If you have a student in need of support or that are in risk of falling further behind.  These are programs that will help.  According to Nancy and Robert an effective pull-out program for students fall into these three categories.

1. Diagnostic-prescriptive programs- this is where the teacher expresses student need and instruction is giving to individual or small group

2. Tutoring programs- this is where tutors work one-on-one with teachers, paraprofessional, volunteers, or older students

3. Computer-assisted instruction- students work on skill for at least a part of their reading or math time.

I remember developing a “Pull-out Center” at Valerio Elementary School within a classroom on school grounds.  I had 5 paraprofessional studying to become teachers working as teacher leaders that helped me with the center.   We grouped the students by an initial reading assessment and created groups using classroom teacher input.  Our groups were colored coded and file folders were kept on each student’s progress.  The groups were Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension.  We worked hard to insert visual vocabulary within all groups as many of our students were second language learners.  Our vocabulary group was for newcomers and repetition was key because we know it takes at least one year for students acquire a language while being immersed in language daily.   Our center was an open door, that ran like clockwork.  When the bell rang students walked in to meet their teacher at their assigned table seat.  The 30-minute intense intervention worked well, we were able to service over 120 students in a day, we often had substitutes and volunteers that would visit.  Initially, I created the lesson plans for each group and eventually the paraprofessionals took over writing the plans.  The 30 minutes consisted of:

• 5-minute review of the day before skill and how it relates to new skill

• 10-minute introduction of new skill

• 10-minute Practice of new skill

• 5-minute review and wrap up

The Pull-out Center was adopted by local schools and each paraprofessional ended up becoming teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District.  We created a school culture that did not let any students fall through the cracks. We were celebrated for individual student growth by district leaders, because of our increased reading scores.  It was a successful adventure so much that the next year we developed a system for teaching English to adults during the day.