If you work with below-level readers, you know the frustration of trying to meet every student’s needs during reading intervention with zero time to spare.

We want to target the right skills and keep kids engaged, but too often, intervention feels like a frantic game of “check the box” instead of meaningful instruction.

Whether you’re a classroom teacher, an interventionist, or a reading specialist, putting together a reading intervention plan on your own can feel overwhelming. 

In this blog post, we’ll walk through how the Reading Intervention Collaborative (RIC) helps simplify that work by giving you the tools, structure, and guidance you need to know exactly what to do next.

What Is the Reading Intervention Collaborative (RIC)?

The RIC is a research-based program that has everything you need in one place: assessments, resources, progress monitoring, and professional learning.

Inside RIC, you’ll find:

• Assessments to pinpoint exactly where a student is stuck.
• Ready-to-use lessons and materials so you aren’t using your weekends prepping for intervention time.
• Physical and digital progress monitoring that’s actually sustainable.
• Professional learning that fits into your commute to school or planning period.

The RIC supports everything from phonological awareness and phonics to fluency and comprehension for students in Kindergarten-5th Grade.

As the Institute of Education Sciences reminds us:

“Effective reading interventions are systematic, explicit, and provide opportunities for practice with feedback.”

We’ve built that exact systematic approach into all the elements inside the RIC.

Implementing a new system can feel like a lot, so we’ve broken it down into 4 manageable steps to get you started as soon as tomorrow.

Step 1: Let Data Drive the Bus

Before you grab a single worksheet/activity, use RIC’s assessment tools to answer one question: What gaps are stopping my students from progressing?

Assessment Tip: Give your assessments at the start of the week, or the Friday before. Then, group students by skill, not by “reading level.”

For example, if a student knows their letter sounds but can’t blend them into a word, skip the alphabet drills. Move straight to the blending routines. If the data feels messy, our podcast episode “You Have the Data: Now What?” walks you through turning those scores into a clear plan.

Step 2: Build Flexible Small Groups

Once you know the “what,” you need to decide the “who.”

• Keep it small: Aim for 3–5 students per group. (For Tier 3 interventions, this could be more like 1-2 students).
• Stay flexible: Review your data every 2–3 weeks (more often for students with significant gaps). If a student masters a skill, move them up immediately.

Reminder: Intervention isn’t one-size-fits-all. A group requiring intensive support might need 20–30 minutes four days a week, while a group that is nearly at grade level may only need a quick 10-minute daily ‘boost’ to fill in their remaining gaps.

Step 3: Lean Into a Consistent Routine

Consistency is key in reading intervention. When kids know the routine, their brains can stop worrying about what they are doing and start focusing on the learning. Of course, maintaining that consistency is easier said than done when you’re short on time.

If you can relate, listen to this free podcast episode from the RIC: “Managing Time Limitations for Reading Intervention.” We dive into practical ways to make the most of every minute you have, so you can actually fit the routines that will actually help your students meet their goals into your busy schedule.

Routines to Try Tomorrow

• Alphabet Knowledge: Use alphabet arcs and charts. Review 3–5 letters (name/sound/picture) and finish with a timed fluency check using alphabet fluency strips.

• Phonemic Awareness: Use phonemic awareness games and segmenting cards to give students a hands-on way to hear and “move” the individual sounds in a word.

• Phonics & Word Reading: Use blending slides and decodable passages. Model how to blend words with your target phonics pattern, decode a few words together, and have students read some words on their own. Then, have them apply the skill to a decodable text featuring words with the same phonics pattern.

• Fluency: Use fluency passages or Reader’s Theater. Read once for accuracy, then reread with a focus on a specific skill – such as expression, rate, or phrasing. The more rereads of the same text, the better – and research shows that this type of practice will help students read other texts with better fluency, too!

• Comprehension: Use graphic organizers and cloze passages to help students visualize text structure and build meaning from what they read. Even if word reading / fluency are the focus of a group’s intervention, you’ll still want to do at least some quick comprehension work. We always want students to know that the goal of reading is to make meaning of the text.

As literacy expert Louisa Moats explains:

“Teaching reading well requires explicit instruction in foundational skills and ample opportunities for practice.”

The RIC is built to give you those opportunities every single day, even when the clock is against you.

Step 4: Monitor, Adjust, Repeat

Progress monitoring isn’t for the grade book—it’s for you to have a starting point when planning for your small groups. It tells you if your instruction is working or if you need to pivot.

• Check in weekly for your most intensive groups.
• Use multiskill tracking sheets (like our spreadsheet below from the RIC) to see patterns over time.
• Troubleshoot: If you aren’t seeing results yet, try reducing the group size for more focused intensity. Also, remember to give the intervention time to work—sometimes a student just needs more practice with a strategy before the progress shows up on paper.

Stay Current (Without the Hours of Research)

Literacy is always evolving, and it’s a lot to keep up with. Our Literacy Research Update podcast episodes do the heavy lifting for you. We break down the latest reports into 30-minute takeaways you can actually use in your classroom tomorrow.

What Your Peers Are Saying

See how educators like you are using the RIC to simplify reading intervention and move the needle for their below-level readers.

Ready to simplify your intervention?

If you’re tired of “winging it” and want a clear, research-backed path for your K-5 readers, the Reading Intervention Collaborative was built for you.

Happy Teaching!

References

Institute of Education Sciences. (2017). Foundational skills to support reading for understanding in kindergarten through 3rd grade (NCEE 2016-4008). U.S. Department of Education. https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/PracticeGuide/21

Moats, L. C. (2020). Teaching reading is rocket science: What expert teachers of reading should know and be able to do (2020 update). American Federation of Teachers. https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/moats.pdf