By Suleyman Demirhan
March 2026 | Education & Equity
In my last post, I wrote about Belonging — the quiet but powerful belief that makes students try, persist, and grow. I explored how students who feel like they don’t belong pull away from learning, and how we as educators can send signals every day that say: you are home here.
But here is a question that has been sitting with me since: What happens after a student believes they belong? What happens when they are ready to try — but they are still behind?
That is where intervention comes in. And that is where too many of our most motivated, most willing students quietly give up again.
Because here is the hard truth: believing you belong is not enough if the help you receive does not actually help.
The Intervention Problem
In the years since the pandemic, intervention in K-12 schools has skyrocketed. Walk into almost any school and you will find intervention time on the schedule — WIN blocks, flex periods, small-group tutoring, content-specific support classes. We are offering more help than ever before.
And yet, as Nathan Levenson and David James point out in their 2026 article “Supercharge Intervention and Motivate Struggling Learners” (Educational Leadership, February 2026), mastery unfortunately has not kept up. Too many students are not catching up. Some are slipping further behind and tuning out in the process.
“The fact is students who struggle typically don’t need more intervention time. What they need is more targeted and engaging intervention during the already-allotted time.” — Levenson & James, 2026
Think about that from a belonging perspective. A student finally believes they can do this. They show up for help. And then the help does not reach them. What message does that send? That maybe they were right all along — that people like them really do not succeed here.
Ineffective intervention does not just waste time. It destroys the very beliefs we worked so hard to build.
The High Five: What Effective Intervention Actually Looks Like
Levenson and James spent 15 years consulting with more than 400 districts across 30 U.S. states. They observed hundreds of intervention classes and interviewed thousands of teachers. What they found was that five key practices — what they call the “High Five” — consistently increase both achievement and engagement. Let me walk through each one and connect it to what we know about motivation and belonging.
1. Direct Instruction That Offers Multiple Explanations
The most important finding from decades of research, including John Hattie’s landmark synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses (2009), is simple: teachers matter most. Students who are struggling are not going to independently discover the skills they have not yet mastered. And yet, the most common intervention model involves students sitting in front of a computer screen while a teacher monitors.
That is not intervention. That is supervised struggle.
Effective intervention requires a teacher who teaches — directly, actively, and in multiple ways. If a student did not master the material the first time it was taught, repeating the same explanation will not work. Some students need to hear a concept two or even three different ways before it clicks.
Levenson and James give a beautiful example: teaching the area of a right triangle. Some students memorize the formula. Others light up when they see that two right triangles make a rectangle — that the formula is not magic, it is just half of something they already know.
“A student who finally encounters an explanation that does make sense lights up. ‘Now I get it!’ they say with a smile.” — Levenson & James, 2026
That moment — that smile — is not just academic. It is a belonging signal. It says: I can do this. People like me do understand this.
2. Instruction That Targets Specific Skill and Knowledge Gaps
Not all gaps are the same. Effective intervention teachers know their students well academically. They do not reteach everything a student missed — they pinpoint the specific skills that are blocking progress right now, especially the prerequisite skills connected to upcoming grade-level content.
Think of it this way: if next week’s math lesson requires understanding place value, and a student has not mastered that yet, that is where intervention should focus. Not broadly on “math.” Not on last year’s entire curriculum. On the precise skill gap standing between this student and tomorrow’s lesson.
Levenson and James suggest giving every student a clear map of what they have and have not yet mastered. Students can see exactly where they are — and exactly where they are going. This visual clarity does more than guide instruction. It reframes the story a student tells about themselves. Instead of “I am bad at math,” the story becomes, “I have mastered four skills, and I am working on four more.”
That shift connects directly to what Dave Stuart Jr. calls a student’s sense of Value — the belief that the work they are doing matters. Targeted intervention makes the connection between intervention and the real classroom visible. Students understand: “This is going to help me in my actual class tomorrow.” That is motivating.
