Universal screening, explained, with Carrie Thomas Beck, Ph.D.

[00:00:00] Carrie Thomas Beck: That data that you collect in the fall is really going to help you adjust Tier 1 immediately.

[00:00:09] Susan Lambert: This is Susan Lambert, and welcome to Science of Reading: The Podcast from Amplify. We’re on to Episode 4 in our MTSS season. Episode by episode, we’re spotlighting the foundational elements of an effective MTSS. After tackling core instruction last time around, today we’re turning to universal screening.

[00:00:30] We’re going to explore what effective universal screening entails, the elements of a good screener, and how we can use universal screening data most effectively. That’s at the heart of today’s conversation with Dr. Carrie Thomas Beck, Core Learning’s senior director of learning and development. Prior to working at Core, she spent four years as a dyslexia specialist for the Oregon Department of Education.

[00:00:56] And just before we bring her on, let me remind you that we put together a new e-book to complement the season. Download this free resource on implementing a Multi-Tiered System of Supports for literacy at amplify.com/mtssebook. Okay, let’s bring on Carrie.

[00:01:16] Well, I’m so excited to have Carrie Thomas Beck with us today. Carrie, thank you so much for joining us on this episode.

[00:01:24] Carrie Thomas Beck: Thanks for the invitation. I am thrilled to be here.

[00:01:27] Susan Lambert: I’m so excited to loop you into this whole MTSS conversation. So we’re going to jump into that in a minute, but before we do, I would love if you could introduce yourself to our listeners and just tell us a little bit about you.

[00:01:40] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yeah, absolutely. So I am a special educator. That was where my training began, and I was fortunate enough very early in my career to be trained in direct instruction. And I immediately just fell in love with very explicit and systematic instruction, to the point where I made the decision to move halfway across the country, to move out to Oregon, because I wanted to study under Zig Engelmann, who was the founder of direct instruction.

[00:02:12] Susan Lambert: At the University of Oregon, then?

[00:02:14] Carrie Thomas Beck: At the University of Oregon. So some 30-plus years later, here I am, still in Oregon.

[00:02:20] So I had really wonderful training early on at the University of Oregon, studying with some amazing people who really, I think, started a lot of the work around systems-level planning and systems-level support.

[00:02:35] After doing a doctoral program and a postdoc there, I stayed on as a faculty member for 10 years. Part of that time, I focused on our Reading First grants in the state of Oregon, co-directed our center, and worked with 50 schools across the state of Oregon to help them put systems in place to support early literacy K-3.

[00:02:59] And the other big project at the university was I directed a reading clinic. And we set up a clinic where we brought in undergrad and graduate students from the College of Education and trained them to tutor students from the community in reading. It was a wonderful program.

[00:03:20] After I left the University of Oregon, I had the opportunity to actually work for Zig Engelmann for a few years, and then actually moved into a state-level position. So at the Oregon Department of Education, we had just passed legislation around dyslexia, our very first dyslexia legislation in the state. And the legislation required the state to hire a specialist to help districts implement the new requirements.

[00:03:50] Susan Lambert: Okay.

[00:03:50] Carrie Thomas Beck: And I was the person who stepped into that role.

[00:03:53] One of my main roles was to help districts implement this new requirement for universal screening in kindergarten for risk factors of dyslexia. So I spent a lot of time thinking about universal screening then, and really having to make some high-stakes decisions to provide strong and solid guidance to the districts in Oregon about how to best do that.

[00:04:21] Spent four years in that role, and then got recruited to come work at a organization called Core Learning, which is a wonderful organization that has been focused on evidence-based practices in literacy for almost 30 years.

[00:04:36] Susan Lambert: Wow.

[00:04:37] Carrie Thomas Beck: And I’ve been here for seven years directing learning and development and supporting a large team of consultants.

[00:04:43] Susan Lambert: That’s amazing. You have so much experience in this world that we’re going to start talking about.

[00:04:48] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yeah.

[00:04:49] Susan Lambert: So for our listeners who have been following along, we are well into our season on MTSS. We’ve had overviews of what MTSS is. We’ve spent some time talking about what good core instruction should look like, and not surprising, today is the day we’re going to talk about universal screening.

