Melissa & Lori Love Literacy ®

How to Make Every Intervention More Effective with Matt Burns

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Episode 235

Matt Burns discusses effective interventions for students struggling with learning. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the learning hierarchy, identifying where breakdowns occur, and matching interventions to individual student needs. The conversation highlights the significance of modeling in teaching, shares a success story of a kindergartner's progress, and explores the application of the framework to writing and comprehension. Additionally, Burns provides insights on using assessment data effectively and offers resources for teachers to implement these strategies in their classrooms.

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Melissa:

Lori, we had some real aha moments getting ready to chat with Matt Burns about intervention.

Lori:

Totally. If you've ever wondered why a student isn't picking something up or quote just isn't getting traction, this episode is for you.

Melissa:

And the key is figuring out where the learning is getting stuck. Are they not learning it, not remembering it or not applying it?

Lori:

Each one needs a different kind of support Researcher Matt Burns shares a framework that helps you figure out what students really need, and you'll hear how it played out in the classroom. You'll leave with a super practical way to target your instruction for the students who need it most. Hi, teacher friends. I'm Lori and I'm Melissa. We are two educators who want the best for all kids, and we know you do too.

Melissa:

We worked together in Baltimore when the district adopted a new literacy curriculum.

Lori:

We realized there was so much more to learn about how to teach reading and writing.

Melissa:

Lori, and I can't wait to keep learning with you today. Hi, matt, welcome back to the podcast. We are so excited to have you back. You were one of our most popular episodes last year, great.

Matt Burns:

Thank you, very happy to be here. Thank you.

Melissa:

And we can't wait to talk about intervention today, and especially, I mean when we talked to you before, it sounded like you're going to talk about intervention today, and especially I mean when we talked to you before it sounded like you're going to talk about intervention that really actually works to meet the needs of students. So we can't wait to dive into that. Great Thanks.

Lori:

All right. So, Matt, you've done some amazing work with something called the Skill by Treatment Interaction Framework. That sounds really scary. You're going to help us work through it today, but that's grounded in the learning hierarchy. Now we know that. You know, again, it sounds a little bit academic, but really it's just about how people learn and what we can do when learning breaks down.

Matt Burns:

Yeah, exactly Right.

Melissa:

Yeah, so let's just start with the basics of this. You know, lori gave it all the technical names, but just walk us through. Like, how does learning typically happen? For and we, you know we are always talking about literacy, but this really applies to everything so how does learning typically happen and what can go wrong along the way?

Matt Burns:

Well, there's so when I work with teachers I hear them talk about this a lot. They'll have a kid and they'll recognize the kid's problem. Like you know, I had a kid just like that two years ago and I did this research based intervention and it worked really well. And so I'm going to try that with this kid and it didn't work so for years, that's that's fascinated me. There's something about the individual kid that makes the intervention effective or not, and for decades we've been trying to study the individual kid more Like. Is it a working memory issue? That's the problem. Is it a processing speed issue? And we've never found research that shows those types of variables adequately differentiate intervention effects. So a really long story to me. Very short was a few years ago I was part of a grant and myself, lori Hellman and Jennifer McComas at University of Minnesota, and we had each role. So we were building MTSS and Lori was tier one and Jennifer was tier three and I was tier two, basically. So Jennifer developed this really cool way to do a brief experimental analysis to see what problems kids were having, and so what we'd do is we'd come in and assess a couple of hypotheses, as kids are learning as anyone learns anyone in the world.

Matt Burns:

Anything you learn, you go through four very specific phases. This is a hearing in Eden Hall in 1978, if interested. But you go through very specific phases. First of all, you start off in the acquisition phase. You've got to learn it, you've got to do initial learning and you have to first become accurate. And the best way to build accuracy is through modeling and explicit instruction. So build accuracy. Then, once you're sufficiently accurate, then we have to worry about how quickly do you do it? That's your second phase. You go from initial learning acquisition to fluency building, proficiency building phase, where you really got to get faster. And the goal there is practice, practice, practice, practice. Get them faster at the skill. Now teachers push back to me all the time Do we really need kids to do it faster? Well, no, what we need is for kids to do it with automaticity. If you can't do it with automaticity, you can't generalize the skill. How do we know if it's automatic Speed? So yes, we do have to get them faster, but that's really just so we know it's automatic.

Matt Burns:

And then, once they learn it in the first place, then they're fluent in it, then they can generalize it. And so if they aren't fluent, they can't take it and put it in a different setting or different stimulus, or they can't do that. So we have to first get them accurate, fluent, and then they can generalize it. Once they can generalize it, that's when we use information to solve problems. And I know as teachers that's where we want our kids to be, where we want our kids to be solving problems. But if they're still in the initial learning they can't do that. So we have to build modeling, build accuracy, then build speed, help them to generalize it and then they can apply it to solve problems.

