It's been an interesting March thus far.

 I have a new 1st grade group of three, 2 boys and one girl, all three with lots of energy.  All three have the need to monitor and correct each other's actions, no matter what.  I can be right in the middle of teaching and one will interrupt loudly, totally ignoring me and the lesson at hand to either: A, tell me what the other person is doing wrong or B, tell the other person what they're doing wrong.    Usually they choose option B which then lead to an argument between two of the three students and learning stops while I settle the dispute.

I'm struggling with this group for a lot of reasons beyond behavior and inattention.  Mostly, I am questioning the logic of moving on to teaching blends when clearly these 3 are still not confident with their knowledge of short vowels, vcv patterns or consonants.  They often do not differentiate between consonants and vowels, nor do they understand that every word has to have a vowel.  I find myself  trying to insert skills pertaining to vowels and consonants while trying to teach blends.  I'm frustrated.

I have been gathering data from our RTI 4th graders for a meeting with the staff from the 5/6 building.  I am also questioning some of that data and our responses.  I discovered that 5 or 6 of our students are currently performing at grade level.  I have more than one data piece to supports this.  So I ask myself, why are we still pulling these kids out for interventions?  Who makes that decision, who says STOP and move on to the next needy student?  I think we are lacking in our reporting/monitoring process.  Who monitors the interventionists?  Should the interventionists be reporting to someone (who?) that their student has been reading proficiently for the past x amount of time?  I think we need to revisit this problem.

One of the reasons this distresses me is because I know of other students in the school who are on a waiting list for intervention.  We do not have enough people, or possibly we have the people but the interventionists do not the time, because of budget constraints, to service all in need.   It's all a balancing act, that's for sure.

One of the dilemmas that I am currently  facing  is what to say to fellow teachers when they tell me they simply do not have the time to reteach a skill, even though half of the class is not understanding it.  I want to ask how can you not reteach it, but they are already moving on to how little time is left in the school year with so much curriculum left to teach.  How can you argue with that, yet how can you not argue that the data says half of your class does not have this skill and it needs to be retaught.  Is this a fault in the curriculum?  Is there not enough time devoted to this particular skill or is it the make up of the class or the presentation of the materials?  Who decided these issues?   I don't view that decision making as mine, yet whose is it?

Likewise, when I speak to another staff member about  possibly backing up a bit with one particular student and making sure that student has the basic skills needed for reading and being told no that student is just fine.  I have assessed that student and no, he/she is not just fine and yes they do need to back up and hit that skill.  What do you say then?  Well, the data shows.....and it does but my fellow staff member is not buying what I'm saying.  Frustration!

Well, 4th grade has completed another chapter math assessment and it shakes out that many kids still need more intervention with long division.  However, it seems that the root of the division problems actually is the fact that they do not have their multiplication facts memorized.  So we are working on memorizing math facts and practicing long division.

Another group of 4th graders are needing interventions centering around angles.  We found a great YouTube video that presents the names of the angles through song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yptZt9hwrzU

First grade RTI kids have moved on to blends.  I am very conflicted by this because they are by no means proficient in the short e skill and the next skill packet 2.6 is checked out.   So I am forced to skip to blends when we should be moving on to short vowel u whether I like it or not.