Education Week: RTI Said to Pay Off in Gains for English-LearnersChula Vista, Calif.
Fernando Lujo and Hector Martinez are only in 1st grade, but already educators at Lillian J. Rice Elementary School have mapped out different instructional paths for them.
A few months ago, both of the English-language learners had limited awareness of how to sound out words, according to a screening test. Fernando was assigned to an hourlong intensive reading “clinic” four days a week and was soon reading on grade level, so he graduated from the extra lessons last month. Hector was put in the reading clinic as well, but made only limited progress, so the school’s reading expert now meets with him one-on-one for a half-hour four days a week.
Educators here in the Chula Vista Elementary School District determined what kind of instruction the boys needed through a “response to intervention” process, which provides extra help to struggling students with an aim of reducing the number of referrals to special education. As RTI catches on throughout the country, the district is on the cutting edge in its focus on how the approach applies to English-language learners, who make up 36 percent of the K-6 district’s 27,450 students.