UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS - AUSTIN

Preventing Reading Difficulties: A Three-Tiered Intervention Model

Vaughn Gross Center for Reading and Language Arts
Sharon Vaughn, Sylvia Linan-Thompson, and Batya Elbaum

The Center for Preventing Reading Difficulties is one of two centers investigating reading intervention models for students in Grades K-3. The center aims to guide the implementation and evaluation of a multiple-level program to prevent reading disabilities. The center is targeting all students,not simply students identifed as not making adequate progress in regular classroom reading instruction. Participating schools include eight elementary schools within the Austin, Texas, and Del Valle, Texas, areas.

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

• At the primary level, all students receive classroom instruction in the skills for successful reading development specific to their grade level (e.g., oral language development, phonological awareness, alphabetic understanding, word study, spelling, listening and reading comprehension, written expression, etc.). Teachers instruct students (using grouping, mastery teaching, and scaffolding) and monitor students reading progress.
  
  
• At the secondary level, staff provide students identified as needing further reading instruction with supplemental instruction (i.e., phonological awareness, word study, supported reading, fluency building, and writing, including modifications for English language learners). Students are grouped according to their reading abilities, with four students per teacher, and receive outside classroom reading instruction for 35 minutes, 5 days per week, for 10 weeks.
  
  
• At the tertiary level, students not responding to secondary intervention also receive supplemental instruction outside the classroom, in groups of four students to one staff member, 5 days per week, but for longer periods of time. Students are grouped according to skill deficits and are taught using different content from that used in secondary-level instruction. Skill instruction continues until a mastery level is reached. Skill maintenance is assessed every 2 weeks.