Key Points
- School intervention Programs are instructional activities done by school to help students tackle areas where they are lacking.
- These programs usually focus on subjects such as reading and maths.
- Most schools employ school intervention programs so they, and the students’ parents, can track the progress of students.
If you are a parent of children that need extra help in school, then you may have already heard about the term intervention from one of the school’s parent events. It has become an accepted word in the academic world to describe students that require special attention to boost their performances. Instructional intervention, however, may be a bit different that other school intervention Programs. Knowing exactly what the term instructional intervention is, is the first step in understanding it and how it can help your child do better in school.
Definition
Instructional intervention is a scheme or program designed by a school that may include a number of steps to help students catch up with their academic requirements. This is particularly helpful for students who struggle at certain subjects. Because, most students, are diverse and might require different types of action, and it might become a challenge to address each one individually.
Teachers often report behavioral problems in dealing with their students. When your child has been sent to the principal’s office too many times, it might be a good idea to sign him up with behavioral intervention that your kid’s school is offering. The two main types of this kind of intervention are positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) and behavior contract.
Meanwhile, if the student is failing to catch up on his grades for lacking aptitude to specific subjects, then he/she should be signed up for an academic intervention. These interventions are usually focused on the subjects reading and math’s.
Instructional interventions have key ingredients in order to truly become effective. This are:
- They have to be specific meaning they are aimed to helping a student boost a particular weakness that he/she has. For instance, a student struggling in math, need not sign up for other interventions as this would clutter his/her focus.
- The instructional interventions have to be in a formal setting.This helps students and parents keep a schedule and estimate the length of time that the student has to stay in the program for. Intervention could last for weeks or months and be spread out to a few hours after regular school hours, on weekends, or both.
- Formalizing the intervention programs makes it easier for both parents and the school to keep track on how the student is doing, in relation to his/her grades in school. And, in addition, they will be able to gauge the effectiveness of the school intervention programs.
While it is encouraged to formalize school interventions, there is an argument in having a more flexible one. This can be raised when the program is failing to reach the expectations that have been set for the students at the start. There are instances that this can happen and the reasons could be a combination of both the lack of aptitude and behavioral challenges. A solution for this could be to further increase the amount of time that the student will be spending in the school programs. Or, in some cases, a student could boost his/her grades by lessening the workload of the programs and focusing on coaching and motivating them. It might also help to change the setting by focusing more on the student. This can be done by limiting the number of students per class even up to doing one-on-one sessions with a student.
Response to Intervention (RTI), is the reactionary approach in dealing with failing scenarios for each student after a stint of the school intervention program. Schools may choose to standardize this approach by including levels to which each student may belong to. For instance, a select group of students may be chosen for a more intensive program after failing to up their grades.
Common Misunderstandings
Instructional interventions involves more than just the scheme to help students. This is one of the aspects of instructional interventions that are often misunderstood. Strategies, though sometimes employed in interventions, involve a far more formal approach.
The formal approach for instructional interventions allows for the ability to track the student in each step of the way. While, strategies, are mostly informal and only a guiding principle to help students.
It is also quite often that instructional interventions are confused with accommodations. While instructional intervention may include a change in venue, an accommodation’s sole focus is a change in environment to foster learning.
How it looks like in practice
Here’s an sample of what an instructional intervention as observed from a child who is having a difficult time in a general education classroom:
Mary is in second grade and is eight years old. She struggles in studying basic math and cannot even count because she is not able to tell numbers apart from each other. She has not been, however, diagnosed with any learning disability so she does not qualify for special education. To remedy this, the school set up an hour each day to help her catch up with her classmates. This included one-on-one sessions with trained professionals of the field. The vital thing here, is she gets evaluated every each week to track her progress and to discuss how to further her learning. The help she took from that allowed her to successfully catch up with her peers preventing her from being left behind.
Conclusion
If you have any worries about your child’s struggle in school, it might be best to talk to your teachers sooner, rather than later, about possible remedies that the school can offer. School intervention programs are more than just strategies and accommodation, school’s use these programs to design a specific scheme, and executing that scheme, to help students. There are many ways that a student can benefit from these programs and help can be sought if need be for your child.
