Explore · I4I

Mathematics Strategy Instruction for Children With Serious Problem-Solving Difficulties

2014

This intervention provides explicit instruction in cognitive strategies to improve math word problem-solving accuracy for Grade 3 students with serious math difficulties. The intervention includes curriculum materials that gradually increase the number of irrelevant propositions within word problems across 20 lessons. Treatment conditions include verbal strategies (underlining questions, circling numbers, identifying key words, crossing out irrelevant information), visual strategies (using diagrams to represent parts/wholes and comparisons), or a combination of both. Each 30-minute lesson includes warm-up activities (calculation practice and puzzles), direct instruction on strategies or rules, guided practice with three problems including tutor feedback, and independent practice with three problems. Sessions are delivered three times per week for 8 weeks in small groups of 2-4 students by trained tutors (graduate students or paraprofessionals).

3rd Grade

We Have Skills!

2014

We Have Skills! (WHS) is a video-based social skills instructional program designed for early elementary school students (kindergarten through 3rd grade). The program teaches seven core social skills: listen, ask for help, follow directions, do the best you can, follow the rules, work out strong feelings, and get along. WHS consists of eight 5-minute video lessons featuring a teacher (Mr. Lopez) and students who interact with a 'magic' chalkboard presenting realistic vignettes, animated animal characters, and catchy songs. The program is delivered to whole classrooms and includes supplementary materials such as fillable booklets, coloring pages, skill cards, posters, reinforcement systems (skill tickets, tally sheets, happy notices for parents, certificates of mastery), and an online assessment tool (ESBA). Teachers receive approximately one hour of online training to familiarize themselves with the program components and access fully developed lesson plans. Each weekly lesson includes a 5-10 minute discussion and a 5-minute video, with optional practice activities including songs (30 seconds per skill), picture cards (2-4 minutes), role plays (1-5 minutes), and take-home booklets (5 minutes). The program was designed to be easy to implement, minimally time-consuming, and firmly rooted in evidence-based practices including PBIS, RtI, and explicit instruction.

Kindergarten 1st Grade 2nd Grade 3rd Grade

Key Communities

2014

Key Communities is a comprehensive first-year learning community program at Colorado State University designed to support student success, particularly for underrepresented populations (first-generation, low-income, and ethnically diverse students). The program serves approximately 475 first-year students annually, organized into five communities of 75-150 students each, with each community further divided into clusters of 19 students. Students participate in integrated course clusters linking a Key Seminar with one to two university core curriculum courses, live together in a centrally located residence hall, and engage in structured co-curricular activities. The program includes a two-day orientation before fall semester, an early warning system for academic monitoring, dedicated full-time coordinators and undergraduate mentors, and intentional community-building traditions. Key emphasizes academic integration, personal and social integration, and cultural integration through frequent contact among faculty, staff, and students both inside and outside the classroom.

Postsecondary

Working Memory Training With and Without Strategy Instruction

2017

Working Memory Training With and Without Strategy Instruction is a verbal working memory training program designed for first-grade students at risk for learning difficulties. The intervention involves one-on-one sessions where students complete four verbal working memory tasks (Counting Figures, Calculation Span, Operation Span, and Puzzles) in 35-minute daily sessions over 10 consecutive school days (totaling 5.8 hours). Two versions exist: one with explicit rehearsal strategy instruction where students are taught to verbally rehearse information aloud repeatedly, and one without strategy instruction where students simply practice the tasks. The training uses adaptive difficulty matched to students' performance and includes points and small prizes for engagement. Research assistants deliver the intervention following scripted protocols.

1st Grade

Literacy Learning Cohorts

2017

Literacy Learning Cohorts (LLC) is a professional development innovation designed to improve special education teachers' content and pedagogical knowledge for providing reading instruction to upper elementary students with learning disabilities. The LLC targets students in grades 3-5 with learning disabilities and focuses on word study (decoding and structural analysis) and fluency instruction. The intervention is delivered through a comprehensive professional development model that includes a 2-day initial institute, six monthly cohort meetings (small groups of 5-6 teachers led by expert coaches), four classroom observations with individualized coaching and video self-reflection, and resource materials including a manual and book. Teachers receive support in implementing evidence-based strategies for teaching syllable types, decoding rules for multisyllabic words, structural analysis, and fluency strategies such as repeated reading. The PD model emphasizes active learning, collective participation, content focus, sufficient duration, coherence with teachers' curriculum and goals, and individualized support based on teacher need.

