1.A. I believe that the S-Team and the Rosa parks elementary school are currently using the IQ discrepancy test to determine whether or not a student is eligible to receive services. I believe this because in the video, the narrator informs us that the special education teacher, Mrs. Jacobs is frustrated about their current system. She says that many students who are truly eligible for special education services, are usually not identified until 3rd or 4th grade "because their skills must fall significantly behind in order to qualify". This sounds exactly like the explanation of the IQ discrepancy test from the video that we watched in our last class. The main speaker in that video describes the IQ discrepancy test as a "wait to fail" model, and that sounds exactly like what is happening here.
1.A. School personnel are dissatisfied with this process because too many of their young students are falling behind in reading. The video tells us that the teachers have found that once these students develop a problem with reading, it often times sticks with them as they progress throughout school and it becomes harder and harder to fix. The teachers express their feelings and attitudes about the current system and they say that they have seen this happen too many times.
2.One system, used by many schools, is called the IQ-Achievement Discrepancy model. IN this system, the IQ of the student is compared to the students performance on different test. If the students performance on the test is at least 25% below what it should be, based of of the students IQ, then the student is eligible for services. If the student scores are equivalent or close to the students IQ, then the student is not eligible for services. This approach is widely used and has been around for a long time but it has many disadvantages, the main one being that it often results in waiting for students to start failing before they can start receiving services.
Another system used to identify struggling readers, and students who are eligible for special education services is the Response To Intervention (RTI) model. In this method, every student is monitored individually. this model is compiled of 3 tiers and each tier provides students with high quality instruction. This 3 tiered model is used to help students to learn, if students are not responding to the instruction, then teachers must make adjustments and modifications to their teaching to see if teaching the material a different way will help. If the student continues being non-responsive, then the teacher is able to recommend that the students move up a tier. each tier offers a bit more help/support than the one before it.
3. I think that the schools should find other schools who have switched to the RTI model and ask them why they chose to switch. I think that they will find that many of the other schools were experiencing the same problems as they were and they will be able to find out whether or not the RTI model is the solution. I also think that the S-Team should do some extensive research on both of the models to see the pros and cons of each.
4. The S-Team might propose to implement the RTI model into its school. Since they were complaining about how students get behind in 1st grade and stay behind throughout the rest of their school years, they might also make use of an Early intervention program to help to prevent this from happening. I think that the S-Team should also implement some type of resource room or reading room where they can send struggling readers to get extra help when needed. When I was in elementary school, I went to a reading room once a week from 4th-6th grade to get extra help in reading. this helped me to catch up with my peers and to improve my reading skills. The school could also implement some sort of after school reading program.
5.Response. The IQ-discrepancy model has several disadvantages. It takes an approach that often times makes students wait to fail before they can start receiving services. This often leads to students falling behind in one or more subjects and staying behind. often times their performance falls below their peers and stays behind it and they never truly catch up academically. The RTI model addresses those concerns by consistently monitoring students scores and making sure that they are on the same level as their peers. If a student is struggling, adjustments are made to instruction to try and help the student. If this doesn't help, the student then moves to a special tier designed to provide some more support. Often times these tiers help students to stay on track and students are able to receive extra help and support even without a diagnosis.
It may be difficult to implement the RTI model into the school. Some teachers are set in their ways and like teaching the same things the same way every single year. telling them that they have to change their instruction may be difficult and pose several problems. The school may also not have the proper staffing or the current staff may not have the appropriate training for the program and its different tiers. Some schools are also set in their ways and since this school has been using the IQ-Discrepancy test for several decades, it may be hard to get its officials to switch to an entirely new model.
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