Giving research a face: Center tutors lead daily interventions in Del Valle elementary schools
Amber Kim, a nine-year educator and Multicultural Special Education graduate student, contributes daily to a five-year, federally funded study of K–3 reading interventions. But instead of crunching numbers or cranking out manuscripts from behind a desk, Kim earns her pay in the classroom.
She wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Going into the schools, you form relationships with the kids,” said Kim, who tutors students at Hornsby and Hillcrest elementaries. “You see the progress. You see the growth.”
Kim is one of eight Vaughn Gross Center tutors who deliver lessons in Del Valle Independent School District (ISD) elementary schools for Preventing Reading Difficulties: A Three-Tiered Intervention Model, a study that includes research centers in Kansas, Nebraska, North Carolina, and Oregon. Though the Vaughn Gross Center focuses on reading for the project, some of the other sites include behavioral research. Students at risk for reading difficulties are identified and exposed to effective instruction early in their schooling in an attempt to prevent reading disabilities and to increase the accuracy of placement in special education. The coming school year will be the last phase of the tutoring.
Kristi Beale, once a tutor for the project herself, coordinates the tutoring effort.
“The curricula are very explicit, with lots of training, because we need the instruction to be similar across tutors,” she said. “We also do fidelity checks at least once a month and make video recordings. But we’ve been lucky; they’ve been great.”
Chris Connelly can back up Beale’s praise — with results. A graduate research assistant pursuing a degree in Educational Psychology, Connelly tutored two groups of students last year: seven at Popham Elementary and four at Baty Elementary.
“None of them requalified for intervention,” said Connelly, who tutored another group at Popham this year. “I’ll be back to do it again next year.”
When Kim began the program, it wasn’t only her first time working with the Center — it was her first foray outside bilingual education. Kim taught bilingual kindergarten and 1st-grade classes for eight years in Dallas ISD and a year in Austin ISD. Already experienced in small-group instruction, she didn’t need to be convinced of the Center’s methodology.
“From my experience, hands-down, explicitly taught, research-based curricula is the way to go,” she said. “And the weekly progress monitoring is great. The kids set mini-goals for themselves and get really motivated when they reach those goals.”
And Kim, who just began tutoring for the Center in January, didn’t need long to make an impact.
“In just 10 weeks, a 1st-grader in special education went from reading 4 words per minute to 20,” she said. “But every child progressed. There wasn’t one who didn’t.”