Wisconsin Center for Education Research

Treatment Utility Grant Report

Student’sID#:2 Gender: Female

School: Elementary School 2 Grade: 3rd

Birth Date: Age: 8 yrs

Consultant: Lisa Hagermoser Teacher: Teacher 2

Date of Report: 6/12/02

Introduction

The purpose of this project entitled “Enhancing Treatment Utility in Instructional Consultation Problem Solving: Comparison of Alternate Assessment Technologies” was to identify and serve students in grades 1—3 referred by teachers for reading problems. Different methods of assessment were used to help teachers come up with intervention plans to serve these children with reading difficulties. Children who participated in the project were assigned to one of the following three assessment conditions: (1) Functional Analysis: a consultant collects information from the child’s teacher and identifies environmental circumstances that might contribute to the reading problem. (2) Traditional Condition: the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-educational Battery-III (WJ-III) is used to identify problems with thinking and academic skills. (3) Empiric Condition: the consultant and teacher identify the reading problem and then recommend an intervention plan based on empirically demonstrated treatment procedures outlined in the Learning Disability Intervention Manual (McCarney & Bauer, 1995). The manual lists different kinds of academic problems and potential solutions to these problems. The difference among the three assessment conditions is the kind of information used to develop a reading intervention program for the child. In all three conditions, a supervised school psychology graduate student met with the teacher regularly to help design and implement the intervention for the student, and regularly monitored the student’s progress. Student 2 was randomly assigned to the Empiric Condition.

The project is directed and supervised by Dr. Thomas R. Kratochwill and Dr. Jeffery P. Braden, who are professors in the Department of Educational Psychology. If you have questions about the project, you may contact Dr. Thomas Kratochwill and Dr. Jeffery Braden at the numbers below.

Background Information & Referral Concern

Student 2 is a third-grade, African American student attending Elementary School 2. She is cheerful, polite, and loves dogs. Student 2 worked with a reading support teacher in second grade and the first semester of third grade.

Reason for Referral: Teacher 2, student 2’s homeroom teacher, nominated her for this project due to her low reading skills. More specifically, teacher 2 noted that student 2 had difficulties with both sight words (e.g., words such as “because,” “don’t,” or “away” that students in the third grade should be able to read without hesitation) and comprehension (e.g., understanding what an assignment is asking her to do) at the beginning of third grade. Currently, student 2 is at grade level for sight words, but is still experiencing difficulty with reading comprehension.

Assessment Method & Results

Pre-referral Learning Problem Checklist Results. The “Pre-referral Learning Problem Checklist” is a checklist of the most common characteristics of learning disabilities identified by educators in the areas of listening, thinking, speaking, reading, writing, spelling, and mathematical calculation. Teacher 2 completed this checklist after the initial consultation interview. She indicated that student 2 exhibits the following academic problems related to reading: (a) fails to recognize words on grade level, (b) fails to correctly answer comprehension questions from reading activities, (c) has difficulty with phonics skills when reading, (d) fails to demonstrate word comprehension, and (e) reads words correctly in one context but not in another.

Intervention Plan & Goals

Intervention Plan. The academic problems identified on the “Pre-referral Learning Problem Checklist” by teacher 2 are each linked to a list of empirically supported interventions in the Learning Disability Intervention Manual. After reviewing the academic problems indicated and the interventions suggested by the aforementioned manual, the consultant chose three intervention strategies that both seemed appropriate to teacher 2’s classroom and targeted a majority of the academic problems identified by teacher 2. The consultant suggested the following intervention strategies to teacher 2 to help increase student 2’s reading comprehension:

  1. Use a sight word vocabulary approach in order to teach the student key words and phrases when reading directions and instructions (e.g., key words such as “circle,” “underline,” “match,” etc.).
  2. Have the student outline, underline, or highlight important points in reading material.
  3. Have the student identify words she does not comprehend. Finding the definitions of these words can then become the student’s dictionary assignment

Teacher 2 chose to implement all three interventions because she felt that each of the interventions would be appropriate for different classroom activities and assignments.

Intervention Goal. During the consultation interview, teacher 2 and the consultant developed and agreed on the following goal for student 2 using the Goal Attainment Scale (GAS) worksheet: Consistently perform with at least 80% accuracy when answering reading comprehension questions at a third grade level. At the time of the consultation interview, Student 2 was accurately answering approximately 50% of third grade level reading comprehension questions correctly.

