Navigating the Core Curriculum. Toby J. Karten
we use are “imbued with power” (Compton-Lilly, 2011, p. 432). The knowledge in a textbook is important, but it cannot be an entity unto itself. Teacher wisdom that goes beyond the textbook pages includes the knowledge of how to instruct a diverse student population.
Structure of This Book
Navigating the Core Curriculum: RTI Strategies to Support Every Learner offers strategies for general and special educators, student support teams, curriculum supervisors, instructional coaches, related service providers, and administrators. These strategies are connected to individual learner characteristics, classroom instructional practice, and core knowledge. University professors for preservice teachers, new teachers, and veteran teachers will also benefit from this resource since it offers practical ways to build mastery of core knowledge. The takeaways (or main ideas) offer research-based teaching and learning practices that help engage all students—high achieving, at grade level, below proficient, and those with behavioral issues—in diverse classrooms.
The goal of this book is to replace anxieties and apprehensions with RTI despite “travel obstacles” educators may encounter on the journey.
Each chapter of this book includes the following elements.
➢ Evidence-based practice: Evidence-based practice includes, but is not limited to, instructional designs with differentiated instruction and multiple engagements (activities or other methods to teach a concept) through a universal design for learning (UDL) approach—taking into account the why, what, and how of learning. Multiple engagements promote more than knowing the facts but value how to increase interest, curiosity, and the overall motivation to learn. Teachers must offer instruction that is varied and responsive to learner diversity by mimicking the interactive and varied stimuli offered outside the classroom and allow students to “play” with core concepts rather than memorize facts.
➢ Multiple curriculum entry points: The sample lessons in this book show K–12 teachers how to teach concepts or learning goals in ways that engage students. Multiple curriculum entry points require viewing the curriculum through a lens that allows students of diverse levels entry to the core knowledge. This includes activities that invoke and value academic, behavioral, social, emotional, and cultural connections. The lessons cross all disciplines and grade levels.
Chapter 1 discusses how we can open the door for all learners by offering successful strategies and mindsets that bring together the RTI variables of classroom dynamics and teacher expertise into a cohesive framework with prescriptive, responsive, and contextually engaging tasks. This chapter provides tiered literacy and mathematics scenarios for RTI, along with successful strategies and mindsets. Implications for oral expression, listening comprehension, reading fluency and comprehension, vocabulary development, and mathematical computations and applications are offered.
Chapter 2 discusses how to approach the core vocabulary in reference to vocabulary development and early literacy skills. This chapter helps teachers determine student knowledge and select and implement the appropriate vocabulary interventions. This process starts with identification that leads to interventions and, in turn, internalization of core knowledge and skills. This chapter provides the strategies, tools, and resources to achieve success in vocabulary, whether students are at grade level, require enrichment, or are in need of intervention. It provides elementary, middle school, and high school lessons to fuel vocabulary knowledge at different learner levels.
Chapter 3 acknowledges that students exist on a spectrum, with different levels of knowledge, interests, and motivation. These differences do not deter students from achieving multiple levels of success, since multitiered systems of supports appropriately acknowledge these differences with responsive, evidence-based interventions. This chapter explores screening and evaluation for behavior, literacy, and mathematics. It also demonstrates how instruction, practice, repetition, and application are valued, with an emphasis on how universal design for learning and differentiated instruction live and breathe in K–12 classrooms.
Chapter 4 discusses implementing best practices under the RTI umbrella and outlines how RTI addresses literacy and mathematical skills. It explores a multitiered system of supports with accommodations and modifications for strategic fluency with both academics and behavior in K–12 lessons. This chapter acknowledges that no one is born fluent in reading, writing, and mathematics skills and emphasizes the importance of tiered, cross-curricular connections and the support required to achieve successful learner outcomes. The chapter also emphasizes the importance of changing students’ roles as passive recipients of knowledge to ones of active learners.
Chapter 5 explores learner variability with student-specific tiers that value quality instruction and a collaborative, problem-solving approach. Evidence-based practice includes structuring academics and behaviors with multitiered interventions. This chapter offers sample lessons that infuse consistency; guided practice; modeling; multiple means of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic/tactile (VAKT) approaches; and specific and timely feedback through whole-class, small-group, and individualized instruction. The chapter also asserts that challenges are transformed into solutions with step-by-step planning, quality instruction, and assessment.
Chapter 6 discusses rigorous learning for all students. Teachers must minimize and maximize, fine-tune, and individualize strategic engagements and include varied pacing with opportunities for both repetition and enrichment. The chapter also discusses how the core knowledge must be strategically planned to engage students in independent, cooperative, and collaborative assignments. Strategic engagements offer students opportunities to increase their skills with metacognition of their own levels and how to achieve more gains. That means they know their starting points and believe that they can achieve these planned destinations. Instructional practices outlined in the lessons include direct instruction, cooperative learning, and peer supports within whole-class, small-group, and individualized settings.
Chapter 7 discusses teacher fidelity and professional development in preparing for and sustaining evidence-based practice for instruction. RTI routes should be planned and traveled with caution, scrutiny, and optimism. This chapter emphasizes that sustainability at the school level involves pragmatic applications that include teacher preparation with buy-in, supports, collaborative practices, ongoing feedback, coaching, and fidelity to the process. Teacher fidelity to offer responsive learning experiences ensures that RTI is effective at each tier.
Finally, the epilogue summarizes the book’s main points and suggests ways that educators can embrace RTI in their classrooms and schools.
Next, chapter 1 begins our journey into the RTI process, opening doors to allow every student to reach his or her intended destination—learning at high levels!
CHAPTER 1
OPENING DOORS FOR ALL LEARNERS
Doors allow entrance. Entrance in this case means access to knowledge, which in turn translates to greater lifelong opportunities for students. If the academic core knowledge is to reach all students, then teachers must honor diversity with prescriptive and cohesive instructional frameworks. Oral expression, listening comprehension, reading fluency, reading comprehension, written expression, vocabulary development, and mathematics computations and applications are all skills that open doors for future strides. Students enter these doors through primary, secondary, and tertiary entry points, known as tiers in the RTI process. The lessons in this chapter offer literacy, mathematics, and behavioral examples that allow teachers to embrace RTI so that doors are open to all students to achieve.