Matt Burns:

So to answer the question initial question, which was one of the phases in where can things go wrong? Any step along the way something can go wrong. The kids might not learn in the first place, or they might learn it but then forget it the next day, or they might learn it and remember it but then can't apply it, or they can't use it to solve problems. Now, with me as an interventionist, I'm not dealing with a kid who knows it, is fluent, can generalize it, just doesn't use it to solve problems. That's usually not a kid that people call me about. So I'm usually much more focused on those first three phases. So I really focus on did they learn it in the first place, did they remember it and can they generalize it?

Lori:

Matt, why do you think it's those first three?

Matt Burns:

So that's a great question, I think I think I've never tested this. I've studied this framework a number of times. I've never tested what I'm about to say. I think it's because if they get through those first two, most of the time they can generalize it and use it to solve problems. Why it happens in those first two I don't know, but I think that's where they're not learning it well in the first place or they can't retain it. That's why they're not getting to the last two. Almost any time I've got that kid through the fluency phase, they generally hit those last two really easily.

Matt Burns:

Now, with generalization, with reading, I don't see it much. I haven't studied this, it's just experience. I don't see it being as much of a problem in reading, but it is occasionally a problem in math. The kid knows, can do the skill, can do the skill fluently, but then they go to apply it and they really struggle with that. So we do see that there. So why that's the case I don't know. But I do think most of the time kids are struggling to learn it in the first place or remember it.

Melissa:

Yeah, I just wanted to say you mentioned that teachers, like, often see this research and then they try it with students and it works for some and it works for others. And I just wanted to mention that that can be really frustrating for teachers, you know, to feel like you're doing what the research said to do and it's not working. And I just wanted to say that so that we can say, like as we talk today, like we're really going to talk about the reasons why it might not be working for certain students. It's not because the research is bad and you want to throw it all away, but because things are happening for those students and we're going to actually give some things that they can do to help those students. So you don't feel so lost.

Matt Burns:

I'm so glad you said that Because, remember, most of the intervention research is done with, you know, 50 kids or something, and what we don't see, we see on average it works really well, but when you look at the data, there might be five kids in that group it didn't work well with, or something like that, but that doesn't really come out in the data. So that's why most of the research I do is single case design. We're actually looking at individual kids and, by the way, so we developed this. I first wrote about this in 2010. No-transcript. Not long ago, maybe five years ago, a teacher called me. A teacher was in a different state, called me up and said hey, look, I've been doing sound partners. Sound partners is a good intervention. I talk about sound partners a lot. That's why he thought to call me.

Matt Burns:

And at the same time, in 2017, lynn Fuchs had this great article come out about how to intensify interventions and she used like five or six strategies. He was just picking one or two strategies and trying them and they didn't work. And he called me up frustrated. He's like okay, burns, I've been trying this thing, it's not working. I got this article that didn't help. You talk about sound partners, what do I do? And this frustration was clear. I'm saying it a bit facetiously, but his frustration was clear. I said, okay, let's talk to the kids. And we found, in talking and seeing where they were and such that he just happened to pick, got unlucky and picked two ones that didn't match the kid' needs. And once we picked that one that did match the kids' needs, they took off.

Lori:

Okay, before we dive in a little bit further, can you tell us what didn't match the kids' needs? I'm just curious. I'm not going to be able to sleep until I know this.

Matt Burns:

So let's talk about these two kids. So if you're not familiar with Sound Partners, it's a finance intervention. It's oftentimes done one-on-one or in a small group. It's a fine intervention. It's oftentimes done one-on-one or in a small group. It's a fine intervention. Now, so there were two kids we were talking about. Both had different issues which worked out well for me.

Matt Burns:

The first kid really struggled with initial learning. He would sit down with the kid and, let's say, taught the grapheme CH that day I'm just making that up and then at the end of the lesson we'd the ch and he couldn't do it. He didn't know what that meant. He's like you know, they just taught it to you 10 seconds ago and you interacted and did it, but now you don't, you don't know it. So for that kid it wasn't really the skill he needed. He wasn't quite ready for that intervention that we had to back it up to really focus more on basic freedom of awareness and then to teach the skill and a bunch more modeling, a lot more modeling.

Matt Burns:

Now the second kid, when he's sitting there with him doing the lesson, at the end of the lesson he did fine, no problem. Then the next day he forgot it. So for that kid right after lesson practice, practice, practice, practice. So after we're done. We had a little drill technique. I used that once he taught him whatever skill that was that day they'd practice it over and over and over again so he remembered it. So one kid needed more modeling. We had to match it up to the kid's skill level better I shouldn't say word skill level. We had to match it up to the skill better. And that kid needed more basic framework awareness and then more modeling of the skill, whereas the other kid just needed a lot more practice because they just weren't retaining it very well. And, by the way, those are the two most common that I see. I said that briefly a second ago, but those two just not learning in the first place or just not remembering it.

