Lourdes Lopez

EDES 6359

Spring 2020

Interviews with Two Reading Specialist

Interview #1: Andrea

Andrea defines her role as an intervention coordinator at her K-5 school. She is one of

two intervention coordinators at her K-5 school. She is responsible for students in grades K-2

while the other coordinator is in charge of students in grade 3-5. A typical day for Andrea begins

at 7 a.m. with morning gate duty. On Mondays and Wednesdays at 8:30 she holds Academy

(schoolwide intervention) where she pulls students in 1​st​ and 2​nd​ grade to her room for intensive

intervention. Afterwards, she returns to her office where she completes any paperwork. At 10:00

she heads outside to go to yard duty. By 10:45 she heads to the kindergarten classrooms and

pushes in to work with the kindergarten students. By 11:30 she returns to her office to complete

assessments and paperwork or if it is a Tuesday, she will attend grade level meetings as needed

to help teachers look at data and plan instruction.

Andrea’s school uses the Benchmark Advance reading curriculum schoolwide but

Andrea designs and plans her own curriculum. Some programs she enjoys using with her

students are; Explode the Code, Recipe for Reading, Core Lexia, Phonics for Reading, and ABC

cards to work on reading. To plan instruction that is tailored to each students’ needs she uses

DIBELS. The DIBELS assessment is given three times every year and although Andrea’s goal is
to progress monitor every 2 weeks she admits that sometimes this is hard to achieve although she

does informally assess them every time she sees them.

Andrea has a total of 14 students that she works with and she also has several TA’s that

she trains to work with other students. Andrea and her TA’s meet with their students four times a

week for 40 minutes in groups that vary in size of 2-6 students.

Several times throughout the year, Andrea attends SST meetings at her school where she

assumes the role of Administrator. During the year if any students have an initial SST, Andrea is

responsible for assessing them and collecting data for the meeting. Since Andrea’s role is largely

to work with students and their teachers, she does not communicate regularly with parents except

during SST meetings when she is presenting data.

Andrea’s recommended literacy assessments are DIBELS, the Core Phonics Survey, the

San Diego Quick, and John Jerry’s IRI. She mentioned that her favorite assessments to use are

ones that are quick and provide a lot of data. Assessments that require a lot of one-on-one time

with every student is useful but is not always realistic for her to complete in the limited time she

has. She also admits that while formal assessment can be useful in providing data, it is not her

favorite tool of choice nor is it always reflective of a students’ true abilities.

Interview #2: Marysol

Marysol is the Language Arts Specialist for a K-5 public school in the Lawndale School

District. Marysol’s typical day varies and each year her role as a LAS (Language Arts Specialist)
has changed. She stated that in the past, a typical day for her meant she pushed into classrooms

to perform intervention with the students but this year her two interns have assumed that role.

Marysol also observes teachers when they ask for her support and she assists them in collecting

data and planning lessons. In addition to being the LAS, Marysol is also part of the SST team.

Her role in the SST process is she meets with the support team and aides in deciding if a student

should continue to be referred to receiving additional support. Marysol is also part of the MTSS

team at her school. She is in charge of Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions, she trains and supervises

two instructional aides who support in intervention. She is also part of the school leadership team

and the district’s leadership team. She supports ELPAC testing, SBAC testing, and is a Spanish

translator in IEP meetings.

Marysol’s school uses the Benchmark Advance reading curriculum but she pulls

materials from other programs to supplement her reading intervention. For the intervention,

Marysol and her interns use Stepping Stone, Sound Partners, Ready for the Core, and Benchmark

Phonics Intervention. To decide which students receive reading intervention, Marysol looks at

the data from the previous year for grades 1-5 and incoming data for students in grades K-5. At

the beginning of the year, teachers administer several assessments and record that data into an

online platform, School City. Marysol looks at the data and creates small, 2-5 students,

intervention groups at every grade level. Her instructional aides meet with the students at various

times throughout the day two times a week. The programs they use vary in the amount of times

they reassess students. Some programs only have a pre and post assessment while others have an

assessment every two weeks. Towards the end of each grading period teachers administer
reading assessments again and the whole cycle of looking at data and choosing students is

repeated.

Marysol shared that she wants to improve in sharing intervention data with teachers and

create a more systematic way of sharing the data. Currently, only she and her instructional aides

view that data and teachers at her school have expressed their desire to be more informed in how

students are progressing.