UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS: Juniper Gardens Children's Project

Center for Early Intervention in Reading and Behavior to Improve the Performance of Young Children

Debra Kamps, Charles Greenwood, Mary Abbott, Cheryl A. Utley, and Carmen Arreaga-Mayer

The Center for Early Intervention in Reading and Behavior to Improve the Performance of Young Children is one of two research centers investigating models of reading and behavior interventions for students in Grades K-3. The center aims to establish a model program with a multiple-gate, school-wide assessment procedure with multiple-level, evidence-based behavior and reading interventions. The center is targeting children at risk for or diagnosed with emotional and behavioral disorders and learning disabilities, who attend urban and suburban culturally diverse schools. Participating schools include eight intervention and seven wait-list control elementary schools in Kansas and Missouri.

The center's primary, secondary, and tertiary interventions are as follows:

• At the primary level, all students participate in a general curriculum of key early literacy skills and are exposed to school-wide positive behavior support (PBS). School-wide PBS is an intervention in which school teams, including parents and families, develop school-wide and individualized procedures to prevent and decrease inappropriate behaviors and increase appropriate behaviors.

• At the secondary level, students not making progress in reading receive instruction and peer tutoring in small groups using the primary curriculum. Students identified as at risk for emotional and behavior disorders and students requiring additional behavioral support receive classroom-based interventions (e.g., instruction on classroom compliance, reinforcement of compliance, cooperative behavior management, class-wide self-management, etc.).

• At the tertiary level, students requiring intensive reading interventions receive long-term, small-group instruction and intensive one-to-one reading interventions using the Language Arts Multi-sensory Program (LAMP). Students requiring intensive behavioral support receive individualized interventions based on functional behavioral assessments.