Effective Reading Interventions for Middle School Students: New Toolkit

The Institute of Education Sciences released the Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Middle School (PRISMS) Toolkit. The toolkit is designed to help educators put into practice recommendations from the What Works Clearinghouse practice guide Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4–9. Recognizing the need to support literacy in middle school contexts, the toolkit is aimed at educators providing reading intervention to students in grades 6–8. The toolkit includes: Educator implementation tools that help educators self-assess their current implementation of the practice guide recommendations, identify areas for growth, and set goals for implementing the practice guide recommendations. Five online professional learning modules that build educators’ knowledge of the practice guide recommendations and support classroom implementation. Each module includes a description of the steps to implement the practice guide recommendations, videos modeling the instructional routines, classroom implementation tools and resources, and a participant workbook to plan for implementation in the classroom. Professional learning community (PLC) facilitator resources that help facilitators to organize and lead ten PLC sessions. During these ten sessions, teams of educators use the educator implementation tools, review what they learn in the professional learning modules, and plan for implementation. Resources for instructional leaders, toolkit coordinators, and district leaders that help them plan for and support implementation in their schools. Together, these resources provide practical, evidence-based strategies to support educators in selecting and implementing effective reading interventions for grade 6–8 students with reading difficulties and improve student learning outcomes. To access the toolkit, please visit https://ies.ed.gov/regional-educational-laboratories-toolkits. *****