Effective Reading Intervention Academy (ERIA)
Program Overview and Summary Report 2007-08

The Effective Reading Intervention Academy (ERIA) supports schools in identifying struggling students and trains teachers in providing effective interventions to assist in improving specific student reading skills.

CalSTAT began working with local education agencies in 2004 to bring ERIA to school sites. Each cohort of approximately 10 schools receives training and ongoing support. Sites in West Orange County and Antelope Valley piloted ERIA starting in the 2004-05 school year (Cohort 1), followed by San Joaquin Valley in 2005-06 (Cohort 2) and San Diego County in 2006-07 (Cohort 3). Cohort 1 has conducted a series of district-wide scale-ups, increasing the size of the cohort to 27 sites. Cohort 2 and 3 will expand in the 2008-09 school year.

In the 2007-08 school year, there were 47 active ERIA sites in 18 LEAs and 7 counties, including:

• Cohort 1: West Orange COunty and Anteleope Valley (27 sites)
• Cohort 2: Southern San Joaquin Valley (11 sites)
• Cohort 3: San Diego County (9 sites)

During the 2007-08 school year, implementation of ERIA advanced considerably and student outcomes measurements showed gains.

• Team Implementation Checklist (TIC) responses indicate that 28 sites (60%) are fully implementing ERIA’s key elements, and 20 of these sites are (43%) fully implementing these elements schoolwide.
• Improvements in literacy outcomes have grown compared with last year in both grade leveling and oral reading fluency measures.

Of note: Wildfires forced evacuations of the schools and communities around many Cohort 3 ERIA sites last October, interrupting interventions and impacting outcomes.

Key Elements of ERIA

ERIA delivers differentiated instruction to students depending on need. Students who are falling behind or are at risk of falling behind in their reading levels are identified for intensified instruction in key areas to reach proficiency in English-language arts (ELA). As a program, ERIA seeks to embed key principles of evidence-based literacy education in schools throughout California.

The ERIA program includes four key elements:

• Frequent and comprehensive assessment of student reading skills.
• Delivery of literacy intervention programs as necessary.
• Review of placement following a response to intervention model.
• Systems change resulting in the sustainability of these best practices at sites.

Assessing Students

Assessment of student reading levels is key to making data-informed decisions about student placement and interventions. Assessment is a multifaceted activity which involves examining existing data sources, such as scores from the California Standards Testing (CST), generating new benchmark data at regular intervals with a variety of measures, and interpreting these data against specific criteria. Three major skill areas are identified for assessment at most ERIA sites:

Three major skill areas are identified for assessment at most ERIA sites:

• The San Diego Quick (SDQ), a grade-levelling vocabulary-based assessment, also described as a decoding tool in some parts of the ERIA manual.
• Oral Reading Fluency, a timed reading test used to measure incremental change.
• Comprehension, testing understanding of text by asking questions.

Assessment in all three areas is encouraged, but sites are only required to turn in scores from the SDQ and oral reading fluency as part of annual program evaluation. Most of these assessments involve one-on-one contact between test administrators and students.

Frequent and comprehensive assessment requires large time commitments; this issue has been mitigated by sites in a number of ways: Many sites use CST data and curriculum-embedded assessments as a primary assessment tool, referring students at risk in these measures for additional testing. One school which applies comprehensive assessments to its entire student population hires a team of substitute teachers to conduct testing, easing the burden on teachers and instruction schedules. Other sites have made use of parent volunteers in a similar role.

Student assessment is only the first step in implementation of ERIA, but many sites report that it has its own inherently beneficial effects in securing faculty interest and staff buy-in. Some sites have instituted weekly faculty meetings to review student progress, and many teachers have begun sharing assessment scores with students weekly. Organizational culture at ERIA sites appears to be shifting to make use of these newly-available sources of data, and sites are reporting that new attention to measurable outcomes has become a source of motivation at all levels.

Specific Reading Intervention Programs

Intervention delivers additional resources to students with additional needs, typically drawing from one or more research-based literacy education programs. Interventions are organized into three tiers, with a core tier serving all students and two additional tiers delivering additional help to students with additional needs. Tiers modulate the intensity of instruction and move towards more individualized intervention, providing struggling students with the resources and support necessary for them to succeed.

Student needs are matched to one of these intervention tiers through assessment data. Decisions about student placement are typically made on a student-by-student basis and are guided by specific criteria. These placement criteria are developed at the site-level, relating the needs of individual students to the reading level of the overall student population and the instruction provided in the core tier.

Instruction is differentiated within each tier as well, allowing students to benefit from literacy programs targeting specific reading skills. Some literacy programs being delivered as interventions at ERIA sites include Read Naturally, Rewards, Language!, Read 180 and The Six Minute Solution. Many literacy interventions in use address oral reading fluency and grade-levelling, while others such as Soar to Success target reading comprehension skills.