[00:05:10] So I’m so excited to have an expert to talk about this. So I would love if you could just tell us, what is universal screening and why is it important?

[00:05:21] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yeah. Great question. Well, I think of universal screening as being a proactive standardized assessment given to all students, typically multiple times across the school year in the early grades.

[00:05:38] And when we think about the purpose of why is it so important, it answers a couple of questions. One is it gives us information about what are our students’ baseline skills and, importantly, what are their risk factors, if any. And the reason why that’s so important is because if we can identify these students early, we can intervene early.

[00:06:02] We want to provide early intervention because research tells us there is strength in early intervention, that we can, with the majority of our students, build skills to proficient reading. And also, the data is going to tell us which systems need help.

[00:06:21] Susan Lambert: And we hear a cute little pup in the background who maybe needs a universal screening. No, I’m just kidding. So fun to have. Is it a he or a she?

[00:06:30] Carrie Thomas Beck: It’s a he. He’s a one-year-old rescue.

[00:06:33] Susan Lambert: Okay. Well, so great to have him on. And you talk a little bit about universal screening. When we think about the age ranges, I think typically we think about that universal screening happening in the K to 3 range.

[00:06:46] Is that still true, or are we seeing it go beyond that grade 3?

[00:06:51] Carrie Thomas Beck: Absolutely beyond. It is just as important to screen in fourth, fifth, sixth grade as it is early on because there are students who may have slipped under the crack, fallen off our radar, and the demands academically just get harder and harder as students move up in the grade levels, and we want to make sure if there are students who are not proficient readers, that we can support them.

[00:07:18] Susan Lambert: Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Let’s talk a little bit about multiple times a year. I think universal screening three times a year is pretty much the recommendation. Why? Why three times a year? Why beginning, middle, and end of year?

[00:07:34] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yeah, and that recommendation really is most relevant for our lower grades, especially K-3.

[00:07:42] But now even through eighth grade, you’ll see measures that are designed to be administered fall, winter, spring, which is pretty exciting. But when you get to the secondary level, what we typically see is screening once a year at the beginning of the year. So just wanted to make that distinction.

[00:08:00] Susan Lambert: And why would we do it just once a year compared to three times a year in the lower?

[00:08:04] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yeah. I think that when you think about the early grades in particular, reading skills are developing quite rapidly.

[00:08:12] Susan Lambert: Yeah.

[00:08:12] Carrie Thomas Beck: And so it’s going to be more important to check in more frequently early on than it will be later on. It’s still important to check in later on, but it’s just reading becomes more and more established as students move up in the grade levels.

[00:08:26] And you were also asking why three times a year early on. One of the things that’s important to know is that the measures that predict reading success will vary over time.

[00:08:42] And so a measure that’s most predictive of reading success in the fall of first grade is not necessarily going to be the same measure that is most predictive of success in the spring of first grade. And so we have researchers who have done the work for us and determined what are the measures that are most predictive for reading success at each point in time, at each grade level.

[00:09:10] And so those are the measures that we want to use. We want to get the very best information to guide our instruction.

[00:09:16] Susan Lambert: Yeah. And can you give me an example of what that might be? Something that’s not measured, let’s say, at the end of kindergarten that might be measured even mid-year first grade?

[00:09:27] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yeah. Let’s talk first grade because in kindergarten, an area that we want to screen for that is very predictive is phonemic awareness and specifically phonemic segmentation.

[00:09:38] Susan Lambert: Okay.

[00:09:38] Carrie Thomas Beck: And so we screen for that throughout kindergarten, and we also screen for phonemic segmentation in the fall of first grade.

[00:09:46] But once you get past the fall of first grade, that measure loses its power of predictivity. And so we’ll administer phonemic segmentation in the fall of first grade, but then when we get to winter and spring, we’re focusing more on measures like nonsense word fluency, and oral reading fluency becomes a big hitter at that point in time.

