Classroom-Level Problem Solving
In many Ontario classrooms, screening data show risk for many students, often more than can receive limited intervention resources. In addition to focusing on individual student needs, we can reduce the need for more intensive intervention and help more students succeed through understanding the health and wellness of core instruction. The same steps of the collaborative problem solving process can be used when looking at data for a classroom or a grade to help use data to drive instructional improvements across a system.
We’ve outlined the steps below, but take a look at this helpful worksheet template that can guide this process.
Step 1: Identifying the Problem
We begin by looking at screening data to assess how well core instruction is meeting the needs of the whole class. Are at least 80% of students meeting grade-level expectations with core instruction alone? If not, we have a core instruction problem, not a student problem.
For example, a problem statement for Ms. Patel’s Grade 1 class is: “At the middle-of-year benchmark, 50% of students met the benchmark for phoneme segmentation fluency (PSF).”
Step 2: Analyzing the Problem
Next, we dig deeper into the problem, potentially considering other screening subtests, diagnostic assessment data, or classroom observations.
By asking “What’s the skill weakness that is holding the majority of students back?” we can target instruction at the right place in the reading pathway.
In analyzing the problem, Ms. Patel noticed that many students were having difficulty blending and segmenting sounds in their daily phonics instruction. She also noticed spelling errors indicating weak phonemic awareness, such as spelling stop as sop. She hypothesizes that students are not receiving a high enough dosage of explicit phonemic awareness instruction and practice.
Step 3: Developing a Plan
With a clear understanding of which foundational skill needs to be strengthened, the team creates a classroom-level plan to improve core instruction.
We ask:
- Instruction: What evidence-based routine will we use to explicitly teach this skill?
- Dosage: Do we need to increase instructional time or provide more practice opportunities?
- Engagement: How will we keep all students actively participating?
- Materials: What core and supplemental resources will support this skill?
- Grouping: How will we use small-group instruction or flexible grouping to target this skill?
We also set a specific goal for the next screening window, such as: “By the next screening window, 70% of students will reach the benchmark for phoneme segmentation fluency (PSF).”
Ms. Patel decides to implement a daily ‘Say It and Move It’ routine on top of her current instruction, where students practice segmenting and blending words using manipulatives while simultaneously connecting phonemes to letters. This ensures that phonemic awareness activities directly support reading and spelling, rather than relying on oral-only phonemic awareness exercises that may not translate to improved decoding skills. Knowing that students benefit from opportunities to respond and receive affirmative and corrective feedback, Ms. Patel prioritizes using instruction that is interactive with a high degree of teacher-student interaction, using choral group responses frequently.
Step 4: Implementing and Evaluating the Plan
The final step is to implement the plan and track progress over time. We monitor two things: the fidelity of instruction (did we do what we planned?) and student progress (are we seeing improvement in the target skill?). This allows us to adjust the plan to ensure we’re meeting students’ needs.
Ms. Patel tracks implementation by recording how often she teaches the ‘Say It and Move It’ routine each week. She also monitors changes in PSF scores, and keeps an eye on NWF scores to determine whether students are generalizing their growing phonemic awareness to decoding.
