Blog Post #5: Early Intervention.  Christina Neeley

 

     When I received my Bachelor degree in Elementary Education nearly thirteen years ago I’ve seen a variety of changes in special education, some beneficial and others questionable.  While I was student teaching we had one student that was in a wheelchair.  He had an educational aide that stayed with him all day to provide intervention services that he needed in order to function in the classroom.  The next year there was no longer money in the budget for educational aides to be with individual students.  If students needed one-on-one services, they needed to visit the resource room, for either all subjects or just Reading and/or Math.

     A few years later in my First grade classroom, I had six students that needed to be identified for Special Education services.  It was one of the first years that RTI was being introduced in our school.  The idea of implementing a systematic approach for early identification and treatment of significant learning problems that would lead to positive outcomes for many children is intuitively appealing (Jimenez & Graf, 2008).  The early intervention was very appealing.  My classroom was in an area with 100% free lunches and low socio-economic status.  Parent involvement was very low, it was up to me as the first grade teacher to make sure that I provided early interventions and referred them to the RTI team in order to get the services that they needed.  Late that year, Title One funds became available for my identified students.  They were able to receive services from January through June.  The following school year the service was terminated because enrollment was low and the funds were no longer available to offer Title services. 

     ‘Prevention of academic failure is at the forefront of education (Jimenez & Graf, 2008).’  The changes in IDEA 2004 has helped to address some of the documenting problems with identifying students with exceptional needs which has paved the way for RTI and the way we provide interventions to students in need. 

     Personally, the school that my children attend has consistently provided Title One services to those identified by the regular ed. teacher.  Both my son and daughter received Reading services early in addition to their classroom instruction.  It was an added benefit to have this service available.  My daughter still receives Math Title services as an eighth grader.  Early intervention is beneficial, however the older the child gets, the more that they become aware that they require extra practice in order to understand the content.  My daughter is not happy to be in that Math intervention class, however, she does understand that it is beneficial.

     I believe that if Title One is offered in one large public school, it should be offered in the small charter school too.  This is where our government fails some of our students, by not providing them with services necessary to be successful.  Early intervention may prevent the misidentification of some students while providing needed early learning support (Jimenez & Graf, 2008).