[00:10:09] Susan Lambert: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I often hear people say, “It feels like a moving target in the early grades, like in K, 1, and 2.” And I say, “It kind of is because of the way that reading is supposed to develop.”

[00:10:21] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yes. And I love that you said that because there is a quote from Deborah Spiess back in 2005 that I’ve often included in my presentations to schools.

[00:10:31] She said, “The acquisition of reading skills models a moving target. The skills that predict it change at each point in reading development. And researchers choose which combinations of measures give them the best predictions in the least amount of time at a given grade level.”

[00:10:51] Susan Lambert: Wow.

[00:10:51] Carrie Thomas Beck: And I thought she said it beautifully, because we do want to leverage the measures that will give us the best information and the best predictions. We don’t have a lot of time to waste.

[00:11:02] Susan Lambert: Yeah. And that makes sense about why three times a year for all students. I’ve also heard this misconception that, well, why would you reassess a student who had no risk factors at the beginning of the year? Why reassess them at the middle of the year?

[00:11:21] Well, because the measures change, or students’ growth doesn’t always keep track, right?

[00:11:28] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yeah, because developmentally, the skills that are most important for reading are changing. The expectations are changing. So while we wouldn’t expect a kindergarten student to be able to read a nonsense word necessarily early on, we absolutely would expect a first grader to be able to read a nonsense word as well as real words throughout the year.

[00:11:54] Susan Lambert: It makes so much sense. I remember when I was first introduced to universal screeners, I also had those misconceptions wondering, “Oh, administering assessments takes time away from instruction.” But this kind of assessment for students in the youngest of grades three times a year is so important to help drive that instruction, which we’re going to talk about. We’ll talk about that in a few minutes.

[00:12:18] So, there are screeners that are better than other screeners. So when folks are thinking about a selection of screeners or thinking about elements of good screeners, can you help us out with that?

[00:12:33] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the first things that I would look for is a screener that is assessing the essential literacy skills.

[00:12:43] Susan Lambert: The ones we were just talking about.

[00:12:44] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yeah. So phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, ideally vocabulary, and then comprehension. And what I’m finding over time is that there are more and more options for vocabulary screeners and comprehension screeners that are brief.

[00:13:03] So I look for screeners that include those essential literacy skills, but I also want to select screeners that are quick and easy to administer because we are screening all students. And to your point a minute ago, we don’t have a lot of time that we want to give to assessment when we really want to be focusing on instruction. So we want quick, easy to administer, but we also want measures that are standardized.

[00:13:33] Susan Lambert: What does that mean? What does that mean?

[00:13:35] Carrie Thomas Beck: So that would mean that you would have the same instructions, the same procedures from student to student when administering a measure.

[00:13:44] When I was working at the state department in Oregon, we had to put together a list of approved screeners for screening for risk factors of dyslexia in kindergarten, as per the legislation. And so one of the resources that I went to in helping to generate that list is a white paper that actually came out in 2013 from an organization called A Literate Nation. Steve Dykstra was the main author on this white paper, and he essentially called out three critical criteria for selecting screening instruments.

[00:14:23] These criteria really led the work that I did in Oregon, the first one being strong predictive validity, a measure of how well the prediction of future performance matches actual performance when we look along the entire range of performance from low to high on a scale.

[00:14:44] Strong classification accuracy, which is just simply a measure of how well the screener divides students into two categories: those at risk, those not at risk.

[00:14:55] And then also a screener that includes norm-referenced scoring. Norm-referenced scoring allows us to determine how a student scores compared to students of the same age or at the same grade level, and that gives us an important touchpoint or comparison.

[00:15:15] But I would also argue, in addition to those three criteria… and we use those three criteria in Oregon for our list of approved screeners… but I would also argue that ideally selecting screeners that include criterion-referenced scores. Sometimes these are referred to as benchmark goals. That might be a term people are more familiar with.

[00:15:37] And these are basically research-derived minimum cut points or cut scores for risk, and students who score at or above a particular benchmark goal are considered to be on track for reading success.

[00:15:53] Susan Lambert: We just covered a whole lot of terms that I know sometimes teachers get a little, well, I was as a teacher, I got a little scared of.