Lori:

When students need more support, which you just gave a great example of two students who did. Teachers want to know what do I need to do differently, what can I do differently? And I think what I'm hearing you say is it really depends where the breakdown is right. Are they not learning it, are they not remembering it, or can they just not apply it yet? Are they struggling to apply it? Can you say more about that?

Matt Burns:

Yeah, as I said, in 2010 or so, we were doing this hour long or so brief experimental analysis and I went to the teacher afterwards and showed her what we, what we did, and the teacher, I said so, this kid's really struggling to remember it. And the teacher said I could have told you that, and she's walking me. I thought about it and I thought she could have. She could have told me that. She could have easily told me that. Why didn't I think of that? And so then we had this idea where we started just asking the teacher these three things. So what I'm saying here, I'm stating the questions we asked. These are three things to look for when you're working with kids. Number one at the end of the lesson can the kid do it? So you just talk to him, you sit down, can the kid do the skill you just taught? And the answer to that is yes, everything else is a no. Because oftentimes I ask teachers that and they'll say well, sometimes that's a no, inconsistently that's a no. It depends. Those are all no's. Yes, everything else is a no. So I ask at the end of the lesson can the kid do it? No, okay, then that's where the breakdown is occurring. Two options there Either well, I don't want to say either. First, assess their prerequisite skill. If you're focusing on fluency and the kid's not learning in the first place, go reassess their Phymex. If you're assessing, if you're doing Phymex and the kid's not learning in the first place, go assess phony-week awareness. From experience I haven't studied this from experience I think 75% of the time that's the issue. It's to not doing the right skill. If they had the prerequisite skill and this is what we need to work on with this kid then you have to add in a lot more modeling. So think of this, think of at the end of the lesson can the kid do it? If the answer is no, assess the prerequisite skill. If it's low, back it up. If it's low, back it up. If it's not, add in more modeling. Now, if the answer to that question at the end of the lesson can do it, the answer is yeah, sure, no problem. The next question is the next day, does he remember it? Again, yes, everything else is a no. So if the yeah, he learned it in the first place, but the next day he's forgotten it, okay, that kid. Practice, practice, practice, practice.

Matt Burns:

We talk a lot about dosage in intervention, research and dosage is important, but I'm not convinced dosage is always the answer. If the intervention is not working. Doing it more may not help, but in this example, where the kid is getting it and they're just not retaining it, that's the most important thing you can do. Give that kid as much practice as possible and then, yeah, at the end of the lesson the kid learns it the next day does he remember it? Yeah, okay, then is he struggling to apply it? And of the three, that's the one that's the most difficult.

Matt Burns:

I just tell teachers your best bet is teach it how you want them to use it. So you know, the kid learns the grapheme and then goes to read words and text. They struggle with it. Okay, well then, really focus on teaching that grapheme within a word and then have the kid read sentences that contain that word as part of the lesson. So my advice to teachers going forward, interventionist, going forward look for those three things. Can they do it at the end of the lesson? And it doesn't have to be a hundred percent, but I want to see 90%. Do the next day? Do they remember it? And again, some forgetting is normal, but I want to see 90% retention, and then can they apply it, just as you're working with kids. Look for those three things and if the intervention is not working, that'll help you figure out how to intensify it.

Lori:

So good, okay, I feel like the thing that we go to the most is we skip over all the beginning stuff you said and we go right to the practice. Is that right? Yes, okay. So I'm hearing you say you know more is not necessarily the answer. It depends on what the need is.

Lori:

And if we don't match this like right instruction to the actual need, I'm assuming there could be some dire consequences. Right, like we're just having kids do more, do more, do more, but that's not really helping. You're actually, matt, this is a silly analogy, but I teach fitness classes at the gym and I teach body pump and you know, in that you lift weights. Well, it's like when people come to class week after week and you know, I do like really correct them, because I do think there's that we're not learning it in the first place. If they come week after week and every time they go to do a tricep kickback, they're bringing their arm all the way back into their shoulder. They could come week after week for the next five years. They're never going to define their triceps. So more practice isn't actually going to get them right.

Lori:

What we need, the outcome that we need. You got to stop to keep the tension. You got to stop that weight like right at your hip and keep, you know, kick it back from there. You can't just fling it around, and so we could do more practice all day, but it's not going to matter. So if we're not matching the instruction to the actual need, it makes sense in like this greater context, but I think often in a classroom setting where it might be tricky sometimes to get to the actual need of the students right, like I'm hearing you. What I'm hearing you say is we really have to analyze this.

Matt Burns:

You really do, you really have to think about it Now. So if I'm willing to accept that there's a lot of kids for whom just more practice might be helpful, but if they practice it wrong, that does more harm than good. First of all, if they're practicing and it's not helping, you're just wasting time. You're better off just to you know, find out what the kid actually needs and really focus on that. So that's in and of itself. But number two, if it's a mismatch, you might actually do more harm than good. And so I think it's absolutely fine if teachers start with dosage first, but if that doesn't work, switch right away to something else, and you're better off to try and really pinpoint it at the beginning.

