Academic Intervention 1 HOW ACADEMIC INTERVENTION DIRECTLY AFFECT STUDENT PERFORMANCE. · 2015-12-16 · Academic Intervention 4 work, are we going to continue to do this, how will

Academic Intervention

1

HOW ACADEMIC INTERVENTION DIRECTLY AFFECT STUDENT

PERFORMANCE.

By

Corey Gilpin

Submitted To

Professional Education Faculty

Northwest Missouri State University

Department of Professional Education

College of Education and Human Services

Maryville, MO 64468

Submitted in Fulfillment for the Requirements for

61-683 Research Paper

Fall 2014

December 6, 2015


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ABSTRACT

The following study was done to see if there was a correlation between students who receive

academic intervention has the ability to bring greater success in academic achievement.

Academic intervention is a way for students to receive additional instructional time, outside of

the regular education classroom, in order to close the educational gap with their peers who are

performing at higher levels. The study was conducted by administering approximately 75

students a pre and post test of similar questions in both ELA and Mathematics. Both the ELA

and Mathematics interventions were for 6 weeks at a time. It was found that ELA intervention

showed improvement, while Mathematics showed little to no improvement. It should be noted

that our intervention team was composed of 3 ELA teachers, along with a department chair, and

1 Mathematics teacher. With that being said, it was possible that the ELA intervention was better

distributed and instructed throughout this study than Mathematics.


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INTRODUCTION

Background, issues and concerns

The purpose of this study is to see if academic intervention is beneficial to student

achievement. Academic intervention is the opportunity for students who do not have a basic

understanding of skills and/or learning targets during the regular classroom time to receive

additional help outside of their regular classroom. There are many different ways that

intervention can be achieved throughout the school day. Typically, it will be done in a small

group or single group setting that will allow for more in depth instruction on the material being

presented. Also with this small group setting you can break down the steps and processes with

different instructional strategies so the student can gain a better understanding of the presented

material. Sometimes it is simply the pace of the regular classroom that can cause students to fall

behind. By simply using a few extra minutes of instructional time with those students who are

falling behind, it can bring them back up to the understanding that they will need to succeed. For

the purpose of this study at a Northwest Missouri middle school, the school day had a built in 26-

minute intervention time every day that would allow for small group setting for those students

who have been identified below the basic level. Another form of intervention is what some

schools label as an “Academic Lab.” This Lab is held before or after school and it allows

students to work directly with staff members on skills and/or learning targets that they are not

grasping while in their classrooms.

While many schools implement some form of intervention there are also a few issues

with intervention. One of the first issues to be addressed is the questioning that many instructors

have, is academic intervention just another educational “fad” that will come and go? Many times

teachers feel a burden when something else is added to their days. They begin to wonder will this


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work, are we going to continue to do this, how will I have the time to teach my regular classroom

and then another class for intervention, etc. Another issue is the amount of time it will take to

successfully implement academic intervention. This is a program, that if successfully planned

and ran, can potentially increase student achievement. However, if teachers see it as one of the

academic programs that will come and go, will they really put their best effort towards it, if it’s

something that will not be around the following year or even the next semester? Another issue

that could potentially come about is the mere logistics of the program. Is there enough time in the

school day to implement this if you know that your students will not come in before or after

school? How is a school with 300+ students able to group students so that their intervention is

the most effective? These are just a few of the issues that could potentially arise with academic

intervention.

While there are issues with implementing academic intervention there are also concerns

regarding this program. One of the major concerns is the set up of intervention that will come

down from the administrators of a building. Administrators are stating that intervention will take

place, but it is typically up to the teachers to figure out what is best for the students. You will see

throughout all school buildings those teachers who are on board with helping students grow

academically, but you will also see those teachers who have no drive or desire to go above and

beyond to help students. This concern of administration is a major one. They are relying on

teachers and staff members to make sure this program is successful, not just some of the time,

but all of the time.


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Practice under investigation.

The practice under investigation is to see if there are any significant benefits with

academic intervention.