[00:16:02] We talked about standardized, which essentially is, we’re administering this, it’s almost like a checklist of like you read this thing and the kid does that thing. So standardized is important.

[00:16:15] We talked about being predictive, which is, I think you referenced back earlier when we were talking about this particular skill, like oral reading fluency, highly predictive. And so we know that we’re measuring the things that are going to make a difference in terms of, well, student outcome.

[00:16:36] There was another one that you mentioned too that I was going to summarize, and now it’s left me. But for sure, the benchmark concept to make sure we have those cut points that we’re looking at, “Where are you in that level of risk?” Either no risk or some risk or lots of risk.

[00:16:55] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yes, exactly.

[00:16:58] Susan Lambert: So lots of stuff when we’re talking about universal screening related to measures and what a good screener looks like. Is there a place where folks can go to find out information on good screeners?

[00:17:13] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yeah, absolutely. So many people may be familiar with the National Center on Intensive Intervention. NCII.

[00:17:22] Susan Lambert: Yes.

[00:17:23] Carrie Thomas Beck: And this is a nationally funded center that on their website they have what they call an academic screening tools chart.

[00:17:31] Susan Lambert: Okay.

[00:17:31] Carrie Thomas Beck: And so if you were interested in terms of what’s the validity or the reliability of a particular measure, does it include norm-referenced scoring, you could go to the NCII site, look at their screening tools chart. You could look up a particular tool and see what is its classification accuracy, what are the technical standards that were reported, and then it also includes information about usability features of the measures, which I think is especially helpful for schools when they’re trying to choose.

[00:18:04] Susan Lambert: Yeah. That’s great.

[00:18:05] Carrie Thomas Beck: Great resource.

[00:18:06] Susan Lambert: Thank you for that. Yeah. And we’ll link listeners in the show notes to that so they don’t have to look around for it.

[00:18:11] Carrie Thomas Beck: Perfect.

[00:18:11] Susan Lambert: Yeah. But thank you for telling us that. Now, I do know that there is a difference. Oh, sorry listeners, we’re going to bring up more jargon here.

[00:18:22] We’ve talked a little bit on this podcast about CBMs, curriculum-based measures versus computer adaptive measures. So can you help us understand the difference between those two, CBMs and computer adaptive? First, help us understand the difference.

[00:18:40] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yeah. Happy to, and I’m so glad you brought this up because this is another important consideration when selecting a universal screener. So let’s talk about what they are first.

[00:18:51] So if we start with computer adaptive testing, as one would probably guess, it means that students are completing an assessment on the computer.

[00:19:01] And what’s unique about computer adaptive testing is that the test includes a range of items across skills that range from easy to hard, and each student has a very unique path through the assessment.

[00:19:17] So when a student responds correctly to an item, they’re presented with more difficult items. And then when a student responds incorrectly to an item, they’re presented with an easier item. So two different students could have two very different paths through a computer adaptive assessment or test.

[00:19:38] A couple of other features that are unique to this type of assessment is students don’t have to produce responses for these assessments. They’re all receptive tasks. And when you think about reading, reading is production. We are decoding words off the page, and we are stating those words aloud. So that’s something to keep in mind when we’re thinking about computer adaptive testing.

[00:20:04] Computer adaptive tests typically are not brief. A student may require 15 to up to 30 or sometimes even more minutes to complete a test. And we wouldn’t consider these tests to be standardized because of the reason I just gave, that each student has a very different path through the assessment. They are answering different items based on the responses that they give.

[00:20:29] So two students with the same score may have received very different test items and need very different instruction.

[00:20:36] Susan Lambert: Interesting.

[00:20:37] Carrie Thomas Beck: It’s hard to discern from a score.

[00:20:39] The other thing that I think is important to call out here is that, with those CAT or computer adaptive testing assessments, they’re not necessarily just focused on the essential early literacy skills. The test item banks may include thousands of items representing every single grade-level standard. So we’re talking about a much broader pool of items.

[00:21:03] And when we’re screening in those early grades, we really want to hone in on those essential literacy skills, those foundational skills that will really help us guide our instruction and make sure all students are successful readers.

