Tag: Response to Intervention (RTI)

Reading Development Module 8: Bilingual Considerations

Leaders Project

Stephanie Downey Toledo is a bilingual speech language pathologist in New York City as well as a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. She has collaborated with the LEADERS project on this module series and others.
It is important to distinguish between language difference and disorder. This holds true with reading. As SLPs it is important to consider whether a student’s reading development is being impeded by a disability or a language difference. What are the main factors affecting student success? Is it a difference in literacy instruction or content/ background knowledge? What has the student’s language acquisition looked like in both languages? How might socio-economic and cultural status be affecting reading development? When possible, we should support bilingual reading development.

An Unanticipated Response to Intervention

lel2133

I began this school year straight out of graduate school, well-educated in Response to Intervention theories and practices, eager to incorporate at-risk work into my schedule. It’s effective, it’s important, and, more importantly, as of July 2012, it’s legally mandated in the NYC school system. I was particularly excited when I learned that, as I was working in a newly-established school, my schedule would not be immediately overloaded. After calculating my caseload, I realized I’d have a few free periods throughout the week, a myth in the New York City school system, where so many SLPs are faced with impossible caseloads of 50-60 students, working through preparatory periods and lunch and even that’s not enough to accommodate all the mandates.

Read More