Challenges

By Janette Klingner, University of Colorado at Boulder

School personnel typically face many challenges when implementing RTI in culturally and linguistically diverse schools. Although many educators may be aware that second language acquisition, best practices for ELLs, and cultural variations should be considered when assessing student progress, designing interventions, and interpreting ELLs’ responses to interventions, they are not always confident that they have sufficient expertise to carry out these activities. In the next few posts on this blog, I will discuss a few of these challenges and how to address them.

Challenge 1: According to progress-monitoring data, many ELLs are not reaching benchmarks, many more than 20 percent of the ELLs in each class. It is not feasible to provide Tier 2 instruction to all of these students. 

Change instruction. When many students are not progressing with a particular instructional program, the first step should be to look for ways to make instruction more appropriate for culturally and linguistically diverse students. It is important: (a) to examine the program to determine if it has been validated with students like those in the class; (b) to determine whether instruction is at an appropriate level for students and the program is well-implemented; and (c) to establish whether teachers are sufficiently differentiating instruction to meet diverse student needs.

Determining how appropriate an instructional program is requires studying the program manual or research reports to find out how the program was developed and tested. What percentage of the students in the original sample (i.e., students who participated in the testing) were English language learners? If the answer is “none,” the instructional program is probably not suitable for these students. If the answer is less than half, do the researchers or program developers report how well the English language learners did with the program (separately from other participants)?

This is important because researchers can call a practice “effective” if only a small majority of the participants achieve better results with it. It is possible, and in fact likely, that some students actually did better with a comparison program. What if the students who achieved greater gains with an alternative program were the English language learners? It is important to find this out.

Determining whether a program is well-implemented necessitates observing in classrooms. This is essential. The program might be an appropriate one, but the teacher may be having trouble applying it with fidelity. Perhaps the teacher is struggling with classroom management and needs assistance in this area before he is able to focus more on instruction. Maybe the teacher has not established an environment that is conducive to learning or developed close relationships with her students. Or perhaps the teacher has not been trained in how to differentiate instruction (from Klingner, Méndez Barletta, & Hoover, 2008).

It very well could be that the teacher needs more professional development in how to teach reading to ELLs. Other teachers or support personnel in the school might provide the teacher with assistance through consultation, modeling demonstration lessons, or inviting the teacher to observe instruction in another class. A school culture that values this kind of collaborative support model and places a high priority on making sure teachers have the time and space for the sharing of expertise as part of a community of learners can go a long way toward improving practice.

Klingner, J. K., Méndez Barletta, L., & Hoover, J. (2008). Response to intervention models and English language learners. In J. K. Klingner, J. Hoover, & L. Baca (Eds.), English Language Learners who struggle with reading: Language acquisition or learning disabilities? (pp. 37-56). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Comments

[Jody Slavick]

Hi Janette,

How are you framing the discussion with low incidence schools around the issue of 80% of the students in the class meeting benchmarks at the universal level? In classes/schools where there are only a few ELLs, these are the students who often fall within the 20% not meeting benchmark oftentimes because teachers are not implementing ESL strategies in their instruction. While I understand that these strategies must be implemented to ensure access for ELLs to the core curriculum, how does a district ensure low incidence schools don't automatically place these students into interventions because they are not meeting the 80%?

[Janette Klingner]

This is an excellent question, and I really appreciate that you have brought it up. In the situation you are describing, where there aren’t a lot of ELLs in each classroom but ELLs seem to be the ones who are not reaching benchmarks and being moved to Tier 2 interventions, it is very important for a school leader to look at patterns of placement across classrooms.

In other words, it is important to get the “big picture.” If what you describe is occurring, and most if not all ELLs are being moved to Tier 2, then what I describe in response to this sort of challenge certainly applies. Most ELLs should be succeeding with instruction at the Tier 1 level. If classroom instruction with appropriate support for ELLs is occurring at the Tier 1 level, then most students should be thriving. As Doug and Lynn Fuchs emphasize, we should be looking at students’ rate of progress in comparison with “true peers” in addition to just whether students are reaching benchmarks.

Also very important is that some RTI researchers are suggesting that expected benchmarks and rates of progress might not be the same for English language learners as for English-only students (for example, see Linan-Thompson, Cirino & Vaughn, 2007). English language learners do progress when taught with well-designed and well-implemented interventions, but may need additional time.

-- Janette

Linan-Thompson, S., Cirino, P. T. & Vaughn, S. (2007). Determining English language learners’ response to intervention: Questions and some answers. Learning Disability Quarterly, 30, 185-195.

[Jenny]

This is an wonderful question, and I really appreciate that you have brought it up. A very important is that some RTI researchers are suggesting that expected benchmarks and rates of progress might not be the same for English language learners as for English-only students.

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Jenny
Drug Intervention New Mexico

[Kelly Hawn]

How do you feel on pulling English Language Learners for interventions on content areas that they are not successful, such as Vowac and math? Is the intervention to isolated and has no meaning for our ELL to learn?
Another question, how can you determine if an ELL has a learning disability or still learning the language?

[Nely Navas de Rentas]

I see a problem when the student walks in the door. I believe the language screening is not done properly. Only the English language is tested and educational history (past educational programs bilingual/non-bilingual) nor family history (older siblings that may be speaking English already) is not collected to better place the child in an appropriate general ed classroom or bilingual classroom or even identify a dominant language. The child may have a language deficit in both languages the native and English. Then what? Please comment.