Embedding Self-Regulation Into Reading Interventions to Support Reading and Behavior Outcomes

Abstract

It was almost winter break, and Ms. Salvador, the reading specialist at Awbrey Park Elementary School, was reviewing the fifth-grade progress-monitoring reading data for students receiving intensive small-group reading interventions. She noticed that several students were not making the reading gains that they had expected. Ms. Salvador and her team also realized that during reading instruction, many of these students displayed problem behaviors, such as having difficulty remaining on task and disrupting other students. After reading as much as she could on the topic, Ms. Salvador found that incorporating self-regulation strategies into reading interventions could lead to improvements in reading and an increase in appropriate behaviors that students display during reading instruction. Knowing how interrelated reading and behavior can be, Ms. Salvador decided to collaborate with Mr. Tanner, the behavior specialist, in developing self-regulation interventions for their students at Awbrey Park Elementary. However, before they could begin to create these self-regulation interventions, Ms. Salvador and Mr. Tanner needed to identify more research on what self-regulation strategies were available and how self-regulation strategies could be used to support students with both reading and behavioral difficulties during small-group reading interventions.

Students with reading difficulties often have or develop co-occurring behavioral difficulties (Lin, Morgan, Farkas, Hillemeier, & Cook, 2013; Morgan, Farkas, & Wu, 2009). When students have both reading and behavioral difficulties, their reading difficulties tend to be more severe and intractable (Algozzine, Wang, & Violette, 2011). For these reasons, it is important to think about how to meet students’ reading and behavioral needs concurrently. One such method to improve reading and behavioral outcomes is through teaching students how to appropriately set, monitor, and reflect on goals, often referred to as self-regulation skills (Zimmerman, 2002).

What Is Self-Regulation and Why Is It Important?

Self-regulation is the ability to set, monitor, and reflect on goals and then set new goals to monitor and reflect upon. This cycle of learning is needed to be an efficient and effective active participant in one’s own learning. For many students, this process occurs naturally. Yet some students, including many who need intensive small-group reading instruction, do not naturally think about learning in the same way and therefore need to be explicitly taught self-regulation skills (Menzies & Lane, 2011; Zimmerman, 2002). Through explicitly teaching these self-regulation skills in a small-group setting, the planning and thinking that allow students to become self-regulated, engaged, and active learners can be made transparent. Furthermore, when this self-regulation instruction occurs within reading instruction, there is empirical evidence that suggests students can improve both academic and behavioral outcomes (Berkeley, Mastropieri, & Scruggs, 2011; Chan, 1996; Harris, Danoff Friedlander, Saddler, Frizzelle, & Graham, 2005; Mason, 2013; Solís, Scammacca, Barth, & Roberts, 2017; Reid, Trout, & Schartz, 2005). Figure 1 provides an outline of the self-regulation cycle.

Figure 1.

Self-regulation cycle

Identify and Define the Target Reading and Behavior Goals

Ms. Salvador, the reading specialist, and Mr. Tanner, the behavior specialist, investigated self-regulation strategies and found a lot of research to support the use of self-regulation strategies to improve student reading performance and appropriate behaviors. Ms. Salvador and Mr. Tanner decided to devote a small amount of time each day to embed the teaching of self-regulation skills into daily small-group reading lessons across the school. To develop students’ self-regulation skills for use during small-group reading instruction, Ms. Salvador and Mr. Tanner found the best place to start was to identify broad student goals, but they were not exactly sure what data to collect or how to identify potential goals for students to strive toward.

Identify Broad Reading and Behavior Goals

Developing self-regulation interventions can feel overwhelming at first. To keep the process simple, a good place to start is to use both student performance and observation data to identify areas where specific students may need additional support. Performance data can include school district benchmark data; ongoing progress-monitoring data, such as DIBELS (see https://dibels.uoregon.edu), easyCBM (see https://easycbm.com), or aimsweb (see https://aimsweb.pearson.com); and data from the reading curriculum already in place. The observation data can be direct or indirect. Direct observation data can include recording the number of occurrences of talk-outs or the percentage of time a student is working appropriately with peers. Indirect observation data may include anecdotal notes taken after a reading lesson of what went well for a student or a survey asking about the amount of time students are on task or work well with peers. Once an area of growth is identified, the next step is to identify potential goals.

