Supporting Preschool Students With Language Acquisition or School Readiness Challenges
MTSS is a multi-tiered system of support that provides a framework for teaching that is proactive and preventative. MTSS provides schools with a systematic method of identifying students with academic learning or social challenges. Implementing MTSS in preschool provides an early opportunity to effectively remediate delays before students begin kindergarten.
The ARIS® Academic Readiness Intervention System provides a complete curriculum for preschool students with language acquisition or school readiness challenges, including autistic students. The ARIS curriculum is designed to support MTSS by providing educators with the structure and tools required to provide Tier 3 support to students in need. Students in preschool can be easily assessed, identified, and provided with the level of support needed to become kindergarten-ready. The ARIS curriculum encompasses the four key components of MTSS and includes the academic and behavioral supports and requirements essential to student success at the preschool level.
What is MTSS?
MTSS provides a framework for teaching using a multi-tiered system of supports. States implement MTSS differently, but all implementations include using data to inform instruction, modify interventions, and improve programs. The framework provides a process for strengthening instruction and intervention and providing the positive behavioral and emotional supports necessary to ensure positive learning outcomes for students.
MTSS builds on the work of two other intervention-based frameworks: Response to Intervention (RtI) and Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS). MTSS initially focused on providing a framework for improving educational outcomes for students in special education, but today MTSS has expanded to support students at every level:
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Tier 1 supports align with grade-level standards and student needs. Between 75% to 90% of students benefit from Tier 1 supports alone. Differentiation ensures that all students can access and benefit from core programming.
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Tier 2 includes standardized academic interventions and/or targeted behavioral or mental health supports using validated programs to catch students up with their peers. Examples of Tier 2 supports include small group instruction, guided reading, or a social skills lunch bunch. Tier 2 makes up 10% to 25% of students.
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Tier 3 focuses on students with significant challenges who are not making adequate progress using Tier 1 or 2 supports. In Tier 3, students receive individualized support using small groups or one-to-one teaching. Tier 3 is the smallest and most intensive tier serving less than 10% of students.
Center on Multi-Tiered System of Supports. (2023). Essential components of MTSS. American Institutes for Research. Reprinted with permission.
What is ARIS?
The Language Builder: Academic Readiness Intervention System (ARIS) is a comprehensive, personalized learning curriculum for early childhood students with language acquisition or school readiness challenges, including moderate to severe autistic students.
ARIS provides the structure and tools needed to implement MTSS in preschool and early education settings, including connecting assessment to universal screening, direct support for Tier 3 interventions, progress monitoring, and data-based decision-making. ARIS matches the early academic content identified by the MTSS framework that is essential for school readiness and includes the positive behavioral interventions and supports used within Tier 3.
Language Builder: Academic Readiness Intervention System (ARIS)
ARIS supports the Four Components of the MTSS Framework
The MTSS framework has four essential components: screening, a multi-level prevention system, progress monitoring, and data-based decision-making. In many states, MTSS data also supports the identification of students with learning disabilities.
1. Screening
Screening is conducted three times a year to identify students who may be at risk for poor outcomes and need additional academic, social, emotional, or behavioral support. Universal screening uses a systematic process to identify at-risk students and identify schools that need support due to large numbers of struggling students.
Once the universal screening is completed, the interventionist can use ARIS’s scope and sequence to determine which evidenced-based lesson to implement based on the identified area(s) of need. In addition, districts that do not use a formal Universal Benchmark tool can access ARIS’ Skills Baseline & Progress Tracking Sheet and appropriate word, concept, and skills checklists included with the curriculum; educators establish a student’s baseline skill level, select valid and reliable indicators, monitor and ensure fidelity of implementation, and evaluate and revise instruction as needed.
2. Multi-Level Prevention System: Tier 3
MTSS entails three tiers of support. For Tier 3, schools implement intensive interventions to address the needs of students with ongoing learning or behavioral needs, including those with language acquisition or school readiness challenges. Data-based interventions, validated by research, are used to provide support. Tier 3 supports can include different data-based programs provided they can be tailored to the needs of each student.
At the preschool level, early intervention follows the MTSS roadmap with a few adjustments, including taking a holistic approach to target support for students with cognitive, social-emotional, motor, language, and communication skills and involving parents and caregivers in the process to reinforce learning.
ARIS is designed to support strong parent involvement during Pre-K and early elementary school interventions and provide interventions tailored to the needs of each student. The curriculum includes a structure to support ongoing home communication, including customizable sheets that support communication between parents or caregivers and educators about a child’s progress and challenges. Different home communication sheets are designed for specific purposes to communicate and share information about students, including:
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Introduction, Preference List, and Initial Behavior Profile
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Behavior Report Home Communication Sheet
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Emerging and Maintaining Skills Home Communication Sheet
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Emerging and Maintaining Vocabulary Home Communication Sheet
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Communication Skills Home Communication Sheet
3. Progress Monitoring
Progress monitoring entails using tools and processes to assess performance, quantify the improvement, and evaluate the effectiveness of instruction, interventions, and support. Progress monitoring includes selecting the appropriate monitoring tools, training staff in using these tools, developing a plan to monitor progress, and collecting and analyzing data to quantify improvement and evaluate and adjust instruction and support.
ARIS aligns lessons to district universal benchmarks to indicate skills or standards that require interventions through their MTSS. The ARIS custom data sheets, such as the Vocabulary-Based Data Sheet, capture progress monitoring outcomes tailored to each child. Based on the outcome of a district’s Early Childhood Screener or Universal Benchmark System for PreK through Grade 2, ARIS aligns lessons to target specific needs and can document progress on specific skills or standards.
