3. Portfolio of Implementation Showing Fidelity

I taught the Inference Strategy to a small group of 6 students in a Resource setting. All students are in Special Education and all but one are ESOL students. All of the students were working well below grade level in all content areas. The average reading for this group of learners is 2nd grade. Given their ability level, I had to move through this strategy at a much slower pace to ensure retention. The strategy was taught daily for 30 minutes over the course of 4 months.
Following the manual with consistency was easy and went well. The passages were often a struggle because of the ability level of my students as well as their lack of background knowledge.  Although, exposure to higher level passages was critical in creating confidence in their capabilities with passages that were above their instructional reading level. Generalization occurred every other week on passages that were on 3rd and 4th grade levels to build their confidence and ensure their ability to demonstrate their level of mastery on the strategy. We went through Passage 1 together as class, Passage 2 with a group, Passage 3 with a partner, and Passage 4 on their own. I used Passage 4 to determine their level of mastery and understanding.  Since, the students that I taught were working below grade level, I read the passage and the questions. This provided them with the opportunity to learn the strategy without the stress of the inability to read the passage.
Coaching was key in the development of my own confidence in teaching this strategy. Darlene provided feedback on ways that I could improve my delivery and instruction of the material. She was able to assist with ways that I could effectively deliver the instruction and overcome their learning deficits. I was concerned that my students would struggle with generalization and she was able to assist with locating material in other content areas and gave suggestions of ways that I could encourage them to generalize.

The classes I am showcasing are decided by needs based on a literacy data team meeting of myself, admin, strategy coach, SLP, and others.  One class is of 7th graders and the other is 8th graders.  The 8th graders who ones who are either coming out of a reading intervention as 7th graders and we felt needed a step down intervention in place or who had a writing intervention and the data on the state test shows they scored low in this category.  The 7th graders are a mix of sped and regular gen ed students who due to not being proficient on lexiles and not passing state tests earmarked them for a tier 2 intervention.  We monitor the class through walk throughs and by a shared data sheet.  Observations are debriefed with giving feedback to the teacher and even offering to co-teach or parallel teach in the class.

In our district, we have specific expectations regarding the KU strategies and at which grade levels they should be taught.  Originally, the plan called for the inference strategy to be taught at the eighth grade level.  All teachers at the training asked if they could begin teaching the strategy to sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students right away.  With that kind of enthusiasm, who could say no?  Everyone knows the need for this strategy and how desperately our students need it.