To identify broad reading and behavior goals, Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Practice Guides (see https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/practiceguides) and previous TEACHING Exceptional Children articles can be valuable resources. Both the IES Practice Guides and TEACHING Exceptional Children articles provide clear evidence-based recommendations on a broad range of topics, such as improving adolescent literacy (Kamil et al., 2008), supporting early elementary-age students who struggle in reading (Gersten et al., 2009), reducing problem behavior in the classroom (Epstein, Atkins, Cullinan, Kutash, & Weaver, 2008), and supporting the social skills of students (Walker & Berry, 2018). The evidence-based recommended practices presented in the IES Practice Guides and TEACHING Exceptional Children articles can then be used to form goals, such as the student using reading comprehension and social skill strategies, based on Kamil and colleagues’ (2008) and Walker and Berry’s (2018) recommendations, respectively (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Reading and Behavior Goal Bank

Goal	Explicit student-friendly goals
Broad reading goals
Develop foundational reading skills (Gersten etal., 2009)	I will… blend letter sounds into words. circle difficult words to read and ask the teacher to help me sound them out. break large words into smaller chunks to help me sound them out.
Utilize reading comprehension strategies (Kamil etal., 2008; Shanahan etal., 2010)	I will… use my graphic organizer to connect previously read text to new text. at the halfway point of the story, write the main idea and make a prediction of what will happen next. write down key ideas to write a summary.
Broad behavior goals
Utilize social skills (Walker & Berry, 2018)	I will… wait to be called on in group before sharing. ask for help when needed and provide a reason for why I need help, such as to understand the meaning of a word. listen to my peer or ask if I can speak first during think-pair-share time.
Remain on task (Myers, Freeman, Simonsen, & Sugai, 2017)	I will … read all the directions before starting my work. keep my eyes on my own paper. start the warm-up activity as soon as I sit down.

To complete the first steps in the goal selection process, Ms. Salvador and Mr. Tanner identified and collected meaningful reading performance and behavior observation data. Next, they used research-based practices from the IES Practice Guides and TEACHING Exceptional Children articles to create broad reading and behavior goals. On the basis of previous goal-writing experience, now they knew they had to create meaningful goals that could be objectively measured, meaning the goals were explicit, positively worded, measurable, attainable, and written in a student-friendly manner.

Creating Explicit Student-Friendly Reading and Behavior Goals

When teachers and students begin writing goals, effective goals for both reading and behavior have the following characteristics: They are explicit, positively worded, measurable, attainable, and written in a student-friendly manner (Briesch & Chafouleas, 2009; Hosp, Hosp, Howell, & Allison, 2014; Lane, Menzies, Bruhn, & Crnobori, 2011; Mager, 1997). Building from the IES Practice Guide Improving Adolescent Literacy: Effective Classroom and Intervention Practices (Kamil et al., 2008), which recommends a broad goal of providing “students with strategies to make them independent vocabulary learners” (Kamil et al., 2008, p. 14), it is possible to then create explicit student-friendly goals. For example, when a student wants to improve literacy outcomes in the area of vocabulary, an appropriate explicit student-friendly goal would be the following: “When I come to an unknown word, I will underline the word and use context clues to help me understand.” This goal is explicit in stating what the student will do: “I will underline the unknown word and use context clues”; it is positively worded to state what to do as opposed to stating what the student will not do; and it is observable and measurable in that it identifies “[underlining] the unknown word and [using] context clues” as part of the learning goal. It also important to keep the goal obtainable and aligned with the particular student’s short-term or long-term learning and behavioral goals, as defined by the student’s individualized education program (IEP) team. The last requirement of goal writing is to use student-friendly language, which can be ensured by including students in the goal writing as well as a by completing a check for understanding with the student.

Using the same method as just described, behavioral goals can also be created. For example, if a third-grade student is having difficulty following along when the teacher or a student is reading out loud, either to a small group or with peers, a goal to improve the on-task behavior might be written as follows: “When other students are reading out loud, I will follow along with my finger under the words being read.” This goal is explicit in stating what the student will do: “I will follow along with my finger under the words being read”; it is positively worded; and it is observable and measurable in that it is clear to see if a student is following along with a finger under the word being read. To meet the final criterion, this goal is also written in student-friendly language.

