Anna and I met today to reflect on changes in Milan’s data. She reported that he did not pass the pseudo-word assessment. However, anecdotally, his willingness to attempt spelling multisyllabic words has increased significantly, and he is also showing improvement in his reading. The time spent in intervention has been beneficial in several ways.
Anna was able to bring Milan forward again for SIT and demonstrate to the school psychologist and his parents the level of intensive support he has been receiving. This resulted in parental consent to begin the evaluation process.
One key takeaway from this experience is that Anna has begun to question the assessment component of the intervention curriculum. She has been working across two levels of the program, targeting both single- and multisyllabic words. While there is a chip kit for letter sounds, there is no comprehensive connected text included. To supplement, she has been using the Phonics Learning Library, which includes a chip kit, word ladders, phrases, and reading passages. She feels this is a much stronger resource; however, the formal assessment only evaluates students on pseudo-words.
Since Milan is not a language learner, and his spelling has significantly improved. This raises an important question: Why is there such a discrepancy between his demonstrated progress and his assessment results? After several weeks of growth in other areas, why is there no improvement in pseudo-word performance? This is a key question Anna intends to revisit. She has also begun discussing these concerns with her instructional coach, who serves as a liaison between the school and the district.
Looking ahead, Anna would like to incorporate more morphology into her next round of instruction. She and her team are interested in developing a matrix of prefixes, suffixes, and roots that students can use to build words and create meaningful combinations as part of a lesson warm-up. While she has a clear vision for how this could support rich conversation and deeper understanding, she is still working through how best to guide students in using it.
I suggested starting with a small, manageable matrix to pilot the idea before the end of the school year. Anna was eager to try this approach, and we will work together next week (April 13) to determine a specific goal for implementation.
