Scale-Up interventionists pace Rockdale Elementary’s drive to reading success
Veteran educators Sandee Miller and Audrey Pelzel of Rockdale Elementary School are proud of their roles contributing data and testing theories for the Vaughn Gross Center’s Scale-Up program. But they are even prouder of what has happened along the way.
“We’ve had tremendous results,” Miller said. “All of the kids were struggling readers, and all have made gains.”
Rockdale Elementary, a K-5 school 65 miles northeast of Austin, is one of several sites for Scale-Up, a five-year investigation of the implementation in multiple schools of two differing 1st-grade reading interventions, Proactive Reading (PRI) and Responsive Reading (RRI). Miller and Pelzel lead groups of three students each 40 minutes a day in RRI, which provides explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and phonemic decoding but dedicates less time to the practice of these skills in isolation than PRI. The intervention also emphasizes the development of reading fluency and comprehension.
Sandee Miller of Rockdale Elementary School leads a group of first-graders in Responsive Reading Intervention.
Miller has taught 14 years of her 16-year career at Rockdale, a school committed to specialized instruction beyond the classroom. “There’s reading specialists, a math specialist, counselors,” she said, “we’re here for anyone who needs help.”
A Master Reading Teacher (MRT)-certified reading specialist who teaches 35 struggling readers in addition to her RRI group, Miller is no stranger to the Vaughn Gross Center. She has served as a Teacher Reading Academy and Online Teacher Reading Academy trainer, responding to questions online.
She also trained at the Center for Academic and Reading Skills (CARS) in Houston. “I was one of the first people to be trained for TPRI [Texas Primary Reading Inventory],” Miller said.
Most recently, Miller took part in a presentation with Carolyn Denton and Elizabeth Swanson at the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) conference in Baltimore titled Tier II Reading Intervention Programs in Public Schools: Researchers and Teachers Make it Work?
“I went as the teacher counterpart,” Miller said. “I shared my experiences with Responsive Reading, to get a teacher’s perspective.”
Audrey Pelzel discusses a book with an intervention group.
After 20 years of teaching, Pelzel also has plenty of teacher’s perspective. In addition to the two groups she leads for Scale-Up, she leads two 1st-grade and four 2nd-grade Accelerated Reading Instruction groups, her specialization. She is MRT-certified and has undergone Reading Recovery intervention training, so she is accustomed to scientifically based reading research. She spoke highly of RRI.
“It has the effective components of Reading Recovery, which is a one-on-one strategy, but this can reach more students,” Pelzel said. “I really enjoy the freedom the intervention gives us as teachers to assess the students and tailor the instruction to their needs. This is dynamic; it isn’t scripted.”
Pelzel and Miller’s efforts have drawn praise from Vaughn Gross Center staff.
“They are extremely knowledgeable about the type of reading instruction needed to assist struggling readers and apply this expertise in implementing the Responsive Reading Instruction curriculum,” said Swanson, a coordinator for the Scale-Up program. “Their students are performing quite well in the intervention, which is, by all means, a reflection of their dedication to children in Rockdale.”
And though the 2004-2005 school year was the first for Rockdale in Scale-Up, neither educator hesitated when asked to supply stories of student success.
“One girl who has a significant visual impairment, who is almost blind, was struggling with her reading,” Miller said. “She exited the intervention at 24 on the DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment). That’s the average for near the end of the 2nd grade!”
Even more encouraging, Pelzel has seen success in the intervention translate to success in the general classroom.
“An ESL student whose parents don’t speak English at all has made great strides; he is almost up to grade level,” Pelzel said. “His reading ability, spelling ability, vocabulary are carrying over to the general classroom. His teacher is thrilled with his progress.”