Table 1 provides an example reading and behavior goal bank. The goal bank includes both broad and explicit student-friendly goal examples based on IES Practice Guides (Gersten et al., 2009; Kamil et al., 2008; Shanahan et al., 2010) and previous articles in TEACHING Exceptional Children (Myers, Freeman, Simonsen, & Sugai, 2017; Walker & Barry, 2018). Depending on individual student needs, some students may benefit most from only reading goals, only behavior goals, or a combination of reading and behavior goals.

Since Ms. Salvador, the reading specialist, first met with Mr. Tanner, the behavior specialist, about using self-regulation strategies to support their students in reading and behavior skills, they have collected student data, identified research-based resources to support the creation of a goal bank with reading and behavior goals, and identified at least one potential reading goal and one potential behavior goal for each student. The next step was to introduce the students to the goals. Ms. Salvador and Mr. Tanner decided that before each lesson starts, they would define and model the goals. To introduce and teach the meaning of the goals, they took what they knew about providing explicit and systematic instruction and applied it to teaching students their new explicit student-friendly goals.

Introducing Goals to Students

When students are first introduced to goals, the teacher may be solely responsible for identifying and utilizing student reading and behavior data to create student goals. Teachers should provide explicit instruction with clear definitions of the goals. As the lessons progress, teachers can focus on a gradual release of responsibility. With gradual release of responsibility, the first step is the teacher explicitly explains a strategy (e.g., “Today your first goal is to break large words into smaller chunks. When you break small words into larger chunks, you …”). Then the teacher and student participate in guided practice (e.g., “I am going to show you what it looks like to break larger words into small chunks”), followed by the student eventually working as an independent learner in the use of self-regulation strategies (e.g., “You all have your goals and are able to monitor your goals. At the end of the lesson you will reflect on your goals and make new goals for tomorrow”). During the independent learner stage, students will be able to write their own goals, independently self-monitor, reflect on their goals, and create new goals for the following lesson (see the IES Practice Guides by Graham et al., 2012, and Shanahan et al., 2010, for a further description of gradual release of responsibilities).

Using an example goal of “When other students are reading out loud, I will follow along with my finger under the words being read,” first a teacher defines the goal followed by modeling the expected behavior of the goal. Next, the teacher can ask students to demonstrate a positive and negative example of the skill, such as following along with a finger under the word the teacher is reading as compared to having a finger in the center of the page when the teacher reads. As always, feedback would be provided as necessary. In the same way learning self-regulation skills can be scaffolded, external reinforcement for students can be scaffolded, as well. In the beginning, students may need more reinforcement throughout the lesson, such as every 5 minutes, for appropriate goal use. As students become more successful and independent in using their self-regulation strategies, the external reinforcement can be reduced to once a class or once a week, and the goals can become more challenging.

Goal Monitoring

Ms. Salvador and Mr. Tanner used IES Practice Guides and previous articles from TEACHING Exceptional Children to create a bank of goals for students and teachers to use. The next step was to teach the students how to monitor their goals during a reading lesson. To scaffold the goal monitoring, Ms. Salvador and Mr. Tanner decided to have two stopping points in the lesson to allow students to monitor their goal use. By creating stopping points in the middle of the lesson, students were allotted the time needed to identify if they were meeting or had met their goals.

Monitoring Student Goals Throughout a Lesson

When students monitor their goals, they need to both observe and record their behaviors. Because the goals are explicitly stated, positively worded, and observable and measurable, students can objectively monitor their goals, and teachers can provide feedback on the extent to which the students are meeting their goals. It is also helpful to preestablish a time in the lesson for students to state if they are meeting their goals. This time can be at regular intervals to allow for greater predictability, such as at the end of a section of the text, or randomly to facilitate spontaneous student engagement or goal-use checks (Harris et al., 2005; McDougall et al., 2017). Some students could also benefit from additional motivators, such as the use of a token economy, to incentivize meeting a goal during activities. As students become more fluent in their use of the goals, motivators can be faded from within lesson incentives to daily or weekly incentives.

A practical way to implement self-monitoring in a small-group setting includes teaching students to either use or respond to a timer (Harris et al., 2005; McDougall et al., 2017). Timers serve as a simple reminder for the students to check in with themselves. For example, the timer can signal to the student to stop and ask, “Am I underlining unknown words?” “Am I following along in the text with teacher?” or “How much work have I completed in the last 10 minutes since the timer last chimed?” Teaching students to check in with themselves about their behaviors has many benefits, such as improved academic outcomes and an increase in motivation and self-satisfaction (Menzies & Lane, 2011; Zimmerman, 2002). As the students become proficient in their goal usage, the timer can be faded over time.

