How to Make an Impact in Your Intervention Programs

Intervention program is a term that is found in schools and districts all across the United States. They are designed to identify gaps in learning and close the achievement gaps of students from grade level to grade level.

During my time in the classroom, I was able to experience and be a part of such programs. While in my role as a district administrator, I planned and helped the implementation of school-wide intervention programs as well. I write all of this so that you, the reader, takes away what is important about these programs.

Illustration of kids Walking Across a Pencil School-wide strategies to support intervention programs, involve the entire school campus and are consistent across grade levels, teachers, teacher assistants, licensed staff, classified staff, parent volunteers, student volunteers, guest speakers…I think you understand where I am going.

It is not new to us. If you have decided to read this article then I invite you to take-away practical and easily applicable strategies that your entire school can use to help close the learning gaps that our students have sustained over the last few years.

Stop me if you have heard this one. “High-school could use a little middle school, middle school could use a little elementary school, 3-5 could learn from K-2, K-2 could use a dash of 3-5.”

As an educator, you have heard at least one if not all of these sayings uttered in a school improvement team meeting or a grade-level meeting. You may have been the individual to speak these words. If you have ever spoken any of these phrases or agreed with one of them, then you and I have a lot in common already.

In my opinion, all these phrases are telling us is that we should take what each grade-span or grade-level does wonderfully and make that the normal for the entire campus.

School-Wide Strategies to Enhance Student Growth Within Intervention Programs

Let us begin with identifying gaps in learning. Now, every school or school system that I have visited in the U.S. has a form of beginning, middle, and end of year benchmark or assessment.

Obviously, the beginning of the year benchmark is a starting point for identifying learning loss but it should not be the final way to assess student ability when beginning a new year. The good news is, as a school campus, you probably do not need to worry about designing this type of assessment as it is usually given to you to administer.

This allows you to focus on other areas/opportunities to further dig into what it is that your students are missing, when it comes to content area instruction, especially literacy and mathematics.

You know what K-2 teachers do extremely well? They incorporate small-group instruction into nearly every content area.

You know what else they do extremely well? They progress monitor their students throughout a lesson. They do something else very well, they conference with their students one-on-one.

I am not telling the reader of this article of something they do not already know. What I do want you to consider is making these practices a part of instruction and planning in across every grade level.

Small-group Instruction

A teacher can gain much more information about instructional gaps in a student during small-group instruction. The instruction that takes place in this setting is not only powerful but very telling. In my years, I have never once taught, observed, or heard of a student that would not tell a teacher what they didn’t understand or did not know in a group of their peers, a group where they felt comfortable and heard.

Progress Monitoring

Another strategy that has proven to reveal instructional gaps is providing progress monitoring opportunities in a timely, not rushed, manner. This is important as it allows the natural progression of the gradual release of responsibility model to flourish in the classroom.

One-on-One Student Conferences

The last identification strategy that I would like for you to consider is taking a few minutes out of the instructional day to have a one-on-one conference with a student(s) that you may suspect did not give you all of the formative assessment data you needed. It is important to note that during this time you are not asking leading or “yes/no” questions but questions that get to the root of possible instructional gaps or learning loss.

In the second school I was an educator, the art, music, physical education, media coordinator, remediation, and teacher assistants assisted classroom teachers in all of the areas I spoke about above. This was truly a wonderful experience to be a part of as it showed me the power and success of a cohesive school unit and truly represented the term “school-wide”.

Most people that are involved in education understand how precious time can be each and every year. So, it then becomes a priority of every teacher and administrator to get the most “bang for our buck” so to speak or as we in education know it as “high-yield instruction.”

9 High-Yield Strategies

Once school-wide strategies are in place to identify learning gaps, how do we gain more time in our academic year to bridge those gaps in learning? This is most definitely where the nine high-yield strategies for improving instruction and student achievement come into play. They are…

Identifying Similarities & Differences
Summarizing & Note Taking
Reinforcing Effort & Providing Recognition
Practice
Nonlinguistic Representations of Learning
Cooperative Learning
Setting Objectives & Providing Feedback
Generating & Testing Hypothesis & Questions
Advanced Organizers

As a district administrator in curriculum and instruction, if I could not find evidence of all nine high-yield instructional strategies in each lesson plan of a loss prevention program, I moved on from that resource.

