Improving the Lives of Children
| Contact: Richard
White |
|
| The Improving the Lives of Children project (grant number: H237F40012) has implemented and assessed a set of schoolwide prevention approaches:
Implementation of the Intervention Similar practices seldom focus on universal application across classrooms within a school. Common features of school-wide programs include total staff commitment to managing behavior and improving instruction to facilitate teaching and learning, clearly defined and communicated universal expectations and rules for appropriate behavior, common consequences and clearly stated procedures for correcting problem behaviors, and inclusive support plans for addressing special learning and behavioral needs. The intervention requires the full-time involvement from school personnel. In addition, cost categories include:
Introducing the Intervention A series of 1-3 hour presentations is used to introduce the interventions. Each is focused on illustrating key concepts underlying effective practices. School administration teams are initial contacts followed by teachers and staff; in some cases, pilot teams of teachers implement an intervention and provide model classrooms for subsequent implementations. Final use occurs within the context of ongoing school schedules. Supporting Implementation Administrative support for school-wide practices is essential. Additionally, since interventions were implemented across classrooms within grade levels and across grade levels within an elementary school, consistent and persistent faculty and staff interest is important. Primary barriers to success include inconsistent implementation by teachers and staff, high staff turnover creating conditions of continuing need for inservice, and inadequate monitoring as a result of competing priorities within the typical school curriculum. Areas of continuing concern include maintaining order in a constantly changing environment, addressing beliefs that special education remains a place, not a process, establishing ownership for innovation and change, supporting change in context of district inflexibility, dealing with constraints of site-based management in absence of power, separating children from programs to support individualized learning environments. Primary facilitators of success include frequent monitoring of progress to illustrate improvements and need for change in the processes of teaching and learning, stepwise implementation plans building on success in a small number of classrooms, and adequate capacity within a school to take advantage of technology-based interventions. Because reading problems are among the most prevalent concerns for students with learning disabilities, a remedial approach--the failure free reading program--is made available. Computer-based and print content-controlled materials are used to improve attitudes and classroom behavior, as well as achievement in word recognition and comprehension. Controlling for context of the material, sentence structure, and story content influences the difficulty level of reading passages. Effective reading approaches involve previewing material to be read, listening to accurate and fluent reading, answering factual, inferential, and leading questions, reading appropriate material, and reviewing the material successfully. Failure-free reading requires initial time investments (6-10 days) from administrators, teachers, staff, classroom assistants, students, and outside consultants. Ongoing intervention requires support from classroom assistants or peers. Software and equipment costs vary depending on available technology supports. About Project Field Sites At the Charlotte site, Windsor Park elementary school participated. The school had 605 students in K-5; African-American children numbered 306 (51%), Caucasian children numbered 234 (38%), Asian, American Indian, and Hispanic children numbered 65, or 11%. Approximately 15% of the students received special education; more than half were in self-contained classes while participating in inclusion activities throughout the school day. Resource room services were provided primarily for students with learning disabilities. Project findings suggest significant improvement. First, the demographics of discipline referrals have changed. Numbers (per school, classroom, and child) of office referrals dropped consistently from unacceptably high levels prior to the intervention to reasonable and acceptable levels throughout the course of the project. An initial decrease of 20% was observed from the first full year of systematic data collection; 50-59% decreases were evident in subsequent project years. Rate of office referrals remained consistently low after the first year of the project. The qualitative nature (e.g., type and severity) of discipline problems also consistently improved. Discipline demography (i.e. nature and number of office referrals) was documented using teacher checklists, standardized forms and the D-TRAK computerized database system. The classroom ecology, (i.e., teacher-student interactions) measured by the Stalling Observation System (SOS: Stallings, 1975) was shown to have moved from teacher-directed instruction to student-centered problem solving and decision making. In comparing the classrooms of teachers who used Total Quality Education (TQE) for two years to teachers who used TQE for only one year, significant differences were observed in total on-task and off-task behavior as well as paying attention, raising hands, disrupting class, looking around, talking inappropriately, and doing inappropriate tasks. Overall, on-task behavior was significantly higher in TQE classrooms than others. Silent reading and classroom discussions were more common in TQE classrooms. Students in these classrooms also spent less time engaging in misbehavior and less time being disciplined than their peers in other classrooms. Specific rules were established in TQE classrooms, and the frequency of violations of these rules were measured using regularly collected classroom behavior cards. Rule violations in TQE classrooms occurred less frequently. A dependent variable for this comparison was classroom behavior periodically monitored using a time sampling procedure with 10 second intervals observed for a period of 30 minutes on at least 10 different occasions during the fall and spring semesters of the school year. Teachers, students, and parents reported favorable impressions of these changes and classroom observations and objective achievement measures further illustrated the improvements. Secondary effects were noted in areas related to overall school climate, teacher morale, and attitudes toward school. Finally, literacy skills and attitudes of students with the lowest ratings in reading ability improved after participating in the structured, technology-based Failure Free Reading Program. Students' reading progress was assessed using several measures both before the instructional program began and again at the close of the school year. Measures included reading achievement scores on the Woodcock Reading Mastery (Woodcock, 1987) and scores on the North Carolina End-Of-Grade tests in reading. Outcomes were favorable when scores of the students participating in Failure Free Reading were compared to those of their peers receiving remedial reading instruction within general education classrooms. Student reading attitudes were evaluated using the Failure Free Reading program student survey. While there was no marked difference in the improvement in reading ability between the controls and the Failure Free Reading students, there was a noted difference in the attitudes between the two groups. Attitudes of Failure Free students improved significantly from pretest, reported by students and by teacher observations of student attitudes, but there was no significant change in the attitudes of the students in the control group. Project Offerings Staff members are available to provide training and implementation support. Several articles are available from the project: * Algozzine, B., & Lockavitch, J.F. (1998). Effects of failure-free reading program on students at-risk for reading failure. Special Services in the Schools, 13, 95-105. * Audette, B., & Algozzine, B. (1997). Re-inventing government? Let's reinvent special education. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 30, 378-383. * Lockavitch, J., & Algozzine, B. (1998). Effects of intensive intervention on students at-risk for reading failure. Florida Reading Journal, 35(2), 27-31.
For more information about Improving the Lives of Children, contact Bob Algozzine, rfalgozz@email.uncc.edu. For information about Unified Discipline workshops, contact Richard White rbwhite@email.uncc.edu. For information about Total Quality Education workshops, contact Robert Audette rhaudett@email.uncc.edu.
|
|
| Questions? Comments? E-mail crsnyder@zoo.uvm.edu Back to the main page for Prevention Strategies Back to the Center for Effective Collaboration and Practice |
|