Melissa:

Yeah, so that makes so much sense and I think, like you said, it's it's almost an instinct to just like keep doing more, more, more, more, but to not waste too much time doing that. Right if it's not working and come back to what's really happening. I think you, I think told us that you have a story about a kindergarten class that you wanted to tell us about. That's an example of this. You gave us a lot of examples already, but I want to hear what this really looks like in a classroom.

Matt Burns:

Yeah, it wasn't in a classroom, it was a kid, it was a kindergartner, okay, and it was the first kid we built this with. So again 2010 or so, we had a little guy who came to in kindergarten is, you know, very low, very low skills, and we he had very little foot, almost no footy McEwan. So we worked with him to build that and he learned that really quickly. Now, in the meantime, we're also trying to work on just basic letter sounds and I have never seen a kid struggle learning the letter sounds like this kid did, and it was. It was. It was really kind of frustrating because you would literally teach him the letter t, right, and say this is t, it makes it sound, and at the end of the lesson, okay, ready, what's this letter? I mean this letter t, what sounds it make you look at and go, we have no idea. We just taught it to him. He didn't. He during the lesson, did just fine. In fact, weeks we tried this and, um, we couldn't. Uh, he. Every time we taught the lesson, at the end we show him the card or whatever, and he never got it, never got right, literally not even once. And so that's, we started to develop this framework, uh. And we said we gotta figure out how this kid. So we went to basic, went back to basic learning theory, thought about these three phases as we sat down this kid now, the good news was he wasn't. The bad news was he wasn't learning in the first place, he really struggled. And so we just remember I just said the other lesson couldn't do it. So, um, we assessed his phonemic awareness. And there was, when we taught him his phonemic awareness, that was fine. So for this little guy, he really just needed a lot more modeling. So we did with him is we took the a picture. Now again, freedom of awareness helps so much. So, for example, teaching letter h, we had uh. We showed him a picture of uh hammer with a big h on it. He knew hammer started with right. So I was able to show him the h and say this says hammer. Hammer starts with what good. This is the other. That makes that sound. Basically, and you know, I did that with him during the first lesson and taught him what it said. And at the end of the lesson held up an h. He looked at it and went it was the first time he'd ever gotten it right, ever gotten one right, and it was really fun to see, because the teacher and the kid's teacher and my, my coach part of this grant were off to the side and they saw that. They both looked at each other and exploded into tears. It was so cool. Now the cool story about this little guy, though, is okay. We finally figured it out, and so we just kept doing that. He learned all his letter sounds pretty quickly after that. But I make that sound so I don't want to belittle this Like we spent weeks trying to teach the work with this kid. We could not get anything any progress, and once we figured it out and went back to really really focus on the scaffolding and modeling, that's when the kid finally took off and he's got a happy ending to the story.

Matt Burns:

This was in his kindergarten years, a three-year grant. During kindergarten, he was referred for special ed because you know he wasn't doing well. That was a reasonable referral, and they tested him and found out he had an IQ of like 65. I forget the exact number, but in the intellectual disability range. So they're at the IEP. I was not at the IEP. I want to be really clear. I was not there. I'm telling you what I heard At the IEP.

Matt Burns:

They said okay, your son has an intellectual disability, would like to start special ed services, and the mom said, well, he can still keep doing the stuff with Dr Burge's stuff, right? And the principal said no. Now the reason the principal said no was this was a prevention grant project, it wasn't a special ed project. So that was the right answer. But we would have kept working with them. There's no way we would have thrown this little kid away, but anyway. So the principal said no and the mom thought about it and said you know what? No, this is working. I want to keep trying this. We can come back next year if we need to. And they're like yeah, of course, yeah, course, yeah, no, let's keep trying this.

Matt Burns:

And so, during, during, well, at the end of second grade, I was cut right at the end, at the end of second grade, this little kid who was intellectual disability. In this school they use the, the um, dra, the nwa map and aimsweb, all three of those. He was a grade level reader by the end of second grade and took a lot of work. I don't want to, you know, but this little kid was supposedly an intellectual disability by just really focusing on what he needs. We got him there and that took a lot of work. It took time, but we got him there. We saw huge growth. Once we figured it out, we kept seeing really huge growth. It just took him a couple years to catch up to grade level.

Melissa:

Yeah, that's amazing, and because you found exactly what he needed. I mean that that's the key, because I could see that going poorly. Even I'm thinking about it because next year I'm actually going to volunteer with my son's kindergarten teacher, so I'll be right there with the a phonemic awareness issue, right? And, like you said, you went and phonemic awareness was not an issue, right? So so you can't even just assume like, oh well, then I have to go back to this other skill that they must not have, right? You have to see if that's what they have or not. I'm wondering, though, for specifically since we're talking about kind of phonics instruction right at the moment, is there are there any other ideas you have for that modeling part? Because I could see that's where people might get stuck, like, okay, what else do I do to model this? There's only so many things to show them the sound.