School policy/practice to be informed by study.

The policy/practice to be informed by this study is to find out if academic intervention is

a program that is beneficial to the students at the middle school level or if it is something that is

more of a nuisance.

Conceptual underpinning,

The theory of academic intervention is to provide individual instruction for students who

are falling behind the pace of the day-to-day classroom operations to have a specific structure of

intervention that can benefit each student. The key to this is that it must be individualized for

each student. In theory, no two students learn at the same rate or retains information at the same

rate. Academic intervention is an opportunity to promote academic achievement outside of

normal classroom operations. Academic intervention will increase student achievement only if it

is individualized per student. While students are in their regular education classroom of 25-30

students it is more whole group instruction than it is small group instruction. Good educators will

make sure that all students understand the material, but there are those times when students

appear to understand the learning targets only to find out that they had no grasp at all. It is not

until they are told to apply what they have learned to a product, project, formative/summative

assessment that it is known that they have not grasped the learning target.


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Statement of the problem.

The problem is that students do not learn or retain information at the same rate, and,

therefore, they need support elsewhere in order to gain adequate academic knowledge of learning

targets.

Research question(s).

Is there a relationship between seventh grade students between pretest and posttest scores

in ELA and Mathematics when academic intervention is applied?

Is there a relationship between seventh grade students between pretest and posttest scores

in ELA and Mathematics when there is no academic intervention applied?

Null hypothesis(es).

There is no significant difference in student achievement between students receiving

academic intervention in pre and post test scores in ELA and Mathematics.

There is no significant difference in student achievement between students who do not

receive academic intervention in pre and post test scores in ELA and Mathematics

Anticipated benefits of study.

The anticipated benefits are to see if academic intervention within the school day is

beneficial to student achievement or if it is a waste of time and resources for all parties involved.


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Definition of terms.

Academic Intervention – a strategy used to teach a new skill, build fluency in a skill, or

encourage a child to apply an existing skill to new situations or settings

RTI – a multi-tier approach to the early identification and support of students with

learning and behavioral needs

Statistical Analysis – a collection of methods used to process large amounts of data and

report overall trends

Underpinning – the material and construction used for support of a structure

Summary

This study will be used to determine if academic intervention introduced at a Northwest

Missouri middle school will improve academic success based on data from pre and post tests. The

previous year there was no academic intervention available to students. Due to an increase in

instructional minutes per day, the school added time for academic intervention every day based on

students’ needs. I will use this study to see if the academic intervention program is increasing

academic achievement that can help strengthen a student’s fundamental skills in their regular

education classroom.


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REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Teaching in a public school in the present age is both rewarding and difficult. Education

has changed over the past decade to increase the rigor of student work and teacher expectations

in the effort to increase student learning. At the same time, nearly two-thirds of middle and high

school students are below proficiency in reading on national assessments, and each year

approximately 1.2 million American students fail to finish high school (Brozo, 2009). Students

who are substantially behind in their reading skills by the eighth grade are more likely to

eventually drop out of school as the work continues to increase in difficulty (Papalewis, 2004).

To be a successful reader at the secondary level, students are required to do much more

than simply decode words on a page. They must be able to read in context, use prior knowledge

to aid in comprehension, apply strategies in a variety of formats, and think critically to evaluate

the text. Pyle and Vaughn (2012) suggest five areas necessary for proficiency in reading for older

students: word study, fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, and motivation. They emphasize the

importance of explicitly teaching vocabulary and comprehension strategies, stating that doing

such will increase student reading performance. Because academic reading at the middle and

high school levels are more complex and greater content learning is expected, many students

quickly fall below grade level by upper elementary, making middle school more academically

challenging.

In an effort to prevent students from falling behind in reading and thus promote success

through high school, there has been an increased emphasis on literacy and identification of

struggling readers. Much research has been conducted to help identify the causes of reading

below grade level. Poverty, poor attendance, special education, and English as a Second

Language (ESL) have all been linked to struggling readers (Papalewis, 2004). With these


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situations out of the control of teachers and schools, education has now refocused its efforts on

how to best instruct students to overcome their reading deficiencies.

