Video: Interventions (Prevention) at the Beginning of Kindergarten
When and how I find the time to prevent reading disabilities
I’ve always handled the interventions in my kindergarten classroom, even long before RTI, Tier I/II/III, and interventions were a thing. If kids weren’t learning the letters and sounds, then I had to find a way to provide a little extra (and different) instruction for them. I’ve been doing it the same for years and it’s been effective; the biggest difference in how I used to do it and how I do it now is that I actually have some assistance in the form of an intervention teacher. I choose to do the interventions myself (makes sense; I’m a pro at getting kids to learn letter names and sounds) and have the intervention teacher working with the remaining students so that I can focus on my one-on-one instruction.
By the way, at the kindergarten level, I like to think of these as prevention rather than intervention. I am not intervening—as you would with an older student—because the student is way behind and has possibly been labeled dyslexic. Instead, I am intervening to try to prevent the student from falling behind and being labeled.
Here are the basics on how I do interventions to help you “get the picture.”
I have Quiet Time in my daily schedule every day right after lunch for 35 minutes. The lights are off and I play relaxing music. At the beginning of the year, the students lie down and rest. A few fall asleep. My aide takes her lunch break. As the weeks pass, this morphs into students working on their Chrome books, doing either Core Lexia 5 (personalized literacy learning) or Dreambox (personalized math).
An intervention teacher comes in and supports the students with their Chrome book learning. She helps them enter their usernames and passwords, keeps them on task and focused, and helps move them along when they get stuck on a level.
I keep an eye on all the students, but most of my attention goes to the students I am working with one-on-one during this time. I usually have nine students and I try to get to all of them during the 35-minute period. It might not seem like much time, but doing it day after day after day really pays off.
Watch the video!
At the beginning of the year, I only work on letter names during interventions. Since about 1/3-1/2 of the class knows at least some letter names when they start school, I want to quickly give the others a boost, you know, try to give them the exposure they missed during their preschool years. During these letter name interventions, I find out soon enough who came in not knowing any letters because they just weren't exposed to them and who doesn't know any because they have a hard time learning and remembering letter names. Another reason I don't do letter sound interventions at the beginning of the year is because it's not TIME to intervene on that. It's time for tier 1 instruction. I don't expect anyone to know letter sounds coming in to kindergarten. All students will get hit hard with letter sound instruction throughout the day with tier 1 instruction and most students will pick up those sounds as we practice blending over and over and over again. I add in letter sound interventions later in the year if needed (if they haven't picked up on sounds after months of green zone instruction).
Do you do something similar for students that don't know any sounds?