Matt Burns:

So I did a it's not a grant I have. I'm going out observing classrooms and I observed a kindergarten classroom and it was a great teacher, everything's cool. But she entered, she, she had little kindergartners come up and sit on the floor and she goes okay, kids, we're going to learn something new. And she put up a letter of a t and put you a t, you know, on the smart board, say, okay, who knows what this is? And they all kind of stared at her for like 10 seconds. Then they're kindergartners, right, so they start getting out kindergarten. Right, they start screwing around, raise their hand, so totally relevant stuff, you know um. And so she okay, this is, this is a letter. Who knows what letter it is? Um, same thing happened about 10 seconds. So I'll get kind of squirmy in their kindergartens. And then she's okay, this is a letter t. Who knows what sound it makes?

Matt Burns:

Now, at this point I might have given up, right, like, they don't know what it is, they don't know the bit, they're it, they're not going to know the letter name, but she still, or the letter sound, she still tried it. Same thing 10, 15 seconds of the kids getting kindergartenery, and you know. And then she says okay, this, this makes the sound. Now, I would have done this. This is okay Class friends. Where was called um? We're gonna learn a new letter. This is the letter t. Everyone say it. The kids say t. Let's say okay, t makes the t sound. Everyone say that. Kids would say good, okay, um, let's say it again. T makes the t sound right, what sound kids say t? Good like in the word top top starts with t. This t turn your partners. Think of a word that starts with t. Right, like. That took about 15 seconds and then we'll learned it much better. So when I'm answering your question, melissa, which is, yeah, I get it, but you'd be surprised how often that step gets skipped in the learning.

Matt Burns:

And we talk now about productive failure and there's a meta-analysis. I could pull up the citation if you want it, but there's a meta-analysis that's found for math that productive failure had a positive effect and a moderate effect. So I went and looked at the study in more detail and what I found was that it was math and some of the dependent variables were things like physics and chemistry and et cetera. And when you look at the age groups, the largest effects were for students in undergrad or maybe high school, but we looked at elementary school, grades two through five. The effect size was negative, did more harm than good.

Matt Burns:

So productive failure, remember those phases of learning Acquisition, fluency, generalization, problem solving, adaptation. It's that final phase where productive struggle might be helpful. It is not helpful in initial learning. And so in high school kids learning chemistry or something, sure that's a different conversation Little kids learning their letter sounds or whatever it is.

Matt Burns:

No, you have to have modeling first. So I do think oftentimes reminding teachers of the importance of modeling, going back and just simply saying first, can really be the issue. Now I will say, like for this little boy we mentioned earlier, the kindergartner we model, we provide a more scaffolding by giving that letter the picture of a hammer. So I do think teachers can brainstorm ways to model more. Think teachers can brainstorm ways to model more, and I don't think any is worse than others when it comes to modeling. As long as they're, you know, showing it first and having the kid immediately responding and correcting any errors, right then it should be fine. But there are also other ways to do it. But I think oftentimes you've got to get back to really just doing actual modeling during initial learning.

Lori:

Yeah, that's really important. You're making me think about the older students, Do you think it's because they're more application? Like, for example, if I was doing a chemistry lab, I would have had to teach something beforehand as the teacher in order to get my students ready for that lab, or they would have had to read something beforehand or prepare. They don't just walk into that lab and willy-nilly just go for it. So there is that element of when they are doing. I'm just thinking of an example of when they might fail. Right, If they were having productive, failure could be in a situation like a chemistry lab.

Melissa:

That's what I was thinking, lori. I'm like they have at least 12 years of school behind them right and knowledge.

Lori:

Is that like it? Do you think it's more because it's the application piece at that point?

Matt Burns:

Yes, Well, I think it absolutely comes to it Now. I'm sure there are some initial learning that has to happen in a chemistry class, I'm sure that's true, but it's it's at the upper level. It's much more. I mean, think about what you're, what you might think about the test you take. You know elementary school versus older grades. You know oftentimes it's multiple choice elementary school, it's essay in high school. Why? Because you're tapping into the application side of it. Essays are application. So I think you're exactly right. I think some of those more advanced courses with older kids, it's all about application.

Lori:

Yeah, I mean okay, even if we think about something as simple as us as adults you know, make baking or making a meal we have prerequisite skills there. I know how to measure with a measuring cup, you know, I know how to cut with a knife, I can put all that together and, yeah, there will be some element of failure. Perhaps I burn the garlic, but I live and learn right next time. But it's more that application piece. I've got the prereqs to get me to the point of I can actually try this out now.