Ms. Salvador was impressed with how well the students were monitoring their reading and behavior goals throughout each lesson. However, Ms. Salvador also noticed that one of her students could use additional support in monitoring his goals. After speaking with Mr. Tanner, they decided to intensify his intervention by creating a self-monitoring form. Ms. Salvador had previously identified that the student needed support to increase his inference-making skills and decrease his disruptive behavior. In creating the students’ goals, Ms. Salvador and Mr. Tanner had already utilized the IES Practice Guide on how to increase reading comprehension through graphic organizers (Shanahan et al., 2010). They also used the TEACHING Exceptional Children article on graphic organizers for secondary students (Singleton & Filce, 2015) and modified what they read to be applicable for elementary students. In addition to the goal of increasing reading comprehension, they also decided, as a way to decrease disruptive behavior, the student would benefit from having a goal of waiting to be called on in group before sharing. Ms. Salvador and Mr. Tanner also liked that the form provided a formalized way to self-record behaviors, reflect on performance, and incentivize progress toward goals. The form Ms. Salvador and Mr. Tanner created is the first self-monitoring form in Figure 2.

Figure 2.

Example self-monitoring sheets

Creating a Self-Monitoring Form

As students are taught to become more proficient in creating, monitoring, and reflecting on their goals, it can be helpful to support them their self-monitoring through self-monitoring forms, which provide a visual reminder, a recording instrument to signal students to engage in appropriate learning behaviors, and a tool to record their proficiency. Self-monitoring forms have three common characteristics. First, the forms state the student’s goal. Second, the forms allow students to self-monitor and self-record the extent to which they met their goals. Rating scales are a common method for self-recording. Rating scales often range from 0 to 2 or sad face to happy face with the following definitions of each score: 2 or happy face = I met my goal; 1 or neutral face = I almost met my goal; 0 or sad face = I did not meet my goal. Third, the forms allow for reflection.

There are a variety of ways to create a self-monitoring form. These forms may vary based on a student’s level of independence and age. Figure 2 provides self-monitoring form examples currently used in ongoing work (NICHD Grant P50 HD052117) as well as modified versions from recently published studies (Miciak et al., 2017; Vaughn, Roberts, Miciak, Taylor, & Fletcher, 2019). Notice that each example in Figure 2 has a clearly stated goal, a place to evaluate and self-record performance on meeting the goal, and an opportunity for reflection. Each example provided in Figure 2 can be also modified to meet student needs through more or less text, additional pictures, and revised goals and reflection prompts.

It can also be helpful for teachers and students to coevaluate the extent to which students are meeting their goals through progress monitoring. This can be accomplished by two methods. Both a teacher and students can discuss the students’ behaviors before the students self-record or after. If the coevaluation occurs before the self-recording, the teacher can support students in thinking about how to accurately use the rating scale against their own behaviors. If the coevaluation occurs after the students self-record, the teacher can assess the extent to which the students accurately self-evaluated their own behavior. Teachers can also reinforce accurate self-evaluation and self-recording by awarding extra points on the self-monitoring sheet for accuracy and honesty (Roberts et al., 2019). In this case, to reinforce accuracy, if the teacher agrees with the students’ self-evaluation, extra points are earned, irrespective of whether or not the goal was obtained. Whether the coevaluation occurs before or after the students self-record, coevaluations of behaviors can be beneficial as they invite meaningful conversations focusing on the students’ accurate self-evaluation of their own behaviors.

Now that Ms. Salvador and Mr. Tanner had a bank of reading and behavior goals and a self-monitoring form, they needed to consider the best method to teach students to reflect on their performance. They decided to ensure that two things occurred when students reflected on their goals. First, they wanted students to connect their daily practice and work to their performance (Zimmerman, 2002). Second they wanted to ensure that the students had an opportunity to think about what they would do to improve their performance following the reflection. Will students work on following along with the teacher? Will students spend more time breaking apart words to support decoding? Or maybe a student found something that worked really well, and they want to try it again the next day? To support student reflection, Ms. Salvador and Mr. Tanner decided to visually display the points students were earning on their self-monitoring forms in the form of a graph (see Figure 3). They also wanted to make the reflection process clear for students, so they created a student reflection process flowchart (see Figure 4). Ms. Salvador knew that the flowchart may change over time, but in the beginning, it was a proactive way to guide student thinking about how they could use their current performance to maintain their current goals or create new goals for the next lesson.

