1 Colo. Code Regs. § 301-92-2.00

Current through Register Vol. 47, No. 22, November 25, 2024

Section 1 CCR 301-92-2.00 - Definitions

2.1 Administrator: Any school-based or centrally- or regionally-based employee of an LEP who is responsible for designing, implementing and/or providing professional development on the elementary literacy instructional program for kindergarten or any of grades one through three in any school or LEP in the state, and who is not the principal. This would include an assistant or vice principal of an elementary school. It also includes any employee of the LEP conducting observations of and/or providing coaching to a teacher providing literacy instruction in kindergarten or grades one through three.

2.2 Advisory: Recommendations made by the Colorado Department of Education that meet the requirements for scientifically based reading research or evidence-based. These may include but are not limited to the topics of classroom resource materials, instructional programming, interventions, and professional development.

2.3 Body of Evidence: A collection of information about a student's academic performance which, when considered in its entirety, documents the level of a student's academic performance. A body of evidence, at a minimum, shall include scores on formative or interim assessments and work that a student independently produces in a classroom, including but not limited to the school readiness assessments adopted pursuant to section 22-7-1004(2)(a), C.R.S.. A body of evidence may include scores on summative assessments if a local education provider decides that summative assessments are appropriate and useful in measuring students' literacy skills.

2.4 Colorado Academic Standards: The 2020 Colorado Academic Standards for Reading, Writing, and Communicating (adopted June 13, 2018), which identify the knowledge and skills that a student should acquire as the student progresses from preschool through elementary and secondary education, as adopted by the State Board of Education pursuant to section 22-7-1005, C.R.S.

2.5 Comprehension: The process of extracting and constructing meaning from written texts. Comprehension has three key elements:

(1) the reader;

(2) the text; and

(3) the activity.

2.6 Department: The Colorado Department of Education created pursuant to section 24-1-115, C.R.S.

2.7 Diagnostic Assessment: A state board approved assessment which schools are required to use for students identified through screening as possibly having a significant reading deficiency so as to pinpoint a student's specific area(s) of weakness and provide in-depth information about students' skills and instructional needs.

2.8 Duration: The length (number of minutes) of a session multiplied by the number of sessions per school year.

2.9 Enrollment: For the purposes of the READ Act, enrollment refers to the student's first day of school.

2.10 Explicit Instruction: Instruction that involves direct explanation in which concepts are explained and skills are modeled, without vagueness or ambiguity. The teacher's language is concise, specific, and related to the objective, and guided practice is provided.

2.11 Evidence-Based: The instruction or item described is based on reliable, trustworthy, and valid evidence and has demonstrated a record of success in adequately increasing students' reading competency in the areas of phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development, reading fluency, including oral skills, and reading comprehension.

2.12 Fidelity: The delivery of instruction in the way in which it was designed to be delivered.

2.13 Fluency: The capacity to read words in connected text with sufficient accuracy, rate, and prosody to comprehend what is read.

2.14 Frequency: How often an intervention occurs used within a Response to Intervention framework. Frequency of an intervention, in conjunction with intensity, fidelity of delivery, and duration, may be used as an element to determine the effectiveness of an intervention.

2.15 Intervention: The practice of providing scientifically-based, high-quality instruction and progress monitoring to students who are below proficient in reading.

2.16 Instructional Programming: Scientifically-based or evidence-based resources in reading instruction that local education providers are encouraged to use including but not limited to interventions, tutoring, and instructional materials that adequately teach students to read and may include materials used within a multi-tiered system of support including the universal/core level and supplemental and intensive interventions.

2.17 Intensity: More time daily above and beyond 90+ minutes of universal (Tier 1) instruction, which is focused on the specific needs of the student as identified by a diagnostic measure. Instruction can be intensified in three ways:

(1) more time,

(2) more targeted instruction, and

(3) smaller group size.

2.18 Interim Assessment: A universal screening assessment administered to all students to identify those who may experience lower than expected reading outcomes who may be at risk for reading challenges.

2.19 Judicious Review: A review of previously learned information over time, integrated into more complex tasks, in order to enhance the learning of new skills.

2.20 Local Education Provider or LEP: A school district, a board of cooperative services, a district charter school, or an institute charter school.

2.21 Mastery: A student can successfully perform, apply, and transfer their knowledge of the task at least 85% of the time.

