Week 7

The article by Mesmer and Mesmer centered around the importance of the RTI and how it can be helpful in the classroom. This article took you step by step through the RTI process and then gave a clear example of the RTI in action. I thought this was a really great article and helped give me a better understanding of the RTI.

While reading a chapter from Delpits Other People's Children titled Language Diversity and Learning, I could not help but think about Mesmer and Mesmer's article and how student's performance and basis for an RTI can be so different based on the community where they attend school. In the Delpit article she writes about how different communities use different forms of language and how this can affect the learning process of children in these classrooms. She gives an example on pg. 52 of how a researcher teaching on a Sioux reservation observed his students mimicking him. At this school the teachers and staff believed that these students were not competent readers because they spoke nonstandard dialect. After observing the students making fun of him behind his back he saw that these students were able to use standard dialect and even make fun of him using his Midwestern accent. The excuse the school had made for no longer was valid. Delpit then states "teachers need to support the language students bring to school, provide them input from an additional code, and give them an opportunity to use the new code in a nonthreatening, real communicative text." As a future educator, I do not think there could be anything more important than what she just stated. Depending on where I teach, I may have students that do not use proper English--and that may be because in their households they do not speak proper English. I want to give them an opportunity to learn proper English without making them 1. feel stupid for not using proper English and 2. offend their families or possibly their culture.

While reading the Delpit article I could not help thinking about the RTI and how it would look to implement this in the classrooms that Delpit was describing. In those cases, I think that all students would gain help from small group work, and possibly learning how to decode words since they may not speak proper English to begin with. In addition, I may be teaching at school where the majority of students may speak proper English, but I may have a few students who come from families that do not speak proper English or are ESL, I think it is really important that those students get specialized help as early as possible to make sure they do not fall more behind and also to help them learn to speak properly without calling them out in front of the whole class. Through working in small groups or individually and focusing on these things it would not draw attention to them and therefore would be a safe environment where they can practice using the language.

From reading the RTI article I began thinking about a situation that is happening in my placement right now. My master teacher is frustrated at the moment because there are a few students in the class who would really benefit from working in small groups with our reading specialist. The problem is that the specialist has a booked schedule and since our students are not below 2 years below grade level (I think that's what it is but it's basically they are not seriously below their grade level in reading) they are not in dire need of a reading specialist. My teacher is frustrated because these students are not making progress in reading or math and are struggling but since they are not yet below grade level (even though they are VERY low) the specialists are not taking the time to see them. The point I'm trying to make, and was the reason my teacher was so frustrated is because we wonder why should we wait for our students to fall so far behind before they are able to get the help they need? It is such a difficult situation because we see these students not making progress but because they are not yet failing to the point that screams they need extra help, people are refusing to give it to them. Luckily I am at a school that has lots of specialists that can intervene to help my teacher with the students that need extra help in reading and math, but I always wonder how different it would be at another school that may not be lucky enough to have all the help. It would be so difficult as a teacher. I don't agree with the specialists not being able to help those students because they are not yet at the point where require specialized help. I think that it is better for the student to help them before they begin to fall so far behind that it would be difficult for them to catch up. My teacher fought hard to get her students into the specialists and last I heard some of our students were able to get time in a small group. It was an important lesson for me to see as my teacher would not give up on hounding the specialists for help. My teacher realizes how important it is for students to get help before they fall too far behind. I learned an important lesson from observing my teacher, and will be one that I hope to follow when I get my own classroom as well. While reading about the RTI I could not help but think of this example and how important it is to step in before things get worse and how through individual and small group work students can really improve and teachers and specialists can gain a better understanding of what concepts each student struggles with and needs to work on to make progress.