Previously, schools simply identified struggling readers and referred them to the special

education program. However, education experts are now suggesting that mere remediation is not

the answer. According to Papalewis (2004), “When schools turn from remediation to

intervention strategies, poor readers accelerate their growth more quickly” (p.25). Intervention

differs from remediation in that it identifies individual student needs and differentiates the

instruction to match. Programs like Read 180, QuickSmart, Building Reading Interventions

Designed for General Education Subjects (BRIDGES), and Response to Intervention (RTI) have

been developed to both identify struggling readers and intervene to increase their success.

Read 180 is an intensive intervention program developed by Scholastic to support

teachers in improving reading success for elementary and middle school students (Papalewis,

2004 ). While intervention is key in increasing comprehension, Read 180 is also designed to

promote lifelong reading in students. Because poor readers often struggle with word

identification, reading in context, decoding, and fluency, Read 180 addresses each of these skills

through whole-class instruction, shared reading, read alouds, and direct instruction (Papalewis,

2004). According to a study documented by Papalewis (2004), Read 180 was implemented to a

group of eighth graders at a large urban school during the 2000-2001 school year. Students

selected had previously failed eighth-grade English, received a non-passing score on the district

writing assessment, and scored below proficiency on the SAT. Teachers using the program were

trained in the Read 180 format and specific instruction as well as implementation expectations,

and trained observers visited classrooms to ensure fidelity of the program. At the end of the

implementation period, students in the program increased both their reading and language arts


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scores significantly, four percentiles in reading and three in language arts, while the district

percentiles remained the same as the previous year. A comparison group of students with

similarly low reading scores and demographics was also tracked and found to actually decrease

their scores in both reading and language arts. That would suggest that the specific, differentiated

instruction presented to the Read 180 students increased their reading skills substantially.

QuickSmart is an intervention program for middle school students that strives to develop

fluent and efficient strategy use. Because struggling readers spend so much of their time on basic

reading skills such as decoding, they often fall behind in higher-order thinking and

comprehension (Graham, Bellert, Thomas, & Pegg, 2007). QuickSmart was implemented at

three schools in New South Wales, Australia, with 84 students in grades five through seven who

scored below proficiency on state and standardized tests and demonstrated a lack of confidence

in reading or math. A comparison group of twenty high and average students were also selected.

Students in the QuickSmart group were provided three sessions per week of intervention

instruction in pairs. The reading intervention instruction was focused on word recognition,

reading fluency, and comprehension, while the mathematics intervention group were taught basic

number facts. Eighty percent of students in the QuickSmart program improved their scores on

the posttest, while the comparison group did not make significant gains. The intervention group

narrowed the gap of grade level expectations.

Response to Intervention (RTI) is another literacy program that affords teachers the

ability to identify struggling readers and address their individual needs. RTI uses a tertiary

approach to differentiate instruction based on the needs of all students. The first tier focuses on

whole class instruction. Once the learning has taken place, students are assessed to determine

their understanding. Typically 80% to 85% of students in tier one are proficient without the need


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for further instruction (Johnson & Smith, 2008). Students who fail to demonstrate proficiency are

then moved to the next tier where additional instruction is provided in small groups. Tier two

includes specific academic skills instruction for a limited duration and regular assessment of

learning. Only those students still unable to demonstrate proficiency are then moved to tier three

where more intensive instruction in a one-to-one setting is provided (Brozo, 2009).

Response to Intervention has been implemented in many elementary schools with

reported success. There are, however, fewer studies at the middle level. One such case was at

Cheyenne Mountain Junior High School where RTI was implemented during the 2006-2007

school year (Johnson & Smith, 2008). Having a steady incline of retentions at the middle school

level caused educators to search for an intervention program in an attempt to better serve their

students. At that time, Cheyenne Mountain Junior High was comprised mainly of Caucasian

students (84%) with ten percent being English language learners (ELL), five percent receiving

special education services, and only eight percent qualifying for free or reduced lunch. Twenty

percent of their students, however, were from out of district (Johnson & Smith, 2008). State test

scores and frequent monitoring were used to determine the effectiveness of the program.