2.22 Multi-tiered Systems of Supports: A systemic preventive approach that addresses the academic and social-emotional needs of all students at the universal, targeted, and intensive levels. Through the multi-tiered systems of supports, a teacher provides high-quality, scientifically based or evidence-based instruction and intervention that is matched to student needs; uses a method of monitoring progress frequently to inform decisions about instruction and goals; and applies the student's response data to important educational decisions.

2.23 Oral Language: The ability to produce and comprehend spoken language, including vocabulary and grammar.

2.24 Phonemic Awareness: A subset of phonological awareness in which listeners are able to hear, identify, and manipulate phonemes, the smallest units of sound that can differentiate meaning.

2.25 Phonological Awareness: Awareness of the sound structure of spoken words at three levels:

(1) rhyming to onset and rime;

(2) segmenting and blending; and

(3) manipulating individual phonemes

2.26 Phonics: A method of teaching reading and writing by developing learners' phonemic awareness, that is, the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the sounds (phonemes) in order to teach the correspondence between these sounds and the spelling patterns (graphemes) that represent them.

2.27 Principal: Any person who is employed as the chief executive officer of any school in the state that serves kindergarten or any of grades one through three.

2.28 Professional Development: Activities that develop an individual's skills, knowledge, expertise and other characteristics as a teacher or educational professional. Such activities include but are not limited to, updating individuals' knowledge of literacy in light of recent advances; updating individuals' skills, attitudes, and approaches in light of the development of new teaching techniques and objectives, new circumstances, and new educational research; enabling individuals to apply changes made to curricula or other aspects of the teaching practice of literacy; enabling schools to develop and apply new strategies concerning the curriculum and other aspects of the teaching of literacy; and exchanging information and expertise among teachers and others. This definition recognizes that professional development can be provided in many ways, ranging from the formal to the informal and can be made available through external expertise in the form of courses, workshops or formal qualification programs, and through collaboration between schools or teachers across schools.

2.29 Progress Monitoring: An assessment used to determine whether students are making adequate progress and to determine whether instruction needs to be adjusted.

2.30 Reading Interventionist: An individual employed to teach students and whose primary job duties include providing reading intervention to students on READ Act Plans during regular school hours to supplement core academic instruction and who is employed in any of grades K-12.

2.31 School District: A school district, other than a junior college district, organized and existing pursuant to law.

2.32 Scientifically Based: The instruction or item described is based on research that applies rigorous, systematic, and objective procedures to obtain valid knowledge that is relevant to reading development, reading instruction, and reading difficulties.

2.33 Screening: An assessment that provides a quick sample of critical reading skills that will inform the teacher if the student is on track for grade level reading competency by the end of the school year. A screening assessment is a first alert that a student may need extra help to make adequate progress in reading during the year.

2.34 Significant Reading Deficiency: A student does not meet the minimum skill levels for reading competency in the areas of phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development, reading fluency, including oral skills, and reading comprehension established by the state board for the student's grade level.

2.35 State Board: The state board of education created pursuant to section 1 of article IX of the state constitution.

2.36 Sufficient Duration: Dependent on a number of factors including the program or strategy being used, the age of the student, and the severity of the deficit involved.

2.37 Summative Assessment: An end of year comprehensive measurement of student mastery in order to inform taxpayers and state policy makers, support identification of successful programs, and serve a variety of state and federal accountability needs.

2.38 Systematic Instruction: A carefully planned sequence of instruction that is thought out and designed before activities and lessons are planned, maximizing the likelihood that whenever children are asked to learn something new, they already possess the appropriate prior knowledge and understandings to see its value and to learn it effectively.

2.39 Teacher: The professional responsible for the literacy instruction of the student(s) and may include the main instructor for a class, an instructional coach, Reading Interventionist (in grades K-3), special education teacher, Title I teacher or other personnel who are identified as effective in the teaching of reading and who has been employed to teach kindergarten or any of grades one through three.

2.40 Vocabulary: Knowledge of words and word meanings and includes words that a person understands and uses in language. Vocabulary is essential for both learning to read and comprehending text.

1 CCR 301-92-2.00

38 CR 11, June 10, 2015, effective 6/30/2015

39 CR 07, April 10, 2016, effective 4/30/2016

40 CR 21, November 10, 2017, effective 11/30/2017

43 CR 07, April 10, 2020, effective 4/30/2020

45 CR 23, December 10, 2022, effective 12/30/2022