My teachers did not have the planning time to develop these activities on their own. I spent the majority of my tenure in my past school district doing this work for them, and to be honest, it drained me completely.

But I knew that these strategies are where I would get the most “bang for my buck” as far as instructional time in an academic year was concerned. I also knew, that these high-yield strategies were for any content area and that was powerful as well.

School-Wide Vocabulary Strategies to Support Intervention Programs

I have plenty more strategies to share in the webinars that I host, but one school-wide learning loss reversal strategy that I want to share with you today revolves around a school-wide vocabulary initiative.

School-wide Vocabulary Initiative

In addition to word walls or word of the day that are often found in many classrooms, a grade level specific pacing to teach roots and affixes is something that can be planned and carried out very easily.

Take a look below at a couple of examples of grade-level breakdowns that I implemented in elementary schools and this concept will begin to make a bit more sense.

Prefix - A word part added to the beginning of a root or base word to create a new meaning,

Suffix - A letter or a group of letters added to the end of a root or base word to change its meaning,

Root - the form of a word after all affixes are removed
(Generally, prefixes and suffixes change the meanings of roots, but it is usually the suffix that denotes the part of speech.)

Kindergarten
Prefix	Suffix	Definition	Examples	Origin	Additional Information
	-s, -es	plural, more than one	hats, pigs, books, plays, boxes, wishes, dishes cliffs, roofs, beliefs knives, leaves, halves, selves	Anglo-Saxon	y after a vowel (s) words end in –s, -sh, -ch, -x, -z (-es) nouns ending –f or –fe (s) -f or –fe change –f to –v and add –es consonant followed by –o (-es) vowel followed by –o (-s)
	-less	without	careless, helpless	Anglo-Saxon
	-ed	past tense	jumped, helped	Anglo-Saxon	Past tense verb
	-ful	full of	beautiful, painful	Anglo-Saxon	Usually an adjective
re-		again/back	reread, rewrite, return	Latin
un-		not/opposite	unsafe, unlock, uncover	Anglo-Saxon
pre-		before	preschool, premade, pretest	Latin

3rd Grade
Prefix	Suffix	Root	Definition	Examples	Origin	Additional Information
in-			not	inactive, income	Latin
im-			not	impossible, improper, import	Latin	im- used before roots beginning with b, m, p
dis-			not/opposite of	dislike, distrust, disagree	Latin
tele-			far, distant	telephone, telegraph, television	Greek
mis-			bad or badly, wrong or wrongly	misbehave, misread, misspell	Latin
over-			too much, above	overdone, overhead	Anglo Saxon
de-			reduce down or away from	defeat, deform, decrease	Latin
under-			too little/below	underfed, underground	Anglo-Saxon
bi-			two	bicycle, binocular	Latin
tri-			three	tricycle, triangle	Latin/Greek
quad-			four	quadrilateral, quadrant	Latin
oct-			eight	octagon, octopus	Latin/Greek
anti-			opposite, against	antibiotic, antifreeze	Greek
	-ies		plural, more than one	parties, babies, cries	Anglo-Saxon	y after a consonant
	-ied		past tense	cried, tried	Anglo-Saxon	y after a consonant
	-ly		characteristic of	badly, friendly, quickly	Anglo-Saxon	Usually an adverb
	-y		characterized by/like	cloudy, fishy	Anglo-Saxon
	-er, -or		one who, that which	baker, boxer, conductor, survivor	Latin	Usually a noun Use –or with Latin roots for nouns (inventor, elevator) Use –er with Anglo-Saxon roots (heater, swimmer)
	-tion		act of, state of, result of	attention, invitation, restriction	Anglo-Saxon	Usually a noun
	-al, -ial		related to characterized by	colonial, biennial, dental, betrayal	Latin	Usually an adjective
	-ness		condition, state of	darkness, fairness	Anglo-Saxon	Usually a noun
	-ment		act, process	enjoyment, replacement	Latin
	-en		made of, to make	wooden, dampen, tighten	Anglo-Saxon
		bio	life	biology, biography, biopsy	Greek
		graph	write	telegraph, photograph, phonograph, autograph	Greek
		phon	sound	phonograph, symphony, telephone, microphone, phonics	Greek
		scope	see	microscope, telescope, periscope, stethoscope	Greek

