Schools Find Early Intervention Can Save Struggling Students

Instead of waiting for children to fall behind, some elementary schools in California are attacking potential academic failure at the earliest signs of trouble.

By doing so, they are reducing the ranks of students landing in special education and, they say, boosting achievement.

Teachers at these schools--scattered among urban centers, mountain burgs and wine country suburbs--begin assessing youngsters in kindergarten, well before most children face their first standardized tests.

Seeking to reach a broader range of children, instructors from general education and special education team up to offer the advantages of both worlds.

They provide extensive lessons in letter sounds, phonics and other reading skills, which can bolster struggling pupils at risk of later being tagged learning disabled simply because they cannot read well.

“With the right intervention, you can thwart the need for special education,” said Martin Cavanaugh, assistant superintendent for Elk Grove Unified, a suburban Sacramento district which is the 12th-largest in the state.

Researchers have long advocated early intervention, and many districts, including Los Angeles Unified, are beginning to model changes after Elk Grove’s overhaul.

But early intervention as a practice has not filtered down to the vast majority of California schools, already burdened by other general education reforms and staffed by legions of inexperienced teachers.

It is too soon to know how effective the reforms in Elk Grove and other districts can be in the long run, but they show promise: Referrals for special education are plummeting. Discipline problems are waning. Attendance and test scores are rising.

Before Elk Grove embarked on the reform six years ago, nearly 17% of its enrollment was designated as special education. Now special ed makes up less than 9% of the 45,000 students.

Educators say the initiatives also produce other significant benefits.

They keep students in general education classrooms where expectations are higher, and they help students avoid the loss of self-esteem that can result from being classified as learning disabled.

The efforts also free up specialists to work with more children, and they save money that would be spent attempting to fix problems down the road when chances of improvement are vastly reduced.

“We want to keep these youngsters on the same trajectory as all other children,” said Marion Joseph, a member of the state Board of Education and a driving force in California’s return to phonics.

Elk Grove educators use an approach they call “neverstreaming”--a reference to students never having to leave the mainstream curriculum.

At each school, teachers from general and special education--along with psychologists, speech therapists, administrators and others--meet six weeks after the start of school to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each student.

Students who are behind get lessons in phonics, spelling and other skills in small groups at campus “learning centers” staffed by special education teachers and other specialists.

Meanwhile, the campus teams also address problems beyond the classroom by arranging for food, shelter, clothing or counseling for students and their families.

“We are front-loading services for students with what they need, when they need it, rather than providing services based on categories of students,” said Cavanaugh, the assistant superintendent.

Third-grader Brittney McClain of Isabelle Jackson Elementary is an enthusiastic beneficiary.

Last year, as a beginning second-grader, Brittney was still struggling to make connections between sounds and letters.

She began attending 45-minute sessions at the school’s learning center, four times a week. Working with no more than five other students, Brittney reviewed the first-grade reading program, which covered sound-spelling connections and the blending of letters to create words, among other things.

Now the 8-year-old has mastered the alphabet and all corresponding sounds. She is reading more fluently. And she has become a more confident learner, buoyed by continuing visits twice a week to the learning center.

Without the boost, “Brittney would definitely have been in special education,” said Heather MacKenzie, a special ed teacher who works with her. “I think she’s going to be fine.”

The additional attention has kindled enthusiasm in Brittney.

“Sometimes I make believe that I’m playing at school even when I’m at home,” she said. “I just wish I could go to school every day.”

For the last two decades, school districts targeted students such as Brittney for special help only after seeing them fall behind in regular classrooms.

Part of the reason involved funding. Schools received money for students they placed in special education, with the amount dependent on the type of placement.

That created an incentive to funnel more students into the system, especially into the most costly settings, and to keep them there.

But the formula recently underwent a major shift based in part on the successful reforms in Elk Grove. A law that went into effect last year gives school districts the financial flexibility to serve students before they enter the special education system.

In effect, it is now possible and desirable to spend extra money earlier on students, to avoid their later placement in even costlier special ed programs.

As a result, schools are trying myriad variations on the early intervention theme.

At Mattie Washburn Elementary School in Sonoma County, teachers test each kindergartner and first-grader four times a year for knowledge of basic language skills.

Those youngsters who get first crack at intervention fall into a middle range in reading ability--a group that usually would not warrant such treatment.

“The purpose is to give them the quick start they need with an intense program,” said reading specialist Judy Harris.

At Mariposa Elementary School in Brea, teachers have created new partnerships to serve students.

The school has flooded its classrooms with special education teachers--two of its own and another dozen student teachers from nearby Cal State Fullerton. The adults can lavish attention on children whose needs might go unattended at other schools.

First-grade teacher Traci Yocum is joined each morning by special ed teacher Karin Clark. The two, along with an aide, separate the class of 18 into small groups in different parts of the room.

“With more adults in my classroom, I’m able to do strategies with the lower kids before they fall through the cracks,” Yocum said.

Asking teachers to rethink their approach has produced unexpected pressures. At some schools, the changes have met resistance from veteran teachers.

In Butte County, after the number of special ed referrals soared, Principal Cheryl Monteith pushed teachers to focus more on early reading instruction in regular ed classrooms.

Monteith had to cajole some staffers. “As a principal, it took all my positive energy to keep everyone moving forward,” she said. “It’s hard for some of our teachers. All of a sudden you don’t have a special day class” where you can send problems.

Schools where early intervention is only a fledgling reform must go on faith. But advocates of the approach argue strongly in its favor.

“We’re going to prove that all kids can learn and all kids can succeed,” said Al Velasquez, principal of La Gloria Elementary in Monterey County, where teachers take the extraordinary step of requiring floundering first-graders to spend three months repeating kindergarten.

“We’ve got to make the foundation as solid as possible. If a child is going to get referred to special ed, it’s after we have tried everything else.”