Mrs. Pellin's Post
October 18th to October 22nd

The RTI program applies interventions carefully designed to meet the specific needs of each student. Each week I will reinforce the reading and writing skills taught in the first and second grade Houghton Mifflin core curriculum. We will focus on vocabulary, comprehension, high-frequency words and phonics skills associated with the stories that are read in the students' classrooms.

First grade: The students will be focusing on vocabulary words with the short “u” sound. They will sort words that end in “ug” and “ut.” They will also write about words that begin with the “qu” sound. The story they will be reading is called “A summer Day.” They will do a picture walk, read the story, and then retell the events of the story out loud. They will write about the activities they have enjoyed in the beautiful weather we have all experienced.

Second grade: The students will be learning about the difference between “fact” and “fiction” this week. We will be reading different passages and the students will decide which category they belong. We will also read a story called “City Park.” The students will retell the events of this story out loud. Then they will write about connections they can make to the story. This will include fun experiences they have enjoyed in parks.

I will also be using an intervention called "GATE (Group and Tutoring Edition)" with the first and second grade students. This intervention extends the Read Naturally strategy to improve phonics and fluency skills in small group situations. The fluency skills are improved by the following:

1. Developing phonemic awareness of the letter sounds in words.
2. Developing the phonemic awareness of blending sounds in words.
3. Strengthening the proficiency with the sounds of the letters.
4. Teaching to decode short, phonetically regular words.
5. Building fluency in decoding.
6. Spelling short, phonetically regular words.

By combining phonics instruction with the fluency building GATE for Phonics accelerates the reading achievement of beginning readers.

Center Cass School District # 66 has implemented an Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) mandate, Response To Intervention (RTI). RTI is an array of procedures that can be used to determine if and how students respond to specific changes in instruction. RTI provides an improved process and instruction for school teams in designing and implementing educational interventions.