3rd Grade 4th Grade 5th Grade

Fusion Reading

2017

Fusion Reading is a comprehensive 2-year supplemental reading program designed to significantly narrow the reading achievement gap for middle school students (grades 6-8) with reading disabilities who typically score two or more grade levels below grade placement. The program includes seven instructional units covering phonics, decoding, word recognition, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension strategies. Students meet in small groups of 3-8 students for 50-minute sessions five times per week. The program uses explicit instruction with a structured Daily Lesson Format that includes Warm-up, Thinking Reading, Explicit Strategy Instruction, Vocabulary, and Wrap-up activities. A unique feature is that students apply reading skills and strategies directly to core class materials (language arts, science, social studies, math) approximately 65% of the time, supporting generalization. Teachers receive extensive professional development including initial 3-day training, ongoing coaching, and additional training sessions throughout implementation.

6th Grade 7th Grade

PLUG IN Reading Comprehension Intervention

2017

PLUG IN is a short-term reading comprehension intervention for fifth-grade students with comprehension difficulties. The intervention uses informational science texts focused on ocean life and teaches a multi-component strategy for before, during, and after reading. PLUG IN stands for: Previewing, Linking to what you know, Using fix-up strategies, Generating questions, In your own words (main idea and summarizing), and Now answer the questions. The intervention is delivered in small groups of 2-4 students over 40 sessions (30 minutes each, 4 times per week for 10-12 weeks, totaling 20 hours). Instruction follows a 4-day cycle: Day 1 focuses on explicit instruction and modeling; Day 2 emphasizes review and scaffolded practice; Day 3 provides independent practice with trade books; Day 4 uses collaborative reading with biographical texts where students rotate as coach to guide peers. Tutors are graduate research assistants who are certified teachers with extensive experience and receive approximately 20 hours of training.

5th Grade

Class-Wide Function-Related Intervention Teams (CW-FIT)

2017

Class-Wide Function-Related Intervention Teams (CW-FIT) is a classroom management strategy for elementary school students that incorporates social skills instruction, group contingencies, praise, points, and group rewards. Teachers explicitly teach social skills (such as 'Follow directions the first time,' 'Get the teacher's attention correctly,' and 'Ignore inappropriate behavior') through repetition, role-plays, and discussions, with posters displayed in the classroom. The class is organized into teams, and during regular instruction, the teacher praises and awards points to groups exhibiting the social skills. A timer beeps every 3-5 minutes to prompt the teacher to award points. At the end of the lesson, groups that exceed a predetermined point goal receive simple rewards (tangible like stickers or nontangible like games). The teacher attended a 1-hour training session that included explanation of rationale, video clips, and practice opportunities, with ongoing support from research staff during initial implementation.

6th Grade

Peer-Mediated Incremental Rehearsal (PMIR)

2017

Peer-Mediated Incremental Rehearsal (PMIR) is an intervention designed to teach high-frequency words to English Language Learner (ELL) students in second and third grade who need additional reading support. PMIR uses peer tutors (high-achieving third-grade students with well-developed English proficiency) to deliver incremental rehearsal instruction in small groups (1:1 peer tutor to target student ratio). The intervention involves teaching unknown words interspersed with known words using flashcards. Each session teaches three unknown words, with each unknown word rehearsed alongside seven known words following a specific sequence. Peer tutors provide direct instruction by introducing unknown words, prompting students to read them, and providing immediate corrective feedback when errors occur. Sessions occur approximately three times per week and last about 10 minutes per student. Before implementation, peer tutors receive three to four 20-minute training sessions from graduate assistants to learn the intervention procedures, including how to introduce words, provide corrective feedback, and manage the interspersal sequence. The intervention uses 3×5-inch index cards with words written in black marker on the front and color-coded on the back (red for unknown, green for known words). Graduate assistants also assess students' oral reading fluency at the start of each session using AIMSweb reading curriculum-based measures.

2nd Grade 3rd Grade

Fusion

2014

Fusion is a Tier 2 first-grade mathematics intervention designed for students at risk in whole-number concepts and skills. Students are taught in small groups of approximately five students and receive 60 lessons, each lasting 30 minutes, delivered over a period of 20 weeks. Each lesson includes the explicit introduction of new content and systematic practice and review in four to five brief, scripted mathematics activities. Lessons use a variety of math models and contain teacher modeling, scaffolded instructional examples, and opportunities for teachers to provide academic feedback based on student responses to individual and group questions. Two mathematical domains in the first-grade Common Core State Standards—Operations and Algebraic Thinking and Number and Operations in Base Ten—form the basis of Fusion content. The first half of the curriculum emphasizes number sense, basic number combinations, and place-value concepts. During the second half of the curriculum, students encounter multidigit computation without regrouping and word-problem solving. Interventionists participated in two 3-hour professional development workshops before implementation.

1st Grade