RTI Tips for Teachers Part III

The final installment of my "Tips for Teachers" helps you find ways to implement RTI and document your interventions.  I mentioned my documentation forms in the previous post, but I'll link them again at the end of the post.  I also mention in the image below that interventions should be researched based.  Are you covering yourself?  In other words, do you know for certain that what you do with your students can be backed up by research?  This is where instructional coaches can really help you out. They can help you to research the best ways to help your kids. They should offer intervention ideas that are proven by research.

Another idea for your RTI approach is to help your kids take part in their own learning.  Beyond sitting in class and participating in small groups, have your kids set learning goals for themselves. Help them to understand their objectives and to document their progress. You could use a form such as the one below to allow them to color their assessment scores. (Again, linked at the bottom of the post.)

The last tip is self-explanatory.  Does your team work well together?  Do you collaborate on how to help kids?  It is an integral part of RTI.  We all need support! Offer support and receive it.

Progress Monitoring and Documentation {HERE}. 

RTI Tips for Teachers Part II

Here is the link to my progress monitoring pages on TPT if you are interested in some of the forms you see in any of the RTI posts!  

What's RTI Got To Do With It Part 1 (in a series of 10 teacher tips for RTI)

This is Part 1 in a series of reading RTI teacher tips.  If you are new to RTI or you would like to know more about it, I will be posting several tips (10 in all) during the next weeks and will also link you to some of the resources mentioned in the tips. I hope someone who has questions about RTI will find this helpful!

Goal Setting and Metacognition

It's about time!  I've been trying to make a new goal setting page for my kids for these past three months! I don't like the one I had last year, so I've redesigned. This one can be cut in half and used for math and language arts each week, or however you want! There a progress (self-monitoring) graph for assessments (or whatever), and two different RTI documentation pages for you.  There is something for every kid...because we work with ALL of them (high, strugglers, ELL, and everyone in between), right?  Part of metacognition is goal setting and planning, so it's all in here. 

Here's where you get all the pages

TPT or Buy Sell Teach!

Happy monitoring!! 

Big TPT sale starts December 1!!! 20% off most stores!  Get those shopping carts FULL! 

PLC's and Team Meetings

Our district has been training all of us on the use of PLC's (Professional Learning Communities) over these past two years.  Heard of them?  It really is an awesome way to work together.  I feel extremely fortunate.  As we go through the norms that guide our team meetings. we find that we already do so much of the PLC routine.  There are four of us on the third grade team this year.  We are friends who truly love to be together, so staying on topic is sometimes hard and we "rabbit-trail" because we love to hear what is going on in each other's lives, and besides, lunch is 20 minutes long and we don't get to talk long enough there.  But the thing is, I'm the lead teacher, and I've got to keep us on track.  It's really hard because I like to talk as much as the rest but I've got to make sure we accomplish what we need to do.  We've decided meeting once a week isn't enough to cover everything, so we're going to two meetings per week, mainly because we are planning more and more together.  That is pretty new for us. Maybe if we become more efficient at PLC's, we can accomplish more in shorter time.  In order to meet the norms we've established for our meetings, it's just taking longer right now. We stay together on the objectives (as much as possible), or "TEKS" as we call them in Texas, and most importantly, are all giving the same assessments to the kids.  If a student isn't doing well on a certain objective, we can talk about what we do to help kids succeed in our own classrooms.  We share, share, share activities and plans.  Everyone brings something to the table and it's been really awesome.  Were you waiting for me to say, "but..."?  No but.  It's really working.  We are focused, planning together, assessing in the same way, collecting data, sharing data.  I'm very excited to watch our test scores go up because I really believe this can't do anything but help.

I shared my forms for monitoring progress in a post about a week ago.  I use these to stay on top of which kids I've helped in small group and for how long.  I also let my kids see their progress graph page after each assessment, especially if they retake it.  It goes up every time, so they like coloring in a higher score after we've worked so hard to improve. Here's a link to the Progress Monitoring pages in case you missed it.  Data, if you use it, will change the way you teach.

Please share how your team works together collaboratively.  I'd love to hear how other PLC's work!

Cover Thyself

We are learning procedures for Guided Math and Daily 5 over these past weeks, and I've given a couple of assessments.  I'm already seeing how I have to start working with small groups, and there is no time to spare!  We just had a meeting with our principal on progress monitoring, and I was glad I had just created this page I plan to use.  I have also included another page for keeping track of which skills you are working on as well as time and date slots for  RTI documentation.  When I try to stay organized for RTI requirements,  I go right to these pages to see who needs work on which skill and which assessment they need to retake.  My kids are coloring in their own scores, setting goals for themselves.  We were fortunate enough to have a wonderful tutor last year who was so great at writing down things for me as we assessed and worked with kiddos, but I'm afraid I'm on my own this year, so I'm keeping these pages close at hand.  I use the Progress Monitoring page in an individual folder for each student (I put several of them in each folder for now and will add more later.)  Here's the link for my new (and I mean NEW, and needing more in it!)  TpT store.

Progress Monitoring and Documentation

And finally, another word from my mother. (I never knew how much she taught me as a young teacher until I started blogging; it's all coming back to me!)  My first year of teaching, she talked to me about documentation by telling me, "CYA."  No, that's not for texting "see ya."  It meant Cover Your ***.  Now, I don't talk that way, neither does my mom, but she was dead serious, so she made her point. Obviously, I never forgot it.  So friends, cover thyselves.  RTI documentation is serious stuff.