Teachers were provided professional development in regard to RTI implementation and

differentiation. Through tier two of RTI, Cheyenne Mountain Junior High School chose to

initiate an ongoing after-school tutoring program in reading, where half of the students

participating in the program increased reading scores and improved their grades substantially

(Johnson & Smith, 2008). They also developed an “access” period at the end of the day where

teachers and other students were available to help with projects, assignments, and labs. While

student reading achievement was ultimately increased, the largest advantage of implementing


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RTI for Cheyenne Mountain Junior High School was in learning that early identification of

student needs increases student achievement.

A three-year study at seven middle schools in two cities across three urban school

districts in Texas also documents the success of RTI (Solis, Miciak, Vaughn, & Fletcher, 2014).

In these seven schools, nearly 1,800 students in grades six through eight failed to meet the

proficiency level in reading on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS).

Alternately, 784 students were randomly selected as a comparison group. Content teachers were

provided six hours of professional development and classroom support. As is typical tier one

implementation, all students received classroom instruction focused on vocabulary and reading

comprehension. Students who did not demonstrate proficiency after the tier one instruction were

assigned to tier two where they received additional reading instruction during their elective

period for the remainder of the year. Sixth graders were placed in groups of ten to twelve

students, and seventh and eighth graders were grouped together in small groups of three to five

students or larger groups of ten to fifteen students. Progress was tracked to determine if smaller

group sizes in tier two produce better student achievement than larger groups. In these tier two

groups, instruction was focused on word study, reading fluency, vocabulary, and reading

comprehension. Students who did not reach proficiency on the TAKS after the full year of tier

two intervention were then placed in tier three for the following year. Two groups of tier three

students were created. One group was the standardized treatment group who received additional

instruction during their elective period for the year. The same skills were explicitly taught in tier

three as in tier two but with an emphasis on independent application. The other group was the

individualized treatment group. They received instruction tailored to meet individual needs based

on test scores in each of the reading components. Solis, Miciak, Vaughn, & Fletcher (2008)


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reported, “Results indicated that middle school students with low reading comprehension who

participated in the treatment, on average, outperformed students in the comparison condition.

Students in the intervention condition also outperformed typical readers when achievement was

characterized in terms of slope over time.” (p.224) At the end of tier two intervention, for

example, sixth graders in the treatment group outperformed the comparison group, and in tier

three, the intervention group improved significantly in reading comprehension and decreased the

gap of grade-level expectations (Pyle & Vaughn, 2008). There was no significant difference in

the performance of students in small groups versus large groups (Pyle & Vaughn, 2012).

Response to Intervention has been implemented and studied in several other schools with

students from a variety of backgrounds, abilities, and situations and across many content areas.

West Virginia implemented a statewide RTI program to help reduce the number of referrals to

special education after A.I. Boreman Elementary School in Tyler County piloted the program

and showed significant gains in student scores and a drastic reduction in special education

referrals. After only one year of implementation, 67% of students demonstrated proficiency on

the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS). At the end of the second year

of implementation, 81% scored proficiency (Palenchar & Boyer, 2008).

RTI was implemented in seven schools in four districts in Arizona and California during

the 2007-2008 school year. This included 85 teachers from 27 middle schools with 4,100

students from a variety of demographics. The intervention was implemented in the area of

algebra to weigh the effects of intervention on mathematical skills necessary for high school.

Using formative assessments and additional instruction as needed, students were compared with

a control group of their peers who did not receive the additional support. The results indicated

that “a short amount of targeted intervention on key mathematical principles had some impact on


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student performance” (Palenchar & Boyer, 2008, p.22). Students in the treatment group did not

outperform the control group. However, students with higher pretest scores showed greater gains

after the intervention, which suggests that intervention is more beneficial to higher performing

students than lower performing students.