5th Grade
Prefix	Suffix	Root	Definition	Examples	Origin	Additional Information
in- (il-, im-, ir- )			not	inability, impatient, irregular, illegal	Latin	il-used before roots beginning with “l” (illegible) im- used before roots beginning with b, m, p (immature, imbalance, impatient)
inter-			between	intercept, interview, interstate	Latin
trans-			across/ change/ through	transformation, transportation, transfer	Latin
super-			above/ on top of/ beyond	superfine, superhuman, supersonic	Latin
micro-			small/ minute	microbiology, microscope	Greek
uni-			one/ single	unicorn, unicycle, uniform	Latin
	-able -ible		can be done	enjoyable, sensible, likable	Latin	-able ending words have roots that can stand alone.(enjoyable) -ible ending words have roots that can not stand alone. (sensible)
	-ive -ative -tive		inclined/ tending toward an action	festive, talkative, active, sensitive	Latin	Words that end with –de (intrude) change the –de to s then add –ive (intrusive). Words that end with silent e (create) drop the e then add –ive (creative).
	-logy, -ology		science of/ study of	biology, chronology	Greek
	-ence -ance		act/ condition of	persistence, excellence, assistance, importance	Latin	Usually a noun –ence and –ance sound alike because of the schwa. –ence is used somewhat more often than –ance.
	-an, -an		one having a certain skill/ relating to/ belonging to	electrician, magician, American, suburban	Latin	Usually a noun
	-ent -ant		an action/ condition	student, contestant, immigrant	Latin	Often a noun The suffix –ant often indicates a person noun.
	-ent -ant		causing a specific action	obedient, absorbent, abundant, elegant	Latin	Often an adjective -ent and –ant sound alike because of the schwa. –ent is used somewhat more often than –ant.
	-ity -ty		state of/ quality of	prosperity, equality	Latin	Usually a noun
	-ic		relating to/ characterized by	energetic, historic	Latin/Greek	Usually an adjective
	-ize		to make/ to cause to become	fertilize, criticize, apologize	Latin/ Greek	Usually a verb
	-age		result of an action/ collection	manage, drainage, acreage	Latin
	-ous -eous -ious		full of/ characterized by	adventurous, nervous, mysterious, courteous	Latin	Words that end with –de (intrude) change the –de to s then add –ive (intrusive). Words that end with silent e (create) drop the e then add –ive (creative).
		ject	to throw	inject, objection, project	Latin
		struct	to build	construct, instructor	Latin
		vis	to see	vision, evidence	Latin
		vid	see	video, evidence, provide, providence	Latin
		jur juris	judge, oath law	jury, jurisdiction	Latin
		log logue	word	prologue, apology, dialogue, eulogy, monologue	Greek
		path	feeling/ suffering/ disease	apathetic, pathology	Greek
		ast astr	star	astronaut, astronomy, disaster, asterisk	Greek
		mit	to send	emit, transmit, admit, remit	Latin
		audi (aud)	hear	audience, auditorium, audiovisual	Latin
		dict	to say, tell	diction, dictator	Latin
		port	to carry	portable, transport	Latin
		scrib script	to write	describe, manuscript	Latin	Verbs usually use scribe, as in prescribe; nouns usually use script, as in prescription.
		spect	to see/ watch/ observe	prospect, respect, specimen	Latin
		vac	empty	vacate, evacuate	Latin
		hydr	water	hydrogen, hydrant, hydroplane	Greek

If you think about using a grade-level breakdown of roots and affixes as a school-wide initiative, what is really powerful is the amount of word building skills that each student carries to the next grade level.

