Joan Forman and Mary Ellen Sanders, project coordinators of Naperville, Il District 203's early intervention program, "Project Leap," see the positive results early intervention can have.
FORMAN:
The, uh, old remediation model was one in which you waited to see
if the child, uh, failed and when a child demonstrated that
they had failed in their learning to read,
then you tried to come in and fix it.
Where today we know that that is not the preferred model.
It's best to try to get the students early on
in the onset of their school career,
identify those children who are having a struggle and, uh,
come in early in their school career and
provide some very intensive instruction
so they don't fall into that cycle of failure.
SANDERS:
As Joan said, because we do intervene early,
before they begin to sense that failure,
that's one of the keys, so that you are intervening early.
Another is the way in which the program is approached
with the child, both through the classroom teacher,
when the child is getting ready to be pulled out of the classroom,
the classroom teacher's positive presentation to the child
that you're going to be going with this person to receive some help,
the parents' presentation of it to the child,
that there's going to be another person in your life now
at school who's going to be working with you on your ABCs.
And then, uh, absolutely the tutor's relationship with the child,
where the tutor walks to the classroom door,
picks up the child to walk them back to their tutoring station.
Rapport between the tutor and the child
is also key in then making that child feel like
this is a positive experience and I'm learning to do some things here
and have a good time at the same time.