[00:21:16] So, the scores that we get don’t always tell us what students need to learn.

[00:21:24] Susan Lambert: Okay. That makes sense. Does a CBM do that?

[00:21:28] Carrie Thomas Beck: I would argue yes. So when we think about curriculum-based measures, these are assessments that by design are directly linked to instruction. They tell us what students know and also what they need to learn next.

[00:21:44] They are brief. They are typically one minute. Some of the CBMs for comprehension may be three minutes, but they are all very brief and manageable, and they are indicators of the essential literacy skills. So you will find that there are CBMs on phonemic segmentation, on nonsense word fluency, oral reading fluency, all of those really important predictive measures.

[00:22:09] The other thing that is unique to CBMs is that they’re measures of automaticity or rate. So, not only are we asking students, for example, to read a list of words, we are timing them to see how many words they can read in one minute, because we want to get a sense of their rate or their automaticity, because these early literacy skills need to be automatic in order to free up that cognitive space to focus on comprehension.

[00:22:41] So that is a really important part of CBMs. They are essentially global indicators of risk. And the other really nice thing about them is we can also use them for progress monitoring to measure students’ growth over time.

[00:22:57] Susan Lambert: Nice. And stay tuned, listeners, because progress monitoring is a whole other episode, but there you have a connection now between universal screening and progress monitoring.

[00:23:07] So if you were going to vote, you would say a CBM is a better universal screener, that a computer adaptive really can’t be used for universal screening?

[00:23:18] Carrie Thomas Beck: I would vote, if I had to choose, that I would choose a CBM any day for universal screening.

[00:23:26] Susan Lambert: That makes sense. And I never thought about the standardized part of that. So a CBM, you’re going to administer from one student to the next in a very standardized way, whereas a computer adaptive is, like you said, the student’s own path through that.

[00:23:41] Carrie Thomas Beck: And with a CBM, same instructions, but same items. So a student is going to get the same list of nonsense words or same list of real words or same passage. So yes, there’s that consistency from student to student. It’s standardized in that nature as well.

[00:23:59] Susan Lambert: Yeah. That makes a whole lot of sense. All right. So we’ve gotten our universal screening 101. Understand what it means, why we do it several times a year. We talked a little bit about selecting good screeners and why.

[00:24:12] But I think the most important part of this is not the administration of the universal screener. It’s actually doing something with the data, and I still encounter schools or districts that administer universal screeners as a matter of compliance which we don’t want to do, right?

[00:24:33] Carrie Thomas Beck: No.

[00:24:33] Susan Lambert: Once we administer that, we need to do something with that data. So can you talk to us a little bit about what we need to do?

[00:24:42] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yeah. What you just described is such a missed opportunity to collect data and not do anything with it, especially such high-stakes data as universal screening data, because here’s an opportunity for us to change something in our instruction to make a difference.

[00:24:58] So, in terms of what do we do with this data that we’re collecting, to the point you just made, I’m going to say that the screener that we select to administer is going to determine to what extent we can actually use the data to inform instruction.

[00:25:13] Susan Lambert: Ooh, very good point.

[00:25:15] Carrie Thomas Beck: And specifically, if we’re able to use the data to form those small groups for targeted differentiated instruction. And so if you’re selecting curriculum-based measurement for your universal screener, you will have the data that will allow you to do those things.

[00:25:34] Susan Lambert: Yeah. And that makes sense because to link it back to what you said is it’s a standardized administration, and we’re giving kids… What did you just say? The same list of words, so we know exactly that from one student to another student what they have in terms of similar assets and similar needs.

[00:25:54] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yes, exactly. And a CBM screener typically includes multiple measures. So for example, we decide to purchase DIBELS. DIBELS probably has about eight different measures. The ones that you administer will vary based on grade level and point in time in the grade level.

[00:26:14] So you’re… basically, when you administer your CBM screener, you’ll get a student’s scores probably on three or four different measures, and all of these measures are focused on essential literacy skills.