Matt Burns:

I think the classic example is driver's training. You're not going to use productive failure in driver's training Like, yeah, you put the kid in a challenging situation perhaps, but you've already assessed to know they have the basic driving skills right before you and you're going to teach it to them, have them practice it and arrange simulations et cetera. Then they go on the road right, it's, it's. You don't apply it until until you can do it.

Lori:

So we're thinking about writing instruction and you know early writing is definitely different than more advanced writing or older writers. So how do we help a student who's just getting started versus one who's trying to write, maybe independently, but needs support organizing or elaborating? Because I could see this framework being really helpful.

Matt Burns:

Well, I agree. Now I've never studied it for writing. I studied it for math and reading, but never writing. But my three sort of go-tos if they're struggling to learn it in the first place. I go back to early writing skills and there's a program called Early Writing Project at the University of Minnesota and University of Missouri. I'm not sure, I think it's probably on both their websites Early Writing Project at the University of Minnesota and University of Missouri, although I'm not sure, I think it's probably on both their websites.

Matt Burns:

Early Writing Project. It's all about how to do that, initial instruction in basic writing, the application, and I will say I'm hypothesizing that we'll see application breakdowns in writing more than in reading. But that's where we drive into SRSD, the self-regulated strategy development. Those strategies are ideal for helping kids apply writing skills. So that's, if you, if you've got a kid who's really struggling to apply writing skills, that's it. That's a go-to I use quite a bit and in between it's just practice. But stuff like practicing, uh, copying, practicing writing sentences, that type of stuff, uh is sort of in between. It does apply well to writing and, by the way, I know this is literacy, but I really kind of started on this in in math.

Matt Burns:

Many years ago I was teaching kids um a. I did research on something called incremental rehearsal, which is a way, a really intensive way, for kids to practice stuff, for kids with memory difficulties to remember things, and it works really well. But I was I wanted to try this with kids with intellectual disability, to teach them their math facts, and so I was simply teaching, you know, single digit multiplication, three kids, late elementary school, intellectual disability, and they learned them no problem, it was easy. And I went back to the teacher and saying look, here are the data. You know, the kids did great and the teacher went oh, that's fine, but that's not what they need. Like, what do you mean? He goes they need to understand it better conceptually. Okay, well, show me what you mean.

Matt Burns:

So she had the kid come over and gave him three times three and I'm going to try and make some I know this is audio, so I'll try and make some audio sound and the kid counted out his fingers. He went one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine Not that loudly, but then wrote down the answer nine. She said see, he needs to understand it better conceptually. I said well, wait a minute, isn't going? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven in your head, showing you he understands it conceptually. So that really got me started on this line of how to individualize math interventions based on where the kids are, and it follows kind of the same framework, except conceptual understanding. Is the footy-mick awareness of math right? If they really struggle with basic numeracy, go back and look at basic conceptual understanding. And it worked really well. So I've never studied with writing, studied with the other two and it applies.

Melissa:

Yeah, since we're talking about where this applies, I'm wondering how it applies to comprehension, because I can really see it with our you know the phonics skills and getting more fluent with them. But I'm wondering and we always talk about how comprehension is different. It's much more nuanced. There's so many things that go into comprehension. If students are struggling with comprehension, could you use this framework with that as well?

Matt Burns:

Yes. So the more discreet the skill, the easier it is to apply, to apply this framework. So, yes, it makes much more sense. But for fun. I still like comprehension. But remember, comprehension is discrete skill. So if the kid's not, you're trying to teach them comprehension strategy, for example, and they're struggling to learn it in the first place, go assess the prerequisite skills and I'll tell you from experience. I was about to say nine times out of 10, which seems a little high, but I bet it's not wrong. Most of the kids I work with in schools who have comprehension deficits don't have comprehension deficits, they have fluency deficits.

Matt Burns:

Thank you for saying that when we assess the prerequisite skill and we see it's a fluency issue. When you really focus on that fluency issue, the comprehension is better. So that's learning it in the first place. Then you have a kid who, yeah, they learn the strategy, for example. See what I've just done. By the way, I should say this I've just taken comprehension and made it a discrete skill because I'm talking about a strategy. So if I'm trying to teach a strategy, it works. If I'm trying to teach comprehension other than assessing prerequisite skills, it doesn't work quite as well. So you to first, then make it a discrete skill and so I want to make it their. You know a strategy that they're learning. So, yeah, they can do it in the first place or not. If they can't look at their fluency skills, if they can, if they have good fluency, then maybe do more modeling and let them use the uh, teach them the, spend more time teaching on the strategy to begin with, then more time practicing it and then actually have them go and apply it.

Matt Burns:

And one thing we did, a study we did, was we found a bunch of middle schoolers. They're trying to teach um, comprehension strategies to the ones from reciprocal teaching you know, paraphrasing, summarizing, questioning anyway and they taught it to them and the kids did fine during the lesson and then uh, but then when they went to go use it out in the skill, it didn't improve their comprehension. When they had to go apply, it didn't improve their comprehension. So we came in and said, you know, yeah, they, they could do it accurately when they're sitting there and guess what? The next day they still remember it. They started to apply it. So we started giving them feedback.