These roots and affixes can also be used across content areas within grade level planning to increase literacy skills. Example below…

Root/Affix	Science	Social Studies	Mathematics
de- (down, from)	decompose	depression	decrease
tract (pull or drag)	extract	contract	subtract
equi (equal)	equilibrium	equitable	equilateral

The power of this example is not only are we using this vocabulary initiative school-wide but also across content areas in a grade level to help reverse the learning loss of literacy skills within our students. Whether your grade levels are self-contained or departmentalized, I believe this is a really good example of working smarter and not harder.

“The Every Initiative”

A question that I am asked often is “what can I do to make sure that students are understanding what they are reading in language arts and math?” This is a fair and often trivial question.

When working with districts and administrators I like to start with what I have named “The Every Initiative.” The Every Initiative, works like this…

My students will ___________________ with every text. (Reading)
My students will ___________________ with every problem. (Mathematics)
My students will ___________________ every summer.

First thing you should notice is that these are statements, not questions. These are facts, an initiative, almost a mission statement so to speak.

Classroom teachers write learning objectives in a similar way so I have always seen it beneficial to plan for learning loss in this fashion as well.

Since this article is about how to make your intervention programs impactful, look at “The Every Initiative” as being carried out the same way in every grade level. Let me share with you an example of what this looks like at a school level.

My Students Will _______________________ With Every Text.

To help promote and bolster comprehension of literature it is important to reinforce that reading comprehension takes place in every content area. Matter of fact, it seems like almost overnight, our end of grade tests in science, social studies, and mathematics are now reading comprehension tests as well.

Take a 30,000-foot view of your school and focus now on what is an overarching reading skill issue that the majority of students in your school have? Hint: poll the teachers!

Once you have identified that reading comprehension deficit, construct a strategy or activity that you want to teach every student to do with every text they encounter. Below is an example from one of the last elementary schools I worked with in 2021. Additionally, we specified what will be completed with every informational text and every piece of literature.

Informational Text

K–2	3–5
Title:	Title:
Topic/Subject:	Topic/Subject:
Places/Time:	Places/Dates:
Need to Know Information:	Need to Know Information:
	Text Structure:

The above example, is essentially what every student would answer in grades K-5 after reading an informational text in reading, mathematics, science, or social studies. There is a small difference in grades 3-5 that makes a very large impact with informational text and this is being able to identify the structure of how an informational text is written.

Literature

K–2	3–5
Title:	Title:
Characters:	Characters:
Setting:	Setting(s):
Problem:	Conflict
Solution:	Resolution:
	Main Events:

Child reading a book while laying in the grass The above example, is essentially what every student would answer in grades K-5 after reading fictional texts. The overarching literacy skill deficit in this particular school was that the majority of students did not understand story structure and had difficulty retelling with important information. The academic vocabulary also shifted a bit based on the state reading standards between K-2 to 3-5.

Another key point to make with this strategy is that when taught this strategy across multiple years and multiple grade levels, we are ultimately teaching students to think this way automatically when not in the classroom. This pertains to homework, reading for entertainment, bedtime reading, and even reading during the summer.

What’s Next?

If you have enjoyed any of the information within this article then I invite you to watch my free on on-demand webinar on How to Make an Impact in Your Intervention Programs. I will give you a more in-depth look at new approaches for implementing high-yield instructional strategies and systems during school intervention programs to accelerate student growth. We will discuss how to meet the needs of all students.

In this webinar, you will learn to:

Plan all lessons using high-yield instructional strategies that maximize student learning.
Incorporate engaging and entertaining instructional activities in all content areas.

On-Demand Webinar:

Register now and watch at your own convenience.

For more strategies and tips on intervention, check out our other blog articles.

Author bio

Alan Becker, Academic Officer for Teacher Created Materials

Alan Becker specializes in best practices for curriculum and instruction. He provides professional development and training in the content areas of math, ELA, and social studies using TCM curriculum materials and Shell Education professional resources for school districts, teachers, and educational trainers. Prior to his work as an Academic Officer, Mr. Becker served as a District Elementary Education Specialist with Pitt County Schools in Greenville, North Carolina.