[00:26:28] So based on a student’s score on each measure, you will get a risk category for that student on that measure, and a student can fall into the high-risk category, the some-risk category, or a low-risk category. A lot of our CBM screeners also provide us with a composite score.

[00:26:50] Susan Lambert: Yes, I was going to ask about that.

[00:26:52] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yeah. Yeah. And so what a composite score does is it just summarizes all of the scores across the measures that were administered to that student at that point in time, oftentimes weighting certain measures in that composite scores, weighting the ones more heavily that are more predictive of future reading success.

[00:27:12] But by having both the individual scores on those individual measures as well as having a composite score, you’re getting a more complete picture of a student’s skills.

[00:27:23] And the composite score is thought of as a more reliable, valid, and predictive score than any individual measure on its own. So when we’re looking in terms of what’s the best indicator of general risk, we could look toward that composite score.

[00:27:41] Susan Lambert: And then I would imagine that once we see a student may be at risk, we can look into those individual measures to find out, am I tracking in the right direction here?

[00:27:54] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yes. So, we have used a couple of different data review protocols in my current role at Core. The one that you’re making me think about, it’s called a four-quadrant sort.

[00:28:09] And so the idea is you would take the scores from the measures that were administered to a student at a particular point in time, and based on the scores, you would be able to sort students into four different groups. Hence the four quadrants.

[00:28:28] So, let’s talk about, I think the example that I wanted to share is beginning of year, first grade. And at that point in time, two of the most critical measures for predicting success and for instruction are phonemic segmentation fluency and nonsense word fluency.

[00:28:48] So, let’s say we have a class of first-grade students. We have their measures on each of the… or we have their scores on each of those two measures. What we can do is sort them into four groups based on those scores. The first group would be students who are on track. They’ve met that benchmark cut point for both phonemic segmentation fluency and nonsense word fluency.

[00:29:12] Your second group would be those students who are on track for phonemic segmentation fluency, but may be showing some risk for nonsense word fluency.

[00:29:23] You see where I’m going?

[00:29:24] Susan Lambert: Yep. I sure do.

[00:29:25] Carrie Thomas Beck: So our third group would be students who are showing risk on phonemic segmentation fluency, but are on track for nonsense word fluency. I would argue this is probably more rare.

[00:29:38] And then our last group would be students who are at risk both on phonemic segmentation fluency and nonsense word fluency.

[00:29:46] So, you take your scores, you sort the students into four groups based on their scores on both measures. And then you can think about, all right, what will the instruction look like for each of those four different groups?

[00:30:01] And if, let’s say we take the group of students who are on track for phonemic segmentation fluency and at risk for nonsense word fluency. So, when we pull them for small-group differentiated instruction within Tier 1, we’ll really want to focus that time on building automaticity with letter sounds.

[00:30:22] We’re going to want to spend a lot of time on blending routines, so sounding out and reading words, lots of practice on that, and then pulling in dictation at the sound level and the word level to really reinforce those phonics skills.

[00:30:36] So that’s going to be a huge focus, when you have those 15 minutes of small group differentiated time with that particular group of students.

[00:30:45] Now, that is not going to look exactly the same for those other three groups that we talked about. So looking at those specific scores, we can really gear our instruction accordingly.

[00:30:56] Susan Lambert: Wow. And that’s a really, I’m going to say simple, and say “simple” in quotes, but maybe “easy” is better… an easy way to think about how to reach individual student needs, but not have to go student by student by student. At a classroom level, you can think about this in four different categories.

[00:31:17] Carrie Thomas Beck: And the other thing that it does is it allows you not to have to administer additional diagnostic assessments.

[00:31:25] Instead, we can use the data that we have at least to get started. It’s going to give us really solid information to get started with instruction.

[00:31:33] Susan Lambert: Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. So really great example of how teachers can use that data and next steps.

[00:31:41] Even as you were talking about them, thinking in my head these four quadrants, even as I heard you describe that, I could almost like, “Oh, I get if you can’t do nonsense word fluency, as a teacher, you can start to think about, oh, I see what this instruction should look like in order to ensure students can do this particular skill.”