Intervention focused on reading skills has also been shown to increase content knowledge

in middle school students. Hamilton Middle School, located in a large urban district in the

southwest United States, implemented Building Reading Interventions Designed for General

Education Subjects (BRIDGES) after identifying students who scored below basic on the English

Language Arts portion of their state assessment and had failed seventh-grade history (O’Connor,

Beach, Sanchez, Bocian, & Flynn, 2015). Five teachers implemented the program with 39

students focusing on reading skills such as decoding, reading fluency, vocabulary, word cause-

effect, and comprehension using U.S. history texts. BRIDGES is structured into three five-week

cycles. Each cycle contains three weeks of small-group instruction, one week of data analysis,

and one week of teaching strategies for success. Teachers were observed for fidelity, and each

lesson was scripted. Results indicated that in the areas of vocabulary and cause-effect

relationships, BRIDGES students produced greater gains than non-BRIDGE students. Even more

significant, BRIDGES students who had scored between 37% and 43% on their history pre-test

increased their posttest scored to between 62% and 66% after a three-week cycle, and three

students scored above 90% on the Constitution and Bill of Rights assessment (O’Connor, Beach,

Sanchez, Bocian, & Flynn, 2015).

While academic intervention programs have proven effective, behavioral interventions

have also been implemented with success. When 52 eighth-grade students in an urban middle

school failed at least three content classes in the first quarter, the counsellor implemented an


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intervention to reduce the likelihood of those students being retained. Thirty-three of the students

participated in the program, meeting with the counsellor every two weeks in small groups for

thirty minutes. Each group session involved a time for recognition of achievements such as

improvements in assignments, tests, or completion of work. Skills such as organization,

planning, averaging grades, calculating grade-point averages, and time management were

explicitly taught (O’Connor, Beach, Sanchez, Bocian, & Flynn, 2015). On alternate weeks,

students were encouraged to meet with the counsellor for individual tutoring and encouragement.

To measure the success of the intervention program, the counsellor reviewed student grades,

grade-point average, and state assessment scores. At the end of the school year, students in the

program received 23 fewer failing grades and fifteen more As and Bs. Sixty-four percent

improved their grade-point average, and only two students were retained.

Struggling middle school students are less likely to finish high school. Teachers and

schools must identify these students and intervene to aide them in becoming successful

throughout their academic careers. Intervention has proven to be effective in meeting students

where they are academically and moving them forward through quality intervention programs in

a variety of situations and across content areas. Evidence now supports that interventions

improve academic success.


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RESEARCH METHODS

Research design.

For the purpose of this study the intervention group was a group of seven teachers who

had advisement with seventh graders only. For 6 weeks’ students would receive intervention in

English Language Arts (ELA). At the beginning of the intervention time students were

administered a pre test of selected questions that were developed by the ELA staff. At the end of

the 6 weeks’, students were administered a post test with the same questions as the pre test. The

same was done for Mathematics for a 6-week time period.

The independent variable for this study will be students who did not receive academic

intervention.

The dependent variable for this study will be students who received academic

intervention.

Study group description

The middle school being study as of November 5, 2014, had an enrollment of 356

students with 73% of those students receiving free or reduced lunch. The special education

population currently is at 24% of the total student population. This study was completed using

seven groups of advisement students at the seventh grade level. Because of absences and other

unforeseen events, not all students were able to take the pre and post test. Out of 75 students that

were in Academic Intervention, 75% of students were able to participate in both the pre and post

test of ELA and Mathematics. For the purpose of this study there were an additional 30 students

who did not participate in the academic intervention program.


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Data collection and instrumentation.

The method used for data collection will be documentation and data through the

administration office and data collected throughout our two study groups of academic

intervention at the studied middle school in Northwest Missouri.

Statistical analysis methods.

The statistical analysis method being used will be correlation analysis.


