Tyrah Urie

Practicum 2: Research Connections 2

Instruction/Intervention
Context & Goal

Child J is 7 years old and has a health impairment diagnosis of ADHD. With the

diagnosis of ADHD, it is having a negative impact on his education, more specifically in math

but also delayed development in his receptive and expressive language. Due to Child J’s math

deficiency’s he has goals for the year set by his interventionist, specialists, and teachers. By may

2019, given at least 10 examples child J will add basic facts within 20, to 80% demonstrated

performance on 2 of 3 trials as measured by progress monitoring assessments. Also, by may

2019, given at least 10 examples J will add basic facts within 20, to 80% demonstrated

performance on 2 to 3 trials of measured by progressed monitoring assessments. These goals are

to be determined at the end of the year through intervention strategy, documented progress, and

later assessment.

Instructional/Intervention strategy

Before diving into the whole intervention strategy process, baseline data has to be

collected so that the specialist can make an intervention goal (Sanetti, Kratochwill, Collier-

Meek, & Long, 2014). It is important to get a baseline for a child before supports and changes

are made and progress starts. Without baseline data on a child, establishing goals will not be as

accurate and determining if those goals are met will not be accurately detected (Sanetti,

Kratochwill, Collier-Meek, & Long, 2014). After a baseline is made for the child, then it is the

specialist/teachers job to make goals for the child. The intervention strategy that is used for Child

J to try and help him improve in his math is the Mahesh Sharma “Non-Negotiables” (Critical

Areas of focus). With this strategy the main tools used are Cuisenaire rods and cluster cards. The

intention of strategy is not to do a formal assessment of the child or to test the child’s abilities,
but to get the child building on an accurate number sense through concrete visual and verbal

tactics. To get the children started on being able to get a number sense, it is done by modeling.

Typically, with this strategy the teacher administering the intervention strategy will model how

they want the child to do the strategy 4 times, hoping that on the 3rd time the child is able to pick

up on the strategy modeled and can then function on his/her own with the support if needed.

Once the child is able to pick up on the model, they will begin on a daily basis working on their

number sense through the Cuisenaire rods and cluster cards preforming different tasks that the

specialists ask of them to do. Once the child has “mastered” the Cuisenaire rods and cluster cards

and the 1st 6 weeks have passed the continuum of Mahesh Sharma’s strategy is to use the Critical

Areas of Focus Assessment. The assessment contains 6 areas that test what is proficient to the

child and what they still need the extra support for.

Result & Outcome

The intervention strategy lasts 6 weeks before the actual assessments start. After the 6

weeks the specialist will check the progress of child J with a checklist. The checklist is to check

the progress of the children at the end of the intervention process. The (critical areas of focus)

checklist consists of counting by 2’s, 5’s, 10’s, and 100’s, fluency of addition and subtraction

facts, focus on language of subtraction, mentally add and subtract 10 and 100 from a number,

open number lines to build strong number sense, developing number stories, mastery of additive

reasoning, number bonds, and place value. The children are observed while working on these

critical skills and is then assessed based on ‘intervention required’, ‘developing’, or proficient.

This will then help the teacher know what the child knows and doesn’t know and what they may

need to work on or need that extra support (more intervention). This checklist then correlates

with the goals set for child J at the beginning of the intervention to see if the child has
accomplished those goals or still working on them. If the child is consistently getting

‘intervention required’ on the checklist then it shows the specialist proctoring the intervention

that strategy being used may not be working and vise versa. The checklist is then put into a file

so that the current teacher/upcoming grade level teacher will know where the child is at and what

he/she still has to work on. Progress notes are then made on the report card stating what skills

were worked on and what skills have/have not been accomplished. It is to early to tell the result

and outcome of child J as they are only in week 3 of school and the intervention process has

really just begun. It is to early to tell child J’s goals, however stated by mentor H he is

responding well to the strategy given.

Peer Reviewed Journal

Mahesh Sharma’s intervention strategy, closely relates to the Concrete-Representation-

Abstract Instructional approach (CREIA). The ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ calls for high quality

evidence-evidence based instruction for all students including students with disabilities, such as

the (CREIA) (Flores, Hinton, Strozier, Terry, 2014). Concrete-representational-abstract

instructional approach uses modeling with manipulative objects; once mastery by child is

demonstrated using objects after modeling, instruction involves the use of drawings and pictures.

Effective methods for students with developmental delays involve visual aids, which have been

reported to be a predilection besides being helpful to the children (Flores, Hinton, Strozier, &

Terry, 2014). Like Mahesh Sharma’s strategy, the use of the Cuisenaire rods and cluster cards

are used for both the visual and manipulative objective piece. The reasoning for Sharma’s

strategy and the Concrete-Representation-Abstract Instructional approach are to help the children

form a number sense ability without strictly using paper and pencil to do so. The change in
student performance gains were found to be over a short period of time (Flores, Hinton, Strozier,

& Terry, 2014), and like Sharma’s strategy, they should be building and improving with the

correct support given within those 1st 6 weeks before the assessments begin.
References:
Sanetti, L. M.H., Kratochwill, T. R., Collier-Meek, M. A., & Long, A. C. J. (2014). How
to select an evidence-based intervention: A guide. Storrs, CT: University of Conneticut.

Flores, M. M., Hinton, V. M., Strozier, S. D., & Terry, S. L., (2014). Using the concrete-
representational-abstract sequence and the strategic instruction Model to teach Computation to
students with autism spectrum disorders and developmental disabilities.