[00:32:05] Carrie Thomas Beck: Can we take a step back?

[00:32:07] Susan Lambert: Oh, please.

[00:32:08] Carrie Thomas Beck: So I want to talk about another protocol that we use often, and it would be a protocol that you can use fall, winter, or spring after you collect your universal screening data.

[00:32:17] And what the protocol allows you to do, and I think all schools need to have some type of protocol, data review protocol, that allows them to do these things, but we want to be able to identify the percentage of students scoring within each risk classification on each measure. We already started to talk about that.

[00:32:38] We want to be able to identify any patterns in the data related to students’ strengths and areas of need by skill. We ideally want to be able to set an end-of-year goal for each grade level based on the data.

[00:32:54] We want to identify any students who are in need of Tier 2 or Tier 3 support. And I think most importantly is we need to be able to set action steps for each grade level based on the needs identified from that data review.

[00:33:12] And if you’re going to review data and not have action steps, there is really no point. Let’s not admire it. Let’s act on it. And in our data protocol, we actually have a section, a table for action steps where they identify each action step. What is the support? What is the training? What are the resources needed to implement that action step? And then who’s going to do it and by when?

[00:33:40] I have spent so many times working in schools around data analysis where we analyze, we analyze, we analyze, and we just don’t act. And so, this is an area where I think many schools may want to focus on more is this idea of the data review and having a structured protocol that leads to concrete action steps.

[00:34:04] Susan Lambert: I think that’s really important in linking us back to Multi-Tiered System of Supports, the idea of it being a system process that, yes, classroom teachers need this data to deliver instruction differently or uniquely for the students they have in front of them.

[00:34:23] But there’s this place for the system to look at that data and really monitor the system health. That’s what you’re talking about here, right?

[00:34:31] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yes. So we’re going to do this within a grade level, and a building-level team is going to want to look at the data patterns across grade levels.

[00:34:42] At the district level, they’re going to want to look at data patterns across schools and grade levels.

[00:34:48] Susan Lambert: And it really, to me as a former building administrator, and sitting at the district level, it’s a great reminder of, well, our ultimate goal is student success, and talking, this could relate to either math or literacy, so I just want to put that out there, too.

[00:35:04] But the idea of having to look at where do I allocate resources? Where do we need to need professional development? What is our Tier 1 or core instruction? What does that look like? Maybe I need to pay attention to that. So I think what you’re saying is you can really glean a lot of information from that when you do that analysis.

[00:35:25] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yes. We’ve talked a lot about using universal screeners to identify risk factors so we can intervene early. But that other important question that universal screening data answers is what is the health of our system? And we haven’t talked as much about that.

[00:35:43] And so I’m glad you brought it up because a building administrator can use that data to evaluate, “Okay, how is our core reading instruction doing in terms of serving the particular population of students at our school.” Are there any curriculum gaps that are identified based on a review of the data?

[00:36:04] Maybe we find that the core program that we adopted does not have a strong component that teaches foundational skills, so maybe we want to supplement our core program with a program that focuses very explicitly and systematically on teaching foundational reading skills.

[00:36:24] In some instances, the data may show a building administrator that there might be a need for a whole-group or a whole-class intervention. What can we do differently? How do we adjust Tier 1 to really meet the needs of this particular group of students?

[00:36:41] Susan Lambert: Yeah. Yeah. And this makes me think of, we were talking about universal screening three times a year at the student level, but also at the system level, that this is a, do I want to say a relentless process, always keeping the health of the system in front of us all the time.

[00:37:04] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yes. I mean, because as somebody in the role of building administrator, you are holding those resources. You need to use the data to allocate those resources in a way that you are going to be getting the most from them.

[00:37:21] And if that means you’re going to deploy your specialists to a particular grade level this year, and really focus on that grade level in particular, then that may be what you might have to do. But they need to use the data to guide resource allocation.

[00:37:38] And I think another point we haven’t talked about, too, is this idea of disaggregating the data by subgroup because as a building administrator, we also need to make sure we’re ensuring equity. And so if we’re not serving a particular subgroup of students well, we really need to look at what do we need to change with our instruction so that we can do a better job.

