Currently there are ninety middle schools implementing the MiBLSi multi-tiered model of support, in both behavior and reading. Middle School Leadership Teams from earlier Cohorts were centrally trained in Lansing. The 2010-2011 Cohort 7 Middle Schools will attend core trainings regionally with their MiBLSi Technical Assistance Partners (TAPs). Click for more information on TAP/Regional Coordinators. Cohorts 5 and 6 Middls Schools' Core Trainings are scheduled to be held in Lansing. For any questions regarding Cohort 5 and 6 trainings, please contact Angie Chirio at 586-228-3508 or achirio@misd.net.
SAVE THE DATE - Please check our regional calendar in the upper right hand corner of this page for Optional Focus Days for ALL MiBLSi Middle School Staff. Further information and registration will be sent directly to school principals and coaches.
“It is today we must create the world of the future.” Eleanor Roosevelt
“Families are an essential element in effective education, and even more so for effective behavior supports.” Rob Horner
“Motivating students is the foundation of all instruction.” Rob Horner
Rob Horner talks about implementation of Positive Behavioral Supports in middle schools, “the team often teaches the behavior expectation during the first couple of days of the school year. One consistent finding is that the time taken to teach behavior expectations is consistently less than would typically have been spent dealing with problem behaviors. The big idea is to invest in behavior ‘prevention.’ Teach what you want before the students fail. Remember also that the goal is to teach social skills in a way that all students not only know the expectation, but they know that everyone else knows the expectation. If this is done well, you find that students begin to expect appropriate behavior from each other. Developing a positive social culture is more than teaching students how to behave…it is about building a predictable, consistent, and positive environment where student-to-student interactions promote appropriate behavior.”
“According to The Nation’s Report Card fewer than one third of eighth graders read at a proficient level.” (U.S. Department o Education, National Center for Education Statistics, The Nation’s Report Card: Reading 2007)
- Ongoing difficulties with reading are a major contributor to adolescent drop out rates.
“A wealth of evidence shows that intensive, high-quality instruction can help struggling readers catch up to grade level. Additionally, all students need help building their literacy skills across the content areas to succeed.” (Alliance for Excellent Education Fact Sheet, February 2009. www.all4ed.org)
Focus on Instruction
The Six Essential Areas
- Reading Fluency
- Vocabulary Knowledge
- Domain-specific and domain-general content knowledge
- Higher-level reasoning and thinking skills
- Cognitive strategies that can be applied to enhance reading comprehension
- Motivation and engagement
Resources
Effective Instruction for Middle School Students with Reading Difficulties:
The Reading Teacher’s Sourcebook
The purpose of this booklet is to provide strategies to help general and special education teachers, speech and language pathologists, school counselors, para-professionals, and administrators (e.g., principals, special education coordinators) plan for and implement co-teaching during reading instruction in classrooms where a variety of learners are represented, including students with disabilities.
The content in this booklet has been influenced by current research on co-teaching and inclusion, a yearlong sustained conversation with four co-teaching teams, and our experience from observations in over seventy co-teaching classrooms. http://www.meadowscenter.org/vgc/downloads/middle_school_instruction/_RTS_Complete.pdf
Adolescent Literacy Walk-Through for Principals
– A Guide for Instructional Leaders
This guide from the Center on Instruction, designed to help principals monitor and support adolescent literacy instruction in their schools more effectively, can be used at the late elementary school level, in content-area classes in middle and high school, and with intervention groups or classes. It provides a scaffold to build principals' understanding of scientifically based reading instruction, as a means for a principal to gather information about the quality of literacy and reading intervention instruction in a school, and as a data collection guide for planning targeted professional development and resource allocation. It includes examples of what a principal might expect to see in a classroom as well as templates that states, districts, and schools may use or adapt. http://centeroninstruction.org/files/Adol%20Lit%20Walk%20Through.pdf
Effective Instruction for Adolescent Struggling Readers
– A Practice Brief
A body of research-based practices is emerging to guide instruction for adolescent struggling readers. This practice brief from the Center on Instruction focuses on the five reading components adolescents need to succeed in school and beyond. Each component - word study, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and motivation - discussed in terms of the available research, comparisons of successful and struggling readers' behaviors, and recommended instructional practices. The brief aligns with two Center on Instruction publications, Reading Interventions for Adolescent Struggling Readers: A Meta-Analysis with Implications for Practice (Scammacca et al., 2007) and Academic Literacy Instruction for Adolescents: A Guidance Document from the Center on Instruction (Torgesen et al., 2007). http://centeroninstruction.org/files/Practice%20Brief-Struggling%20Readers.pdf
Academic Literacy Instruction for Adolescents
– A Guidance Document from the Center on Instruction
This document developed by the Center on Instruction's Reading, Special Education and ELL Strands makes recommendations for improving literacy-related instruction in the content areas or across the entire school day, interventions for students reading below grade level, and recommendations for supporting literacy development in adolescent English language learners. Also included are comments from experts in response to questions about methods for improving academic literacy in adolescents and examples of state activities in support of improved adolescent literacy in California, Florida, Rhode Island, and Washington. http://centeroninstruction.org/files/Adol%20Struggling%20Readers%20Meta-analysis.pdf
Interventions for Adolescent Struggling Readers
– A Meta-Analysis with Implications for Practice
This suite of resources developed by the Center on Instruction has two purposes. First, it is designed to guide the delivery of instruction for adolescent struggling readers, particularly secondary interventions in the general education context. Second, it seeks to deepen technical assistance providers’ knowledge of reading-related issues for adolescents with reading difficulties and learning disabilities and enrich providers’ work with SEAs and LEAs. Detailing selected research-based instructional practices associated with positive effects for adolescent struggling readers, the suite comprises (a) a meta-analysis, (b) a practice brief, (c) a professional development module, and (d) training of trainers materials.
- Interventions for Adolescent Struggling Readers: A Meta-Analysis with Implications for Practice summarizes and synthesizes aspects of recent research on reading instruction for adolescent struggling readers to determine the relative effectiveness of interventions and outlines implications of these findings for practice. It focuses on interventions to improve students' reading vocabulary, accurate decoding of unfamiliar words in text, reading fluency and their use of reading comprehension strategies. A capacity building indicator (CBI) form is provided.
- Effective Instruction for Adolescent Struggling Readers: A Practice Brief takes the meta-analysis a step further for educators and decision-makers working in the field. It addresses the five reading components, compares successful and struggling readers’ behaviors, and describes effective school-based instructional practices. A capacity building indicator (CBI) form is provided.
- Effective Instruction for Adolescent Struggling Readers: Professional Development Module combines information from the meta-analysis and practice brief into an interactive presentation on effective, research-based instruction in secondary reading. It includes a PowerPoint presentation with speaker’s notes and a Facilitator’s Guide. NOTE: Depending on your Web browser, you may have to save the file to your computer in order to see the notes.
- The Training of Trainers PD Module is designed to train others to facilitate presentations of the Effective Instruction for Adolescent Struggling Readers: Professional Development Module. It contains all slides from the EIASR PD Module, presentation guidelines, and suggestions for customizing the PD for different audiences. A handout on customizing the PD is also provided.
The PBIS Compendium
– Middle School Lesson Plans
http://pbiscompendium.ssd.k12.mo.us/LessonPlans/MiddleMatrix.htm