8 Tips for Implementing RTI in the Middle School ELA Classroom

I've been MIA since school started. All educators know what that's like. The school year is simply too busy for us to keep up with extras like blogs. Thank goodness for the weeklong Thanksgiving break -- we get a breather, a minute to relax, and a minute to write a blog post.

Time is all we need

Lack of time is one of the biggest issues secondary teachers face when it comes to conducting small-group interventions. I was lucky to teach at campuses with double-blocked ELA classes (90 minutes!), but not all campuses in my district follow that schedule. Several have class periods that are roughly 50 minutes long, and once you subtract minutes for settling in, administrivia, housekeeping, and the like, those classes are more like 40 minutes, on the generous end.

I've been working with a new teacher to help her get small groups for RTI started, and last week when I co-taught with her, I was hit with an eye-opening reality check. Those 50 (or really 40) minutes absolutely fly by, and it can seem virtually impossible to carve out time for interventions.

That reality check got me to thinking long and hard about how middle school campuses can effectively implement RTI, and I've come up with some tips -- all of which I would be following if I were still a classroom teacher.

1. Shorten the length of your whole-class direct instruction.

This may require a paradigm shift for many teachers, as it calls for a whole new way of thinking about lesson planning. But think about it this way: If your whole-class instruction (the "I do" part) is cut to 15 minutes or less, and guided practice (the "we do" part) is about 15 minutes, that leaves 15-20 minutes for independent practice (the "you do" part). And it is during this independent practice time that you can maximize student learning by pulling a small group for a targeted intervention.

2. Consider flipping the classroom.

The flipped classroom design has its disadvantages (not all students have Internet access at home, many middle school students simply will not do the at-home assignments, etc.), but if you can give students even just a portion of the "I do" part of the next day's lesson to do at home, you save yourself a few valuable minutes that can be spent on guided and independent practice during class -- which means you'll also open up more time to pull small groups.

3. Invest in stations.

Some secondary teachers may view learning stations as an "elementary thing," but I can tell you from first-hand experience that middle schoolers love them and they were about the best thing I ever did in my classroom. I often set up literacy stations with reading and writing activities that were fun for my kids (and for me!). They included board games, card games, fun writing prompts, and reading response activities. This always took more time to set up on the front end, but the results were unarguably positive: Students were engaged in the activities (didn't even realize they were actually learning while playing); the class time had built-in brain breaks, because students were rotating every 12-15 minutes to a new activity; and it freed me up to pull small groups. With station rotations, you have a couple of options for RTI. You can oversee the whole class as they work in their groups, and when the time is right, you can go work with specific groups of students who need intervention. Or you can make one of the stations a guided-reading-with-the-teacher station, which is what I did quite often. That way, all groups eventually rotate through to me, and I can intervene for the struggling kids and extend for the stronger readers. (This required pregrouping based on data.)

4. Take advantage of SSR time.

Through recent classroom observations, I have seen many teachers using SSR in the classroom (yay!!). But in all cases, the teacher sat and read independently as well. While this is a good practice because it shows students that the teacher values reading for pleasure as well, in that 20-minute SSR period, the teacher could have easily worked with a struggling reader or two while everyone else read silently. During my grad-school program, I did extensive research on SSR, and one of my findings was that a more structured SSR period -- in which the teacher holds reading conferences with individual students or pulls small groups for interventions -- was more effective and beneficial for students. Perhaps the teacher can read silently with her students for 5-10 minutes to show her passion for reading, but then she can swing by the desk of a few students and have a quick reading conference, work with a student on fluency, give a quick mini-lesson on using context clues, or pull a small group for a targeted intervention.

5. Put students with partners.

One way to shave time off of guided practice and independent practice is to have students work with a partner. Many secondary teachers scoff at this idea because they feel that middle school children need to learn to work efficiently on their own. Indeed, when I first started teaching, I was under the tutelage of a quite brilliant veteran teacher who believed in rows and silent independent work. I tried to follow in her footsteps, but over the years I observed that kids really do learn better, learn more, and learn faster when they are given opportunities to be collaborative. And so one year I finally did away with rows permanently, and from then on out, I had my desks arranged in groups of 3 or 4, and sometimes pairs -- but never rows (except during testing, of course). After your direct instruction, when students practice the skill with your help and then apply the skill without your help, if they work with a partner (or in a small group, even), they can complete the assignment in less time than if they had to navigate it alone.

6. Use timers religiously.

This may sound like such a simple thing, but sometimes this happens: You teach and teach and teach, and before you know it, it's time for the bell and you're only halfway through the day's lesson plan, and you wonder where the time went and why nobody finished their work. When you plan your lesson, you should pace it out and set a time limit for each portion of the lesson. Then stick to those times as best as you can. Use your phone -- or better yet, one of those handy online timers that you can display for your students. Yes, interruptions will happen, things will need to be retaught or explained more than you originally thought, but at least by using a timer for every activity, you have a guide to go by. And later you can analyze where the time went. Setting time limits will allow you to plan time for interventions.

7. Hand over some power.

Elementary teachers seem to have this down -- all routine classroom chores are delegated, every child has a job, and the teacher is free to teach. By turning over the mundane tasks (sharpening pencils, handing out journals, moving desks, gathering textbooks, or even turning on the projector), your classroom can run like clockwork without you at the helm every second of the class period. So while you are working with a small group of intervention students, someone else is in charge and students can handle little issues that arise. You won't have to stress and try to rush through an intervention lesson thinking that you still have to do X, Y, and Z, because you will have students whose job is to do X, Y, and Z for you.

8. Be realistic.

Understand that you will not be able to meet with all RTI groups every day. Get yourself a planner and set up a realistic schedule. Decide which students need the most help, and plan to meet with them for 10-12 minutes two or three times a week. Once you get started and ease into a routine, you can add on groups of your middle-tier students. Contrary to the pressure that society tends to place on teachers today, we are not all-powerful. So you do what you can with what you have.

Some ideas for intervention lessons

* Use your district's most recent benchmark exam and do a guided reading on a passage students had the most trouble with.
* Use a lower-lexile version of a text the whole class is reading and target a specific skill your intervention kids need help with.
* Try word work. Many struggling readers are struggling because of gaps in their learning -- they're missing basic phonics skills or elementary vocabulary and grammar skills. In my TPT store, I have a bundle of word work and word puzzle activities designed to help fill those gaps. You can access it by clicking on the picture:

I would love to hear how other secondary teachers are making time for RTI! Leave a comment below.