School Wide Reading Screenings

Posted by Beth DuBose on Mar 02, 2009

Response to Intervention is an important process that a lot of schools and districts have or are planning to adopt. Yet, some districts and schools are having a hard time determing what elements should make up their RTI plan. One of those elements that many are struggling with is Universal Screening. When should we do it? What should we use? How many times should the students be screened?

Even schools that have implemented a plan have found challenges when trying to determine the best way to provide universal screening to their students.

Challenges:

Time: Probably one of the biggest issues schools and districts must face when creating their RTI plan. How will we have enough time to do universal screening? Do we hire substitute teachers for a week so our classroom teachers can do screenings? Do we pull auxiliary teachers to provide the screenings? When I was doing my studet teaching many years ago, the school I worked with used education majors in college to provide the screenings, but this is not a luxory all schools have.

Materials: How do we determine what the best screening materials are for our students? Do we use only one screening test, or multiple?

Analyzing the data: Once we have completed the screenings, what does the data tell us about our students? Where will we compile and house the data? Is there any software to help us analyze this data?

This Powerpoint presentation by Brian Miller is one of several sessions that were presented at the National SEA Conference on SLD Determination. It discusses an elementary school in Iowa that has implemented school-wide screening in reading. The school’s implementation plan is presented, along with a discussion of its successes and challenges. Hopefully this will give you some insight into how to setup a universal screening plan at your school or district.