Matt Burns:

After we had them, uh, read whatever was an answer comprehension. We asked them read whatever it was and answer comprehension. We asked them these questions, a series of questions about if they're using the strategies or not and use that to help them understand. Oh, I could use that there. Oh, I should have done that there. And then their comprehension took off. So I think it doesn't. The more discreet the skill, the better it works for this framework. But comprehension is a series of discreet skills. Just pick out which one you're focusing on.

Lori:

Yeah, so what I just heard you say was metacognition and application. In that case, yeah.

Matt Burns:

Yeah, in that case, yes, metacognition for application is really important. Yeah, all right.

Melissa:

So we also want to talk about assessments, even though I know we could talk about assessments forever. But I do want to, just in the frame of what we're talking about, talk about assessments, because sometimes teachers feel like they have so much data from so many different assessments it's hard to even know what to do with it all. But I'm hearing you, even through this conversation, say things like you know, just looking at what they do at the end of the lesson, right, that that's an assessment there. Or even you said some at one point. You know the teacher, of course she would know that, right? You, just by watching her students, she would know that. So I'm wondering about, like, between all the assessments they're giving, between watching what their students are doing every day, you know, how can teachers use assessment data to figure out where this breakdown is happening so they know where to intervene in the right way?

Matt Burns:

So the type of data used depends on the question being answered. Depends on the question being answered and when I'm talking about so, if I'm using the data to identify a child with a learning disability or to determine proficiency in a state test which could be linked to being retained, those are really important decisions. We need very rigorous data for that. But when I'm talking about modifying instruction or intervention, those aren't I don't need as rigorous data for that. So observational data can be really helpful, and so there's a couple of things you can look at, and accuracy is important. So I want to see if a student can't do at least 90% accuracy. I'm not going to let them practice it independently. I want to see 90% accuracy first. So, oh, what's the program that does this? Road to Reading, I think, is the one that does this At the end of every lesson and their lessons aren't just one session, they're over a couple of days. They give the kid 10 words that contain what they just taught them, and they have to read those words and see if they can get them right or not. To me, those are invaluable data because you can see, 10 is a good number. 90% is my cutoff, so if they get 9 or 10 right, they learned it. If not, they didn't. So those types of assessment data if you're really worried about the kid at the end of the lesson, give them this. It becomes a measurement issue because if I give them 5 and they get one wrong, that's 80%. If I give them 10, they get one wrong, that's 90%. So if they got one wrong out of 10, I'm happy. One wrong out of five, I'm concerned. So that's why it gets to be a little difficult.

Matt Burns:

But teachers can also use what they know about the kids as well. If they want to use five, but give them some sample of the behavior and see if they can do it 90 accuracy. If they can move on now, the next day, give them that same assessment and see if they can do 90 accuracy again. So when I say assessment, I mean you know a list of words that they contain the grapheme you just taught them um, a, a spelling words that you just taught them those types of things, and just see if they can accurately do it. 90. If they can do it right after lesson, they've got it. If they can accurately do it, 90%. If they can do it right after the lesson, they've got it. If they can do 90% the next day, they've got it. So those are the types of assessments that I think are really, really important for intervention design.

Lori:

Matt, do you mean literally the same? The next day the same words. Yep.

Matt Burns:

Okay, I feel like every teacher listening would be like.

Lori:

Does he mean the same, the exact same, or should I change it?

Matt Burns:

No, no, I'm glad you asked, no, I do. Yes, keep it simple. So it's really interesting to watch. As a researcher, I sometimes get excited about bad things and I always feel guilty afterwards, like if I'm going to work with a kid and I find a kid with a really severe problem, like oh great, let's dive in. And I realize, oh, I just celebrated the kid having a problem. I don't mean that. So sometimes I get excited about things I might come across as strange. But yeah, I want to keep it really, really simple and I've seen kids when I say the same words the next day, I see basically a bimodal.

Matt Burns:

I see two things happen. Either the kids fly through it, no problem, or they get like two right, you never get the kid. I should say never. You hardly ever see a kid get eight the day before they got nine. Hardly ever happens. And so if they're worried about practice effect, well, okay, that's a legitimate concern. I'm just telling you from my experience. It's hardly ever a factor. They either know or they don't. The next day they remember nine again, or 10, or they remember two or less.

Melissa:

So you're really just catching those kids that had it the one day and then the next day it's gone, it's apparent.

Matt Burns:

It is clear. That's the thing I'm a long butt working with kids is they tell you what they need. We just have to do a better job of listening and the kid you know you'll have them, the kid next day. We get two out of ten. They're clearly showing you what they need and they will do that. They will clearly show you what they need. We just have to do a better job of listening.

Lori:

That's awesome.