Response to Intervention (RtI)

Frequent, comprehensive assessment and data-informed decision-making are ongoing activities at ERIA sites. This data informs regular collaborative review of intervention placements, and adjustments are made in the intervention placement of students as student needs change.

As a program evaluation requirement, ERIA sites turn in student scores on the SDQ and oral reading fluency assessments representing fall and spring outcomes, but sites make many assessments in addition to these. Many sites “benchmark” their students with three annual comprehensive assessments, adding a mid-year testing phase to the schedule required by CalSTAT. Frequent formal and informal assessments are made between these testing periods, often through intervention-embedded assessments.

Like assessment, review of student placements happens through formal and informal processes throughout the year. Collaboration between teachers, administrators, and often parents and students is a key aspect of effectively monitoring and responding to student progress. Data, including recent assessment scores and classroom observations, are recorded and available for review in a variety of formats which vary by site, ranging from basic spreadsheets to sophisticated charting programs. Most sites support weekly or monthly staff meetings to review student outcomes. Changes in student placement can be made at any time during the year.

Systems Change

The ERIA program cultivates structures and expertise at the site level which support and sustain these best practices. Formation of a site-level ERIA program starts with professional development activities, delivered to administrators, teachers, and other educators. ERIA sites regularly access ongoing professional development for help with aspects of literacy education from data-informed decision-making to more active teaching styles that keep students engaged. Participants in these activities return to the school with these skills and proceed to build a site-level ERIA program.

The key component of ERIA at every site is the ERIA Site Team. Site teams are comprised of administrators and teachers who guide implementation, train and advise teachers, and find ways to leverage local resources and initiative to improve outcomes. Most site teams are led by a site team coach (a member of the team with additional training, expertise, and responsibilities) who works in association with cohort coaches (literacy specialists coaching many schools in many LEAs), district staff, and reading specialists including Anita Archer, Jan Hasbrouck, and Kevin Feldman.

Site teams have a high level of autonomy and are encouraged to adapt the core ERIA program into a unique site-level ERIA program. Site teams work closely with cohort coaches and district officials to adapt key elements in a way that works at the local level. Changes site teams have influenced include integrating time for assessments into the master schedule, reserving the necessary time in instruction to accommodate interventions, and establishing mechanisms for collaborative review. Experimentation and innovation in site team planning is both welcome and encouraged in ERIA.

Site teams have also found ways to meet challenges to full, schoolwide implementation of ERIA’s key elements. For many sites, implementation has been delayed by a lack of resources to conduct comprehensive assessments, too few teachers trained in interventions, and not enough time for collaborative review of student progress. Hiring substitute teachers or recruiting parent volunteers to conduct assessments are examples of how site-level innovation can create effective solutions.

Evaluation and Planning Tools

In planning the implementation of ERIA, site teams develop a Site Action Plan (SAP). This SAP is an electronic form which asks the site team to detail their site-level ERIA program by responding to 24 open-ended questions. The SAP is then revisited by the site team at least twice per year to facilitate reevaluation of strategies and progress, and allowing updates to be made as necessary. The SAP is being accessed as an evaluation instrument as well, creating a coordinated picture of how ERIA’s core elements have been adapted and implemented across all ERIA sites.

Another instrument, the Team Implementation Checklist (TIC), is a companion piece to the SAP collecting implementation data according to 26 specific items and helps the site team evaluate its progress in implementing the four key elements of ERIA.

ERIA in Practice

The 2007-08 school year was the first to see use of the Team Implementation Checklist (TIC). This tool allows ERIA Site Teams to summarize site implementation of ERIA according to 26 explicit criteria. The TIC is complementary to the Site Action Plan (SAP); these forms reinforce one another and are completed at the same time, at the beginning and end of the school year, reflecting changes in both ERIA planning and practice.

The TIC is distributed and completed by sites in an electronic form called the TIC Charting Program. This Excel-based form automatically generates longitudinal, graphic charts as site teams add data, so they can see and use this information in their planning processes without waiting for evaluator feedback.

The average of all 26 items at each site has been explored as an important measure of ERIA implementation. Responses to each item are given as “achieved,” “in progress” or “not started,” and interpreted as 100%, 50% and 0% implementation, respectively.

• An aggregated average of 80% or more is considered to be “fully implementing” ERIA (in Spring 2008, most items were in this category).
• An average of at least 50% but less than 80% is considered to be “partially implementing.”
• Below 50%, sites are considered to be “minimally implementing.”

As of Spring 2008, a majority of sites were fully implementing ERIA.

• Implementation of ERIA advanced considerably during the 2007-08 school year, with the percent of sites fully implementing doubling to 60% from fall to spring.