In pursuit of a more effective and inclusive approach to English Language Arts (ELA) instruction, second-grade teachers Hannah Zimar and Alex Graves at Fall Creek Elementary School have embraced the Integrated Co-Teaching (ICT) model.
ICT engages students with disabilities alongside their peers in a general education classroom setting. Zimar, a second-grade general education teacher, and Graves, a special education teacher, utilize the ICT model to provide ELA instruction for a diverse classroom of learners with varying abilities.
The pair’s ELA block spans an hour each day, Monday through Thursday, and begins with 15 minutes of whole group Really Great Reading (RGR) instruction, followed by station work in groups. The students are intentionally grouped based on their specific learning needs, which makes it easier to differentiate instruction and ensures everyone has access to the grade-level curriculum.
Fridays are dedicated to spelling tests and more individualized intervention, giving students time to work on skills they’re struggling with or to catch up if they were absent for any of the ELA blocks that week. It also gives Zimar and Graves time to plan for the week ahead and to collaborate with the ENL and reading teachers to further fine-tune instruction for their students.
By offering an appropriate pace for students’ different learning styles, Zimar and Grave’s co-teaching model has sparked increased enthusiasm for learning and greater skill application, resulting in significant academic gains. Moreover, the group model promotes relationship-building in the class and makes the students less aware of each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
“Reading is so different for everybody,” Zimar said. “If we’re in a big group situation, it’s super known who is behind and who is way above level. With this, they’re not even aware. We’re all just doing reading, and it’s easier for us to differentiate for kids.”
Zimar and Graves’ co-teaching success stems largely from their meticulous planning, as well as their shared understanding of how they want their instruction to flow and what they want their students to get out of second grade: a happy, healthy learning experience. Zimar and Graves also rely on data from RGR to help them track student progress and identify where extra support is required.
“We made it a huge thing to carve out enough time to actually know where our students are at,” Graves explained. “We know exactly where all of our students are based on the data we’ve been able to collect.”
Despite this only being their first year implementing the ICT model, Zimar and Graves have improved academic performance and raised confidence among their students, as well as nurtured a greater sense of inclusivity in the classroom. In the future, the pair hope to be able to co-teach for the entire school day (currently, they’re only together for ELA and math instruction) and for more grades to embrace co-teaching at Fall Creek.
As Zimar explained, “Once you get a taste of it, you want the whole cake.”
