Dr. Cascone provides recommendations for a holistic, systems approach to elementary literacy in Old Bridge Township Public Schools. He recommends early benchmarking and intervention to ensure all students are reading at grade level by second grade. A balanced literacy program should blend elements of Readers' and Writers' Workshop with a standardized core reading program to meet diverse student needs. Response to Intervention (RTI) should be at the core of instruction, using collaborative teaching models, benchmarking software, and data-informed support for all students. The goal is to foster lifelong reading and writing through differentiated support across three tiers of intervention when needed.

1. Old Bridge Township Public Schools
J. Scott Cascone, Ed.D.
Prepared in fulfillment of my candidacy for the position of Executive
Director of Academics
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2.  To provide curricular, instructional, and assessment
recommendations for a holistic “systems approach” to a
district elementary literacy program
 To define the purpose and value of “Response to Intervention”
(RTI) within a district elementary literacy program
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3.  The Pre-K through Grade 5 literacy
context is diverse and spans multiple
cognitive developmental stages.
 Introduction of the Common Core
Curriculum Standards and PARCC
 Addressing Special Education, BSI, ELL,
and G&T
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4.  Early benchmarking and intervention
 Working toward 100% of students reading and
writing at or above grade level by the middle
of second grade or earlier
 Alignment to CCCS and PARCC
 Fostering the development of lifelong
readers and writers
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5.  There is no “programmatic panacea” for meeting the
expansive range of students and learning needs within a
district-wide elementary literacy program.
 Rather an effective program holistically blends various
age and objective-specific resources.

6.  Readers’ and Writers’ Workshop represents a
valid overarching philosophy and elements of
it are worthy of use.
 Balanced literacy, process-oriented
approach, student use of higher-order
thinking skills of reflection and evaluation
 Celebration of reading and writing
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7.  Requires a high level of training and expertise to
properly implement
 Difficult & costly to outfit and maintain all
classrooms w/properly leveled libraries which
are engaging & current
 Disparate implementations from school to school
and even classroom to classroom may result.
 Reading level testing can be highly subjective
and prone to rater error and/or bias.
 RWW shown to not always best serve lower tier
students
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8.  Worthwhile elements of RWW can be utilized side-
by-side with a standard publisher’s series.
 A district multi-stakeholder Language Arts
Committee would screen and recommend a
program for implementation. The following are
quality series:
Good Habits, Great Readers-Pearson
Journeys-Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Reading Street-Pearson
Treasures Macmillan McGraw-Hill
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9.  Standardizes, to an appropriate extent,
curricular resources between classrooms and
schools
 Differentiated resources for ELL, BSI, and G&T
 User and training-friendly for implementation
and onboarding of new staff
 Technology components
 Common Core aligned
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10.  Collecting benchmark data on incoming
Kindergarten students should happen as early as
possible.
 PALS: Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening-
University of Virginia
 Spring or Summer Kindergarten Orientations can
be used to collect observational, informal,
and/or formal assessment data.
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11.  Running records and individual reading assessments
are time consuming, subject to unreliability between
raters and require a high level of training and
experience to be done accurately.
 Consider the implementation of a digital literacy
benchmark software for computer-ready students
 Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI), Read 180, System
44, Lexia, and Link-It are all high quality products.
 Software is time efficient, normed, teacher and
student user-friendly, generates student, teacher,
and parent reports. It also enables the disaggregation
of data by teacher, school, grade, and standard.

12.  Collaborative Co-Teaching Model
 Basic Skills-Push-in and Pull-Out
-Clear Entrance and Exit Criteria
 Self-Contained Special Education & Related Services
 English Language and Bilingual Services
 I&RS and Section 504
 After-School and Summer Student Programs
 Family Literacy Nights/Institutes
 School Newspapers and writing contests
 Reading Buddies and Support
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13. RTI is NOT a tool, it IS effective
instruction and assessment.
It should be at the very core of ALL
of our pedagogical practices.
SGOs have brought RTI to the
forefront and built capacity.
RTI makes for robust PLCs.
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14.  All three RTI tiers CAN be achieved in the
mainstream classroom. Support and enrichment
services are provided at level 3 as necessary
and appropriate through Self-Contained Special
Education, BSI, ESL, Bilingual, & G&T. Decisions
and placements are data-informed.
 RTI is the “backbone” of I & RS
 Greatest benefit of RTI is that it fosters data-
informed, differentiated instruction, and has a
strong and positive relationship with student
achievement.
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