Announcements
August 2010
Building Capacity for RtI Implementation project announces new resources
MCPER’s Building Capacity for Response to Intervention (RtI) Implementation Project recently made available several RtI-related resources, including a booklet on instructional decision-making and several school-level needs assessments. The instructional decision-making booklet provides campus-based administrators and educators with procedures for ensuring appropriate instruction for students struggling with reading, mathematics, and behavior, and for students who are English language learners. The assessment tools assist educators in determining how RtI functions at their campuses. The resources, listed and linked below, are also available in the MCPER Library:
- Instructional Decision-Making Procedures for Ensuring Appropriate Instruction for Struggling Students in Grades K–3
- Campus Needs Assessment Tool: Reading
- Campus Needs Assessment Tool: Mathematics
- Campus Needs Assessment Tool: Behavior
MCPER researcher presents at Juvenile Justice Education Institute
Jacob Williams of MCPER’s Dropout Prevention Institute presented at the 2010 Juvenile Justice Education Institute in Tampa, FL. Williams’ presentation, “Intensive Reading Instruction for Youth in Correctional Settings,” outlined the collaborative effort between MCPER and the Texas Youth Commission to improve the reading performance of incarcerated youth in Texas.
REWARDS program author conducts training for Dropout Prevention Institute
For the third time in the past year, MCPER was honored to have Dr. Anita Archer, co-author of the REWARDS reading program, conduct a training session on the program. The session was a part of a weeklong initiative provided as a part of a continuing collaborative between the Dropout Prevention Institute and the Texas Youth Commission to implement an intensive reading intervention in Texas correctional institutions for youth.
MCPER team trains intervention specialists, dropout prevention monitors for local high schools
MCPER’s Preventing School Dropout With Secondary Students project recently trained reading intervention specialists and dropout prevention monitors to work in each of the Pflugerville Independent School District high schools. The reading intervention training focused on the MCPER-designed program Reading Instruction for Adolescents, which incorporates explicit, individualized training in the effective components of empirically based reading instruction, with special emphasis on improving access to content area expository text. The three dropout prevention monitors were provided training in a MCPER-designed dropout prevention program. The program, modeled after the University of Minnesota’s Check and Connect program, allows monitors to work with students daily to provide individualized and timely support to increase motivation and engagement.
Dropout Prevention Institute director updates Texas Senate on MCPER work
Dropout Prevention Institute Director Dr. Jade Wexler recently testified before the Texas Senate Committee on Education, outlining MCPER’s work in the field of adolescent dropout prevention. Wexler provided the testimony as a part of an “academic quality” panel that included Dr. Steve Graham of Vanderbilt University, Dr. David Chard of Southern Methodist University, and Dr. Gloria Zyskowski of the Texas Education Agency.