Message From Dr. Reilly
Dear Teachers and Instructional Staff,
I have been thinking about the value of micro-interventions after visiting 50 classrooms during the last few weeks. Micro-interventions are brief supports, such as feedback, adaptation, and reteaching that teachers provide during the live lesson to assist a student or group of learners struggling to attain the lesson’s learning intention before the lesson ends. As the lesson unfolds, micro-interventions can be used to alter student interactions with the curriculum, allowing the temporary support to bridge the gap between not understanding and attaining the lesson outcome. Taking these actions can prevent bigger gaps from occurring and are critical to accelerating learning. Blogger, Kelly Harmon, explains the benefits of micro-interventions this way:
“…recently a group of fourth graders were practicing finding the main idea and key details of each paragraph in order to summarize an informational text. They were not given any success criteria to guide their thinking. As they read and discussed each paragraph, they kept identifying the topic, rather than taking it further to the main idea. This misconception (that a topic is the main idea) needed to be addressed quickly. I stopped the group before they went on to the next paragraph and provided a quick teach on topic vs. main idea. This micro-intervention took less than two minutes and helped the students close the gap.”Recently, I saw an 8th grade ELA teacher engage students in a quick 2-minute lesson to ensure the students understood a key term that they could then use when writing in response to a daily instructional task. Similarly, in a recent publication by Learning Sciences Inc., ACHIEVEMENT GAPS AND THE LOST COVID-19 GENERATION, the author Michael D. Toth provides 8 key strategies to better ensure acceleration of learning. The seventh strategy is the “Development of structures to verify student learning and offer real-time micro-interventions.” Toth (2020) writes,
“In the classroom, teachers…verify student learning by circulating to check student work, pulling small groups or individuals, collecting papers, and other means. Teachers could jump in the moment they saw gaps forming and provide interventions.”Toth is discussing the power of micro-interventions. What micro-interventions do you provide that allow students to use new or refined knowledge you directly teach in order for them to learn the expected content? I’d be curious to know what you discover as you consider monitoring the micro-interventions you use during the next two weeks. I’d be interested in knowing which ones are particularly helpful at bridging knowledge and skill gaps.
Below are links to sign up for Orton Gillingham institutes and also The Writing Revolution workshops. Both can help educators develop methods to accelerate K-12 students’ reading and writing capacities.
The Writing Revolution has added an additional cohort for grades K-2 and 3-12. If you have not already joined a cohort please be sure to register using this link.
Orton Gillingham institutes will be available for teachers who were not educated previously. The institute consists of 5 full days spread across 5 weeks. Participants must attend all 5 days. The hours for the training are 8:20 am – 3:05 pm.
- OG Training Teacher Sign Up – North SLT
North Dates: January 5, 12, 19, 26 & Feb 2
- OG Training Teacher Sign UP – East/Central SLT
E/C Dates: October 31, November 7, 14, 28, & December 5
- OG Training Teacher Sign UP – South West Ward
SW Dates: November 1, 8, 15, 29 & December 6
- OG Training Saturdays Teacher Sign Up
Saturday dates: November 5, 19, December 3, 10, 17, 2022
Dr. Reilly |