Goal Attainment Scale (see Figure 1). Using the GAS worksheet, teacher 2 and the consultant established intervention goals for increasing student 2’s accuracy when answering reading comprehension questions. The goals ranged from “best possible” (+3) to “worst possible” (-3). For instance, a “best possible” rating of (+3) was recorded whenever student 2 answered 80% or greater of the third grade level reading comprehension questions accurately. A middle rating of (0) was recorded whenever student 2 answered 50% of the third grade level reading comprehension questions accurately. A “worst possible” rating of (-3) was recorded whenever student 2 answered 20% or fewer of the third grade level reading comprehension questions accurately. Teacher 2 rated these goals weekly, with the exception of the fifth week when teacher 2 was unable to rate student 2’s performance due to schedule conflicts.

Intervention Outcomes

The intervention plan focused on increasing student 2’s ability to independently comprehend what she reads. The progress of the intervention goal was evaluated through meetings with teacher 2, review of the GAS worksheet, and weekly curriculum based reading probes. Generalization of intervention effects across academic areas was monitored through weekly curriculum based math probes.

Goal Attainment Scale. The overall percentage ratings of the third grade level reading comprehension questions Student 2 answered correctly increased from (0) before intervention to (+1 and +3) during the implementation of the treatment plan (see Figure 1). Teacher 2 noted that the topic of the reading passage influenced student 2’s accuracy when answering comprehension questions. This variability in passage content is hypothesized to account for the variability in student 2’s performance throughout intervention. Generally, it appears that the number of comprehension questions answered correctly by student 2 increased from 50% before intervention to at least 60% during intervention regardless of passage content (see Figure 1).

Curriculum Based Measurement (CBM; see Figure 2). CBM reading probes were used to measure student 2’s reading performance rates weekly before and during the intervention. The reading probes were developed from third grade basal readers to monitor whether the intervention plan was affecting the targeted domain of reading and were administered and scored weekly by the consultant.

On the weekly CBM reading probes, the words read correctly per minute increased immediately after the introduction of the intervention. student 2 read an average of 56 words correct per minute during the three weeks prior to intervention. After the introduction of the intervention however, the student’s performance on the CBM reading probes improved; on average, student 2 read 83 words correct per minute. (see Figure 2). Overall, student 2’s performance on the reading probes indicates a gradual increase in the number of words read correctly.

CBM math probes were also administered weekly. Progress on these probes, indicated by the number of digits correct, were similar to student 2’s progress on the reading probes. On average, student 2 had 28 digits correct per 2 minutes prior to intervention and 40 digits correct per 2 minutes during intervention.

Figure1. Goal attainment scale ratings of reading comprehension accuracy before and during intervention.

Note: Teacher 2 was unable to rate student 2’s performance due to schedule conflicts during week five.

Figure 2. Words read correctly per minute on CBM reading probes and digits correct on CBM math probes before and during intervention.

Note. Pre-intervention scores for both math and reading CBM probes represent median scores.

Summary

Student 2 is a third grade student at Elementary School 2. She was referred to participate in this project by her teacher, teacher 2, due to her difficulty with reading comprehension. Using the “Pre-referral Learning Problem Checklist,” teacher 2 identified learning characteristics exhibited by student 2 that may have interfered with her reading comprehension. Analyzing these characteristics and the interventions recommended to remediate them by the Learning Disability Intervention Manual, the consultant recommended three interventions. Teacher 2 chose to implement all three interventions: (a) using a sight word approach to teach key words, (b) having student 2 outline, underline, or highlight important points in reading material, and (c) having student 2 identify and find the definitions of words she doesn’t know during a five-week intervention phase. The results indicate that the number of comprehension questions answered correctly and the number of words read correctly per minute on CBM reading probes generally increased, whereas the number of digits correct in two minutes on CBM math probes was more stable throughout baseline and intervention phases. Overall, it appears that the interventions used with student 2 for this project would be likely to also enhance her reading comprehension in the future.

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Lisa Hagermoser, B.A.Victor Moreno, M.S.

ConsultantSenior Project Assistant

(608) 265-9365(608) 262-3815

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Thomas R. Kratochwill, PhDJeffery P. Braden, PhD

Principal InvestigatorPrincipal Investigator

(608) 262-5912(608) 262-4586 (v/TDD)

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