Enrichment & Interventions

I have been doing Enrichment/Intervention time for two years now and each year it looked different with the more knowledge of how to use this time. I have posted in the past about this time but I think I have a better perspective on it now and I'm actually excited to start it up next year. I also wanted to repost because some folks had questions after reading my recent post on my reading block schedule.

Enrichment/Intervention time is a 30 minute time during our day in which classroom teachers switch students and they are put in classes according to their reading abilities. Some classes need help with fluency, some with comprehension, some with decoding, some with letters/sounds, some need to be pushed to the next level, others need to try new projects or book reports. The classes are so that we meet the needs of each of our students and give them what they need outside of the regular curriculum.

To organize our students into classes we come together as a team to discuss our children's assessments, test scores, running records, and our general observation of how they are doing in class. Then we place them into an Enrichment/Intervention group. This does not mean that student stays in that class all year though. Most of the time we switch students around according to their growth and needs during the year.

In our Intervention group (which is our below grade level students) our Special Education teacher pushes into the class to provide extra support, help plan lessons, and to work with more students one on one. Our Speech Pathologist also pulls students out during this time so those students are not missing regular curriculum or specials times in the class since everyone is getting Enrichment/Intervention during this time it works out well. We do not have an ESOL teacher that pulls out however most of our staff is ESOL certified and we make ESOL accommodations throughout the day.

Everyone in the school participates in Enrichment/Interventions at different times so that the resources teachers can be available to all grade levels. This past year we had Enrichment/Interventions first thing in the morning. So students got settled watched announcements and then left for their other class.

During this time we do not have a set curriculum. We have to create activities for our groups needs. It has been a challenge coming up with ideas not because there isn't a curriculum but because of the limit of time you get with that group of students. It takes time to know students needs and 30 minutes it is hard to get a full lesson in. Often times one lesson can be carried over for the whole week. Now that most of the teachers understand through trial and error how this time works they can better prepared for it next year. Next year a couple of teachers (one of them is me!) are going to be teaching using Braidy, the StoryBraid which helps with retelling, comprehension, and writing. I'm excited to start using this program and think it will really help our ESOL population. I will be study more about this program over the summer and keep you updated.

So that's my Enrichment/Intervention time! If you have any further questions please feel free to ask! Have a beautiful day! It's finally sunny in Florida again and I think I'll be sitting in the sun/pool all day long!