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FINDINGS

This study investigated the level of relationships between students Pre / Post Test scores

in ELA and Mathematics after receiving academic intervention.

Based on Pearson Product Moment Coefficient of Correlation and r-squared findings,

there is a statistically significant negative relationship (p=1.12 E-15) students in their Pre Test

and Post Test in ELA. PPMCC = .783; r-squared is .6131; n-value 70.0; and a p-value of .000.

Because the observed p-value was greater than the alpha, the researcher rejects the null

hypothesis that there is no relationship between the variables.

Based on the Pearson Product Moment Coefficient of Correlation and r-squared findings,

there is no statistically significant difference (p=0.132) in their Pre Test and Post Test in

Mathematics. PPMCC=.187; r-squared is .035; n-value 66.0; and p-value of .132. Because the

observed p-value was lower than the alpha, the researcher accepts the null hypothesis that there

is no relationship between variables.


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Pearson Correlation - .783

N – 70.000

P - .000

ELA Intervention

N Mean r R² p-value

Students Not Receiving ELA Intervention (Pre Test) 70.0 7.7

Students Receiving ELA Intervention (Post Test) 70.0 8.4 .783 61.3% 1.12 E-15

Note significance = or < .25

The observed correlation is statistically significant

R² = 0.6131

2

4

6

8

10

12

2 4 6 8 10 12

ELA

Pre

ELA Post

The Relationship Between Students Receiving ELA Intervention (p-.000)


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Pearson Correlation – .187

N – 66.000

P - .132

Math Intervention


Students Not Receiving Math Intervention (Pre Test) 66.0 6.3

Students Receiving Math Intervention (Post Test) 66.0 7.9 .187 3.5% 0.132


The observed correlation is not statistically significant

R² = 0.0351

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17

Mat

h P

rete

st

Math Post Test

The Relationship Between Students Receiving Math Intervention (p-.132)


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This study investigated the level of relationships between students Pre / Post Test scores

in ELA and Mathematics who did not receive academic intervention.


there is a statistically significant negative relationship (p=0.012) students in their Pre Test and

Post Test in ELA. PPMCC = .454; r-squared is .20594; n-value 30.0; and a p-value of .012.

Because the observed p-value was greater than the alpha, the researcher rejects the null



there is a statistically significant negative relationship (p=2.32 E-6) students in their Pre Test and

Post Test in Mathematics. PPMCC = .745; r-squared is .55521; n-value 30.0; and a p-value of

.000. Because the observed p-value was greater than the alpha, the researcher rejects the null



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N – 30.000

P - .012


No ELA Intervention


Students Not Receiving ELA Intervention 30.0

Student Achievement 30.0 10.8 .454 20.5% 0.012


12

9

10

9

12

9

1212

11

9

12

9

1111

9

10 10101010 10 10

11

10

9

11

10

12

1111

R² = 0.2059

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Pre

test

Posttest

The Relationship Between Students not receiving ELA intervention (p-.012)


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N – 30.000

P - .000


No Math Intervention


Students Not Receiving ELA Intervention 30.0

Student Achievement 30.0 16.3 .745 55.5% 2.32 E-6


R² = 0.5552

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

14.5 15 15.5 16 16.5 17 17.5 18 18.5

Pre

test

Posttest

The Relationship Between Students not receiving Math intervention (p-.000)


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CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Based off of the research and findings Academic Intervention has the capability to be

beneficial. Three out of the four null hypothesis were rejected, with Mathematic intervention

being the one null hypothesis that was accepted.

For the Mathematics intervention, it was quickly found that the basic understanding of

math concepts was severely lacking. The researcher was almost amazed at the findings of this

study, because to the researcher, these were basic skills that everyone should be able to show a

depth of knowledge on. The study found that intervention did not show an improvement in

academic achievement. One thing about mathematics that worries the researcher, is the fact that

math constantly builds on previous knowledge and expands that knowledge. Without the basic

skills how would one begin to expand their knowledge and processes?

