Mission

In collaboration with local area schools, the Behavior and Reading Improvement Center is implementing and evaluating school-based primary, secondary, and tertiary interventions enabling administrators and teachers to provide positively oriented school-wide instruction, curricula, and support services to children in grades K-3 who are identified as having marked difficulty learning to read and/or who exhibit serious behaviors that may lead to discipline problems presently or later in life.

 Overarching Beliefs

Students with reading problems often demonstrate behavior problems. Students with behavior problems often demonstrate reading problems. Teaching reading and teaching behavior are essential in preventing and reducing school failure.

Overarching Practices

School-wide staff development of administrators, teachers, paraprofessionals, and support personnel (e.g., lead teachers, special educators, speech/language clinicians, school service specialists) regarding components of effective primary, secondary, and tertiary interventions that they will implement with at-risk students. To enhance sustainability, staff development will be provided by project staff, consultants, and lead teachers before the start of school and continuously over the course of the effort.

School-wide assessment to determine initial student assignments to primary, secondary, or tertiary levels of intervention, to provide on-going, continuous progress monitoring of student performance to determine change in level or need for adaptations to intervention, and to facilitate pretest/posttest comparisons of the effects of intervention efforts. Summative and formative assessments to be determined.

School-wide scheduling of common (90-120 minute) reading block to allow for efficient grouping of students across teachers, other school personnel, and grade levels and to provide opportunities for lead teachers to monitor the fidelity of interventions, provide consultation, and demonstrate model teaching as well as provide assistance with progress monitoring and subsequent instructional decisions. Providing consistent school-wide approaches to discipline and problem behavior management reduces the need for separate scheduling time to teach behavior.

Extending Beyond School and Classroom Walls

Efforts to prevent and reduce school failure are enhanced by parent and community involvement. Every aspect of the project will be coupled with parent and community-based activities provided on a regular and continuing basis by consultants and project staff.