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Documenting reading intervention for a meeting
What to bring to an RTI, MTSS or parent meeting about a student in reading intervention: the log, the skill summary and the one-page story, in minutes.
· 2 min read · Literacy Trail team
In short
Bring three things: an instruction log (every session by date with minutes and what was taught), a skill summary (secure, developing, needs support), and a short account of what you changed and when. If the daily record exists, assembling them takes minutes. The log is the piece most often missing and most often asked for.
The meeting is Thursday. Someone will ask how many sessions the student has had, what was taught, whether it is working, and what you changed when it was not. Every one of those questions has an answer in a record kept at the table. None of them has an answer in memory.
The instruction log
A list of sessions by date: minutes, the lesson or skill, attendance. It documents that intervention happened, how much, and how consistently. Absences belong on it, with a reason, because a student who missed a third of the sessions is a different case from one who attended all of them. This is the document a team most often wants and most often does not get.
The skill summary
Three lists: skills the student now uses independently, skills still developing, skills that need support. Plain names for the skills, no percentages unless a formal measure produced them. Add the date range the summary covers. A team reads this in thirty seconds and knows where the student is.
The story
Half a page at most. When intervention started, what the entry point was, what you noticed, what you changed and when, what happened after. Dates matter more than adjectives. "Two Needs support ratings on blends in early October; switched to building before reading; secure by the end of the month" is the sentence a team can act on.
What not to bring
Every note you ever wrote. Pick the three or four observations that changed a decision and leave the rest in the file. Do not bring anything about the student that the family has not seen; a meeting is a poor place for a surprise.
In Literacy Trail
The instruction log prints or exports as CSV for any date range, with minutes and attendance. The progress report carries the three lists and the notes marked for sharing. Both come from the ratings tapped after each session, so the evening of assembly does not happen.
Keep the record while you teach
Set up your students, pick the lesson each one is on, and the ratings you tap after each lesson do the rest.