Mrs. Smith could offer tutoring to this student before or after school to help give one-on-one instruction. Mrs. Smith should also look at this student's file to see if they went to Kindergarten or if they have an IEP or if they qualify for ESOL. Mrs. Smith needs to make sure this student has time during class to read with a friend who might be on the same reading level, listen to books on RAZ-kids.com, match letters in starfall.com, and have lots of hands-on activities. The student will need more picture cue cards around the room and her own picture word wall to make a list of words they are working on in 1st grade. Mrs. Smith could also start the RTI process and collect 6 weeks worth of data to make sure the student receives help in class.

Mrs. Smith will need to meet the student where she is. She can provide her with sentence starters. Also, provide the student with hands on games to assist the students with letter and word recognition. The teacher can also put her on wordfall.com to help the student learn how to recognize print. I would also make sure the student does not need eye glasses. She could contact the parents, share her concerns, and provide strategies and activities they can do at home to assist.

As the teacher, Mrs. Smith needs to determine the "why" behind her student's academic troubles. Does the student have previous schooling? Then, through differentiation, Mrs. Smith can build on what the student is able to do. With a sweet disposition often comes the desire to do well in class. Mrs. Smith will probably want to put a Tier 2 intervention in place with recognizing letters. Once these are mastered, she can move on to basic sight words. Encourage reading skills by having the student listen to books on tape, cd, an app, or on the computer. This will also build the capacity for recognizing print. EIP services would most likely benefit this student as well.

One way that Mrs. Smith can help this student is by providing the student with individualized assignments that meet the student where she is. The teacher then needs to contact the students parents, so that collaboratively, they can work to get the student caught up. The teacher could also choose a student that is advanced, to provided peer tutoring within the classroom. Sometimes grouping the students as high with low, allows both student to reinforce content being taught.

I agree if the RTI process should be started immediately. I would not require this student to copy any assignments from the board. A copy should be given to her. I would schedule a conference with parent(s) to address the academic concerns for the student. I would make the parent(s) aware that the student could be possibly retained and recommend the parent work with the student more at home. In addition, parent should look for tutoring opportunities.