[00:38:02] Susan Lambert: Yeah. We had an episode not long ago with Stephanie Stollar, and she would contend that universal screening was one of the greatest inventions. I think that’s what she said, the greatest invention that, that was brought to this MTSS process. I don’t know if you would agree with that or not.

[00:38:23] Carrie Thomas Beck: I love that. Yes, I would say that I agree 100%.

[00:38:30] And also, I’m going to make a plug for the case of a comprehensive assessment system. So universal screening being one part of a comprehensive assessment system.

[00:38:40] Susan Lambert: Yeah. I love that. It’s a good reminder that even though we’re having episodes in this season doing a deep dive on each one of these individual elements of MTSS, the reminder is they have to work coherently. They have to come together or you don’t have a system. So, thank you for that reminder.

[00:39:01] Anything else that we didn’t mention about universal screening that you would like to mention in the final few minutes here?

[00:39:08] Carrie Thomas Beck: Oh my goodness. Where to go with that? We could talk about kindergarten for a second.

[00:39:16] Susan Lambert: I would love to. Let’s do that.

[00:39:19] Carrie Thomas Beck: Oftentimes there is a lot of caution around universal screening in the fall of kindergarten, and this mentality that maybe we should wait until winter to begin screening in kindergarten. And I understand where those concerns are coming from because we have a lot of students who may be walking into our school doors without having a lot of literacy support prior to school or even being in a literacy-rich environment.

[00:39:47] And so, then if we universally screen, are all the students at risk for reading difficulties? So I see where people are coming from, but at the same time, I would really argue the importance of conducting universal screening in fall of kindergarten because it’s going to, one, it’s going to give you baseline data. Where do we begin with this group? And it’s going to help you make some decisions about the effectiveness of your instruction.

[00:40:16] But two, and I think most importantly, is that data that you collect in the fall is really going to help you adjust Tier 1 immediately. So if you look at your data and you can see that, I don’t know, let’s say 70% of your students are showing or scoring in the high-risk category for phonemic segmentation, then let’s do something different in Tier 1.

[00:40:39] Let’s spend a little bit more time on that and make sure that our instruction is explicit, it’s systematic, that we have enough time with that particular skill to develop it, maybe more so than you might typically spend with a different group of students. But let’s adjust our Tier 1 to really focus on what the data is telling us that the students need.

[00:40:59] Susan Lambert: That’s really good advice, and I love that reminder of the importance of kindergarten baseline information, and also what you said at the start of the podcast, which is, early intervention is the most effective strategy that we can do to really help keep our kids out of levels of risk.

[00:41:18] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yeah, 100%.

[00:41:20] Susan Lambert: Well, Dr. Carrie Thomas Beck, it was lovely to chat with you about universal screening. I hope our listeners didn’t get lulled to sleep like your puppy did.

[00:41:31] Carrie Thomas Beck: Yeah, finally.

[00:41:34] Susan Lambert: I’m sure they didn’t, but thank you again for joining us and bringing your expertise to this episode of the podcast. We appreciate it.

[00:41:42] Carrie Thomas Beck: Thank you so much for having me. I would talk about assessment all day long. So my pleasure.

[00:41:49] Susan Lambert: Thank you.

[00:41:53] That was Dr. Carrie Thomas Beck, Core Learning senior director of learning and development. And don’t forget to check out our new companion e-book, Implementing a Multi-Tiered System of Support for Literacy. Download this free resource today at amplify.com/mtssebook. If you’ve got MTSS questions, please drop them in our listener mail bag, amplify.com/sormailbag.

[00:42:22] Next up on this MTSS season, we’re turning to diagnostic testing with Dr. Una Malcolm.

[00:42:28] Una Malcolm: We keep coming back to that idea of using it strategically, using it based on your judgment as an educator. That educator professional judgment rests on training and preparation and experience and understanding, right?

[00:42:40] Susan Lambert: That’s next time. Science of Reading: The Podcast is brought to you by Amplify. I’m Susan Lambert. Thanks so much for listening.