ARIS lessons are tied to IEP goals so districts can use them as SMART goals for their MTSS Tier 3 Interventions using ARIS progress monitoring data sheets. In addition, the ARIS curriculum comes with pre- and post-baseline assessments aligned with the Brigance Inventory of Early Development (IED III).
ARIS includes an implementation guide and an in-depth scope and sequence correlating to the State Standards, Head Start Early Learning Framework, Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills (ABLLS), and Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program (VB-MAPP) to ensure that lessons cover all steps to academic readiness with the right amount of rigor and intensity. ARIS can be paired with professional learning offered by STAGES Learning through an online training academy and in-person professional development to ensure fidelity of implementation.
4. Data-based Decision Making
Data-based decision-making includes collaborative data analysis and problem-solving to make decisions about instruction, interventions, and disability identification. The first step is to identify a team that will review and make decisions about the data. The team consists of teachers, administrators, specialists or coaches, special education teachers, and parents. Providing ongoing professional learning is essential to help staff analyze screening, progress monitoring, and implementation data to make decisions about instruction.
ARIS provides the structure needed for student support teams to share data easily. ARIS lessons are evidenced-based and incorporate data to inform instructional practices and interventions. ARIS includes reproducible data sheets and home communication sheets tailored to specific lesson types. These sheets prompt educators to capture lesson-specific details about student performance and communicate progress to parents and caregivers. This level of record-keeping and communication ensures that all staff and caregivers can reinforce skills. ARIS is designed to be used “out of the box,” but teams working in Tier 3 implementations can take advantage of in-person and virtual ongoing professional development.
Implementing MTSS in Preschool: Early Identification and Remediation
MTSS provides schools with a systematic method of identifying students with potential learning challenges or behavioral delays. Implementing MTSS in preschool provides an early opportunity to effectively remediate delays before students begin kindergarten. Early identification and remediation of at-risk students can reduce the need to refer students to special education in kindergarten by ensuring more students are school-ready.1
In preschool, MTSS implementation involves data collection and progress monitoring for all students because there is a great deal of variety in skill levels related to students’ experiences before entering preschool. Using MTSS enables educators to target and bridge gaps between learners to prepare them for entering school.
MTSS Academic and Behavioral Supports for Pre-K Students
When supporting preschool students with developmental challenges, it is important to support the family. The child needs to be viewed holistically by reviewing cognitive, social-emotional, motor, language, and communication skills. Interventions should be provided in a natural setting with embedded family support.
Early academic and behavioral MTSS at the preschool level focuses on:
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Early literacy and language skills that are needed for school readiness and are connected to later reading outcomes including oral language, comprehension, phonological awareness, and alphabet knowledge.
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Early writing skills that include knowledge of letters, writing conventions such as letters, names, and words, and conveying meaning using drawing and writing.
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Early mathematical skills that include verbal counting, one-to-one correspondence, and cardinality.
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Early childhood positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) that are used at all Tiers to facilitate responsive, nurturing, and supportive relationships, including frequent communications between home and school.
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At Tier 3, student behavioral issues are identified by investigating and providing support that addresses the factors contributing to the challenging behavior.
ARIS matches the early academic content identified by the MTSS framework that is essential for school readiness and includes the positive behavioral interventions and supports used at all MTSS Tiers. ARIS consists of 202 lessons within seven content categories: Approaches to Learning (learning to learn), Language, Motor Skills, Social Emotional Skills, Functional Routines, Reading and Writing Readiness, and Math Readiness. ARIS is designed so that educators can adapt the lessons to individual students and different learning environments while ensuring that there are no gaps in the student’s progress toward academic readiness.
ARIS content categories, subcategories, and lessons scaffold development across multiple domains, including academic communication, social-emotional, physical, self-help, and functional skills. ARIS lessons include a structured ABA-based lesson format and a less formal, more organic, and playful Whole Child lesson idea for each lesson. These Whole Child activities can be used to include peers to enhance social-emotional development.
By instituting MTSS in preschool, students who do not respond to Tier 1 and Tier 2 supports can be provided with a Tier 3 problem-solving planning approach. This process includes a meeting to review the student's needs and establish learning objectives and goals to develop a specialized intervention.
ARIS Meets the Requirements for Tier 3 Intervention
ARIS provides educators with a curriculum designed to meet the specific requirements of Tier 3 interventions, including comprehensive lessons to meet duration and frequency requirements, individualized instruction, and regular diagnostic assessments to target intervention activities.
Since its introduction in schools in 2015 through the Elementary and Secondary Education/Every Student Succeeds Act (ESEA/ESSA), MTSS has been used in preschools and elementary schools to support every child’s learning success. Schools across the country are now using ARIS because it provides a structure to support MTSS goals in preschool to provide an early opportunity to effectively remediate delays before students begin kindergarten.
At STAGES® Learning, we recognize that districts nationwide face increased referral rates and a higher percentage of students entering preschool with school readiness and language acquisition delays. We are here to support your needs. If you would like to speak with one of our educational experts about MTSS and ARIS, please complete this form, and we will contact you.
This article was based, in part, on information from the Center on Multi-Tiered System of Supports at the American Institutes for Research and Brovokich, M., & Dirsmith, J. (2021). Multitiered Systems of Support in Early Childhood [Research summary]. National Association of School Psychologists.
1 Carta, J. J., Greenwood, C. R., Atwater, J., McConnell, S. R., Goldstein, H., & Kaminski, R. A. (2015). Identifying preschool children for higher tiers of language and early literacy instruction within a response to intervention framework. Journal of Early Intervention, 36(4), 281–291. https://doi.org/10.1177/1053815115579937
