Baking the Intervention Cake

I'll admit it...I used a picture of a minion cake as an attention grabber: this post has nothing to do with minions.  It is really about interventions during and after school for our striving readers (I love this way of referring to readers who are below expected levels--it  has quite a different feel than "struggling," doesn't it?).  I am thinking about the process as being similar to baking; hence the photo of a minion cake.

We already have our bakers in place.  They include your child's teacher, our library staff, and our intervention providers.  While you have likely already met your child's teacher, I want to mention the names Candy Olender, Heather Phillips and Katie Testen.  These teachers specialize in providing targeted reading services to our readers who need a little extra.

Of course, to bake our intervention cake, we need ingredients.  I suppose our children are the main ingredient!  To that, we add assessment data.  Last week, we gathered reading data on students in K-5 classrooms using the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment and AIMSweb measures.  Teams met on Friday to create suitable groups to provide assistance to student in our daily 40 minute intervention block.

I'd characterize the interventions, themselves, as the heating process in the oven.  That is where the action is; where the cake begins to take it's delicious shape.  We use several different interventions--different temperatures, if you will--depending on the students' needs.  They may receive a "double dose" of the instruction they are getting during classroom reading instruction, or complementary materials and strategies may be used.

Of course, families have a role in the creation of the masterpiece.  You help us by frosting the cake during the hours children at at home and in the community by reading to/with kids and having conversations about the things in the world.

Setting aside the cake analogy, I want you to know that our interventions during the day begin on Monday.  Due to the State of Ohio AIR tests for 3rd, 4th and 5th graders, striving readers in those grade levels will also be invited to participate in one after school session per week to further boost reading attitudes and skills.  If your child is invited, I hope you will make every effort to take advantage of the free program.

If you have any questions about our reading intervention at Horace Mann, please be in touch with your child's teacher or with me at 216.529.4257.