strategies teacher. The student is not responsible for work missed in the English classroom while he or she is working in the strategies classroom.
Strategies instruction begins with the Word Identification Strategy, known as "DISSECT." The teachers then teach students the reading comprehension strategies: Visual Imagery, Self-Questioning, and Paraphrasing.
The number of students working in the strategies classroom varies depending on the activity.
"We have found that, with DISSECT, a ratio of 1 to 4 is optimal so that time is used wisely and students get daily feedback," Sue said.
Reading comprehension groups can be a little larger.
"Our strategies teacher is incorporating the literature or story being used in class into practice and modeling. That way, students see how to use the strategies with their own materials. We are really excited about this approach," Sue said.
During the 1995-1996 school year, the first year of the SIM intervention program, the equivalent of a half-time teacher was available most of the year for strategies instruction, and 55 students were served.
Mary Ann LaGuire, the lead teacher for the first two years of the program, helped get the program off the ground. Mary Ann won an Excellence in Education award because of the special way in which she has touched student's lives.
During the second year, the program was expanded. Strategies teachers served 75 students. Also during the second year, the strategies team placed posters featuring the DISSECT steps in each classroom, and each student who successfully mastered the strategy received a DISSECT notepad to help cue him or her to use the newly learned strategy in general education classes.
This year, the third year of the intervention, 2.7 teachers have worked with 40 to 50 students, so far.
"We've been blessed with consistency this year," Sue said. "Instead of different teachers from hour to hour, we have three consistent strategies instructors. All three have education backgrounds--Jan Graham has a master's degree in reading, and both Kathy Lutkus and Marilyn Whitlow are high school English teachers."
The Communications Committee found that with excellent administrative support, as well as the cooperation of all of the English Department staff, the strategies intervention directly affected the students needing help in reading the most. The committee has been able to document incredible success with the students who complete the intervention. In 1995-1996, the pretest showed an average reading grade level of 5.7. After the intervention, the posttest indicated an average grade level of 9.6, an increase of 3.9 grade levels. In 1996-1997, pretest scores 6.7 compared to a posttest of 9.8, an increase of 3.1 grade levels.
"The visiting North Central team raved about the intervention and how we operated it," Sue said.
It certainly did. Consider these excerpts from the accreditation team's official report:
"The curriculum at MHS has been positively impacted by the SIM, a pullout program that is being embraced by the MHS staff and administration. Students involved in the SIM have expressed favorable attitudes toward the program's effectiveness."
"The committee should be proud of their accomplishments over the last five years," the report continues. "It is their belief and the belief of the visiting team that significant gains have been made in communications. SIM has served as a staff rallying point, and with continued hard work and administrative support, will be a reading intervention program paying big dividends for MHS students."
The committee's enthusiasm for the SIM intervention didn't end with its report, however. The two co-chairs of the visiting team and the reading chair visited the strategies room and talked with the students and with Sue. As a result of this visit, reading chair Dennis Hunt, who teaches developmental reading to low achieving students in Battle Creek, Michigan, wants to be trained and both of the co-chairs of the visiting team want people in their buildings to be trained as strategy teachers.
The visiting team members also conducted a large public meeting, attended by school board members and central administrators, in which team members sang SIM's praises.
"They talked directly about the power they were seeing with the SIM program. I was so thrilled! The efforts are really beginning to pay off for us at Muskegon High School," Sue said.
Sue gives her principal, Arlyn Zack, high marks for his support of the SIM intervention. When funds were cut, preventing him from hiring two strategies teachers, Arlyn rerouted money from other parts of his budget just to get the program started. Funding has since been restored, resulting in a greater ability for the school to serve its students. Arlyn and Sue are planning a SIM presentation to the school board in April or May.
Each year sees changes in the strategies intervention program and in plans for its future.
This year, Kathy and Jan have personalized the "strategies" room. A collection of frogs decorate the room and remind students to DISSECT!
"We would like to expand even further to work on writing strategies," Sue said. One of the English teachers, who taught DISSECT last year in this program, is teaching PENS and SCRIBE to her students. She reports that it 'just makes so much sense to the kids.'"
Students often come back to the strategies classroom to visit once they have returned to their general education English class.
"Many times, students indicate that they would like to stay, relishing the good feelings associated with pride in their accomplishments," Sue said. "That is when we explain that the most important part is yet to come. These students have new skills to use. We explain how important generalization is, and timidly, but more self-confidently, they return to English class."
Several students have chosen to become "strategies aides." Sue describes them as students who have really internalized DISSECT and are willing and anxious to work with others. The aides provide encouragement and reinforcement and can listen and record errors.
"Teachers still provide feedback, but the teachers who have used aides have found them invaluable!" Sue said.
Sue, who is the special education teacher consultant in the building, finds the students aren't the only ones to benefit from the strategies intervention.
"I love what I'm doing," she said. "I'm able to work with both teachers and kids. I've found the best way to help new strategies instructors is to work side-by-side with a group from start to finish. I learn more every time.
"These teachers give me great ideas and we share materials and thoughts. It's exciting to go to work every day because we feel like we are really making a difference!"
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