For the ELA intervention, it was found that intervention did show an improvement in

academic achievement. The intervention being presented was a direct correlation to what was

being presented in the regular classroom. This intervention took the skills being presented, broke

them down in numerous ways, and allowed for students to find their own understanding of the

material. ELA is not as a concrete skill knowledge as mathematics and you can find many

different avenues of problem solving to get to the same end result.

Looking back at the conceptual underpinning, the intervention for Mathematics, was a

failure. Within the school structure and the group of teachers the study had, there was only one

Mathematics teacher, while there were 3 ELA teachers with one of those teachers being a

department chair. The researcher found himself searching and asking for instructional strategies

to use in order for kids to simply place and identify numbers on a number line. While the

researcher was able to quickly and easily do the said task for myself, he struggled immensely in


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giving different strategies that would benefit the group of students. The one thing that was

benefited from this study is that as educators in this group, we were able to take this information

back to the regular education classroom teachers and inform them on what they had found that

students are understanding and what they are not understanding. The researcher is a firm believer

that even though we have a curriculum that outlines the direction that educators go, we should

not just move forward in the process because the curriculum says to do so. If districts continue to

move on, that educational gap will continue to grow, because students lacking the skills will

continue to fall ever farther behind. Because of the educational gap, that is why a fashion of

academic intervention is important!

For future studies and implementation, the researcher would recommend

departmentalized academic intervention. When they first began this process, the researcher

questioned why are we having teachers who do not specialize in a certain area, try to devise and

implement instructional strategies to better help our students? The researcher thinks if academic

intervention is truly going to promote student growth in academics, future academic

interventions need to have the best instructional staff in place in order to deliver that

intervention. If this study was to be done again, the researcher would make sure to be

departmentalized within the academic intervention in order to give the students a better

opportunity to succeed. The researcher also feels that you must be very deliberant in your

grouping strategies and make sure students are grouped into their appropriate academic level

with other peers who are similar. Without this grouping there will be many levels of intelligence

and it could become counter-productive because students will either become bored because it is

too easy or feel to overwhelmed because they will not have a chance to take ownership of their

learning.


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Overall, this was a great study to actually look at strict and concise data in order to make

better educational decisions for students. In the researcher’s opinion, academic intervention can

be very beneficial to close the educational gap that continues to become bigger every single day.

No kid should go without a free and appropriate education and when the researcher says,

“appropriate”, he means teachers who are doing everything in their power to make sure we can

close that educational gap.


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References

Brozo, W.G. (2009). Response to Intervention or Responsive Instruction? Challenges and

Possibilities of Response to Intervention for Adolescent Literacy. Journal Of Adolescent

& Adult Literacy, 53(4), 277-281.

Graham, L., Bellert, A., Thomas, J., & Pegg, J. (2007). QuickSmart: A Basic Academic Skills

Intervention for Middle School Students with Learning Difficulties. Journal Of Learning

Disabilities, 40(5), 410-419.

Johnson, E. S., & Smith, L. (2008). Implementation of Response to Intervention at Middle

School. Teaching Exceptional Children, 40(3), 46-52.

Mason, E. M., & McMahon, H. G. (2009). Supporting Academic Improvement among Eighth

Graders at Risk for Retention: An Action Research Intervention. Research In Middle

Level Education Online, 33(1), 1-5.

O’Connor, R. E., Beach, K. D., Sanchez, V.M., Bocian, K. M., & Flynn, L. J. (2015). Building

BRIDGES: A Design Experiment to Improve Reading and United States History

Knowledge of Poor Readers in Eighth Grade. Exceptional Children, 81(4), 399-425.

Palenchar, L., & Boyer, L. (2008). Response to Intervention: Implementation of a Statewide

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Academic Intervention 1 HOW ACADEMIC INTERVENTION DIRECTLY AFFECT STUDENT PERFORMANCE. · 2015-12-16 · Academic Intervention 4 work, are we going to continue to do this, how will