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Explore by Role: Title 1

• How should students be grouped?

  The most effective use of instructional time that teachers who serve students eligible for Title 1 funds provide is to teach specific deficit skills. An effective approach is to employ a medical model to identify student deficits and place students in groups according to missing skills.  The medical model can be used when there are two phases of assessment; the first step is to assess with a curriculum-based assessment such as DIBELS or AIMSWeb to identify area of need  followed by a phonological awareness or phonics diagnostic assessment to pinpoint the specific missing skills.
  
  Download this document to see an example of the specificity of a phonics diagnostic assessment.
  

• How can I plan instruction to master missing skills in a sequence or order?

  One of the most sacred times of the day for students who are eligible for services provided by Title 1 funding is small-group instruction. For many students this is the only time of the day when the group size is small enough that they can receive feedback and correction. It’s imperative to use this time to shore up missing skills one by one until they are mastered.
  
  Download this document to see a sequence of phonological awareness and phonics skills from simplest to most complex.
  
  

• What are the characteristics of effective intervention instruction in literacy?

  Small-group intervention instruction is different from whole class instruction.  Download this document to see a list of the 6 most important characteristics of intervention instruction that is effective.