Matt Burns:

All right, I love that. This is such a great tip for teachers listening. So if teachers are listening and they love this idea, matt and they're like. But the most recent one is in a journal called Learning Disabilities, a multidisciplinary journal. It's there. We also have an article in the Communique which is published by the National Association of School Psychologists Easy to get. We have an article coming out in Perspectives, the IDA journal, about this. So that's there, and also my YouTube channel. I talk about my YouTube channel. Just go to YouTube search Matthew Burns. I'm the first Matthew Burns that comes up, which I'm very proud of. Anyway, I have a couple of videos on there about how to do this as well.

Lori:

Okay, great, and we'll be sure to link those in our show notes. So if you're listening, you can go to the show notes, click them, find Matt, and then you know, email me, I'm happy to help, If you like.

Matt Burns:

This one teacher called me up out of the blue. I spent quite a bit of time with that teacher, but you know, usually it's a five, 10 minute conversation. Email me, I'm happy to try and support them. But I but I mean it's three questions At the end of the lesson can they do it the next day, do they remember it and can they apply it? So really, if you just start there and really identify what the kid needs, there are many ways you could probably match that and I'm not convinced one is better than the other. There are lots of ways, Although oh no, I'm going to say this oh my gosh, I almost gave bad advice. All practice is not equal. There is bad practice. There is more effective practice. In order to be effective practice, there has to be repetition, has to be generation and, I would argue, interleaving. So repetition means you obviously got to practice it more than once.

Matt Burns:

So again, coming back to math facts, I had a teacher like fourth grade I think it was. I'd finally convinced her that math facts were important. So she was going to have her kids practice math facts. So they sat in the room and they all sat there and she would point to a kid and say, you know, Jimmy, three times three. And they each had their little math fact sheet. You know numbers going across the top and the side. You just go top, three times three, find the three, the three on the side, and it's nine. They all had that. So little Jimmy would go three, three, nine, Nine, good, okay, thanks, Tommy. What's four times four, 16, good, 16, thanks. And that was almost a complete waste of time.

Matt Burns:

First of all, there's no repetition. Just saying it once doesn't help. I shouldn't say it doesn't help, but it's not. You gotta say it more than once, obviously. And, by the way, if I say, okay, Jimmy, what's three times three, what's every other kid doing? Nothing right, they're not, they're all didn't call me Good, so not getting repetition. Yeah, exactly. Number two you have to generate the answer yourself.

Matt Burns:

Recall, practice effect. One of the best ways to retain things is just practice, recalling over and over again. But looking at an answer and reading it is not generating the answer. You have to generate the answer yourself. And so they have to look at whatever the stimulus is like, look at the T, and they have to be the one to say T, you can't say it for them. So if I were to have a short kid, the T five times and every time I said T as they listened, or every time they said T, they're going to retain it way better if they're the ones that said the sound.

Matt Burns:

And then, lastly, interleaved Interleave, practice multiple skills at once, and I like to have I think it's more effective if you have easy or review built in there. So if I'm teaching you t and I'm practicing t, I'm going to have four other sounds that you already know as we practice them together. So repetition, interleaving and generation Most of the things really should be there. And so if I'm a teacher and I know my kid learns in the first place but just needs more practice with it, all right, let's see. Anything I do that builds in repetition with generation and some interleaving, is going to be fine, and there's 10 ways to do it, if not more, and it's probably going to be fine as long as you follow those three rules. And then generalization oh, there's a hundred ways to do that and I love, when working with teachers and teams, to see the creative ways they come up with helping kids build for transfer, build for generalization, teach you how you want them to use it, and that's oftentimes really fun.

Matt Burns:

Teachers have fun with that one. I think it's the hardest one. It's the one teachers think have the most fun with. So, yeah, just you want to start this. Just start looking for this, looking for at the end of the lesson. Can the kid do it the next day? Do you remember it and then can they apply it.

Melissa:

And how. What you do with that information can vary, as long as you're matching what the kid needs Way to leave us with some gems there at the end. Those are great, thank you, and I will be emailing you if I have any kindergartners next year that I'm having trouble with. But no, thank you so much for this. This I mean Lori and I really did. After we talked to you at the pre-call, we're like, oh my gosh, this totally changed our way of thinking about intervention and it seems so simple. But the way you framed it just really is helpful, and I'm really hoping it's helpful for a lot of teachers out there as well. So thank you for sharing. We really appreciate it.

Matt Burns:

Thank you, this was fun.

Lori:

To stay connected with us, sign up for our email list at literacypodcastcom, join our facebook group and follow us on instagram and twitter if this episode resonated with you, take a moment to share with a teacher friend or leave us a five-star rating and review on apple podcasts just a quick reminder that the views and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests of the Melissa and Lori Love Literacy podcast are not necessarily the opinions of Great Minds PBC or its employees.

Lori:

We appreciate you so much and we're so glad you're here to learn with us. Thank you.