Figure 3.

Self-monitoring data graph

Figure 4.

Example student reflection process

Reflecting on Reading and Behavior Goals

Reflection occurs after the students evaluate their performance against their learning goals. Self-reflection is a crucial component of the self-regulation process. Self-reflection is also an adaptive process (Zimmerman, 2002), where students continually improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their own learning. As students learn to reflect, they may need support from their teacher on how to appropriately reflect upon their performance.

Graphing data is a valuable way to support student reflection (McDougall et al., 2017). The rating scale data on the first two self-monitoring forms in Figure 2 allow for daily point totals to be summed and graphed for a visual representation of performance across days. Figure 3 displays hypothetical self-monitoring data. Figure 4 provides an example flowchart of the self-monitoring data decision-making process. If the school team decides to use the decision-making flowchart presented in Figure 4, then the following examples would be applicable. For a student who is not yet meeting the goal, but is making progress toward the goal, the teacher and student can consider what is working and what is not working. However, if the student is not making progress toward the goal, then (a) the teacher may need to reteach the goal, or a behavior goal may need to be put in place to increase on-task behavior or motivation, or (b) it also possible that the goal is not realistic at the time, and a new goal is appropriate. If the student met the goal, then the teacher and student can state why the student met the goal, what the student will do next time, if the goal was used correctly, or if it is time for the goal to be changed. When additional discussion is needed, beyond what is provided in Figure 3, Table 2 provides example reflection questions for teachers to ask students throughout the lessons. For an additional scaffold, sentence stems for students are also provided for those who may need language supports, including students for whom English is not their primary language.

Table 2.

Teacher Questions to Support Student Reflections

Possible reflection questions	Example sentence stems
How do you feel about the progress you made toward your learning goal?	The progress I made with my learning goal is....
What was one thing that was helpful for you as you worked toward your goal?	The one thing that helped me reach my goal was....
What is something you should focus on more as you work toward you goal?	Something I should focus on more is....
What will you do next time to support your learning?	To support my learning next time I will....
What is something that went well for you today?	Something that went well today is....
We are at the halfway point. How have your goals supported your learning? What changes will your make?	My goals have supported my learning by.... To support my learning, I will change....

Through the use of reflections, students can create better future goals to support student learning. Students can then further learn to associate their specific behaviors demonstrated in class, such as “When I come to an unknown word, I will underline the word and use context clues to help me understand,” to outcomes, such as increasing reading comprehension. Through setting individual goals, students who are struggling with reading or behavior can enhance their belief that they do have the possibility to be successful in a small-group reading setting (Zimmerman, 2002).

Conclusion

There is empirical evidence supporting the use of self-regulation interventions within reading interventions (Solís et al., 2017; Berkeley et al., 2011; Chan, 1996). Many students who need intensive small-group reading interventions do not naturally think about learning in the same way as their peers. Therefore, many students need to be explicitly taught self-regulation skills. When students become active participants in the learning process, there is evidence that both academic and behavioral performance can significantly improve (Harris et al., 2005; Mason, 2013; Reid et al., 2005).

The research illustrated throughout this article supports the cycle of creating reading and behavior goals, monitoring of goals, and reflecting on goals to improve future goals. This article provides examples of how teachers of small-group reading interventions can incorporate these brief and targeted self-regulation interventions as part of academic interventions. The benefits of this include an opportunity to address a variety of behavioral and academic needs that often occur with students when providing intensive small-group interventions. It is important for teachers to provide brief amounts of explicit instruction that support the students’ learning of how to set, monitor, and reflect on their learning and behavioral goals. Students ultimately benefit when teachers nurture students’ growth through understanding and appreciating the importance of feedback in the learning process. With enough practice in developing self-regulations skills, it is possible students will improve their ability to self-monitor their learning independently. Self-regulation interventions over time may also help students learn how to set new goals and think about different ways to monitor and reflect upon their growth and areas of improvement.

As you can see from the examples provided throughout the article, the use of self-regulation interventions is adaptable to support students obtaining various academic and behavioral goals that are commonly part of IEP objectives. By applying the principles outlined in this article and by taking advantage of the examples provided, teachers can take the first steps in adding self-regulation interventions into reading interventions.