3. Focused Instruction That Goes Deep, Not Wide
This one is counterintuitive — and it is one of the most important findings in the research.
Many students are behind in multiple subjects. The instinct is to help them in all of those subjects at once. But Levenson and James found the opposite approach works better. Schools that have made the greatest gains in catching students up provide sustained, focused intervention — one subject at a time, typically five times a week, for multiple weeks.
When intervention is spread thin across multiple subjects, students recognize they are getting help but realize they are still only running in place. That is disheartening. Levenson and James describe it this way: depth leads to mastery and keeps students invested. Breadth risks spreading so thin that students feel the effort but do not see the result.
The belonging connection here is powerful. When a student finally breaks through and truly masters something — not sort-of understands it, but owns it — that success does not stay in that subject. The confidence spills over. The student begins to believe, maybe for the first time in a long time, that they are someone who can catch up.
4. Visible Progress Monitoring by Skill
For students who have struggled for years, intervention can feel like a long, uphill march with no visible progress. That feeling is one of the most dangerous things for motivation.
The solution is deceptively simple: make progress visible, student by student, skill by skill.
Levenson and James describe showing a student that at the start of the month they had 17 skills to master, and now they are down to 14. They are still behind — but they can see they are moving forward. That visibility is everything.
“Progress that’s visible is progress that engages.” — Levenson & James, 2026
This does not require elaborate systems. Quick exit tickets, short weekly quizzes, or having students graph their own growth can all do the job. The key is that students can see their own ascent, step by step.
In my previous post I shared the story of a student I called Aylin — bright and full of energy at the start of the year, who began to withdraw as her grades dipped. What Aylin needed was not just to feel she belonged. She needed proof that she was moving. Visible progress monitoring gives students like Aylin that proof. It transforms the story from “I am falling behind” to “I am coming back.”
5. A Plan for Student Engagement
Engagement is not a luxury in intervention. It is a prerequisite. Without it, even the best-designed instruction falls flat. Levenson and James identify several strategies that the most effective intervention classrooms consistently use:
- Make the content relevant. It is hard to convince a teenager to solve for x if they cannot see why it matters. Teachers who connect math to real decisions — comparing cell phone plans, projecting trade salaries — make the subject matter to students. When students can see how a yet-to-be-mastered skill serves their own goals, they are more willing to do the work.
- Celebrate success. We do not often celebrate struggling learners for academics. Intervention is the perfect place to change that. Whether it is showcasing student work, texting parents with good news, handing out skill badges, or quietly telling a student, “I see your progress” — those small recognitions fuel motivation. The message is always the same: you are moving forward, and that is worth celebrating.
- Know kids as people, not just students. This one surprised even the researchers. Students do not always interpret a teacher knowing their academic strengths as caring. What makes them feel cared for is when teachers know their hobbies, their friends, their dreams for after graduation. Taking just 5 to 10 minutes a week to ask about a student’s basketball team or favorite music builds trust. And as Levenson and James write, trust is fuel.
- Make intervention an actual course. In middle and high school, students take their cues from the schedule. If intervention is optional, ungraded, or treated like a study hall, students will not take it seriously. When it has a name, a code, and even a pass/fail credit, its status rises — and students respond accordingly.
Notice how these strategies echo what we know about belonging. Relevance. Celebration. Knowing the whole person. When students feel seen, supported, and successful, intervention stops being a reminder of what they cannot do and becomes proof of what they can.
A Note on Technology
Many of our intervention tools are technology-based — and technology absolutely has a role to play. It can personalize learning, track progress, and provide immediate feedback.
But Levenson and James are clear on this point: software can support intervention, but it cannot replace the human connection that truly motivates students to persevere. Technology cannot care about kids. It cannot celebrate their progress, know their dreams, or build relationships.
That is our job. And no app will ever do it better than we can.
Bringing It Together: Belonging + Breakthrough
Belonging and effective intervention are not separate ideas. They are two chapters in the same story.
Belonging gets a student through the door. It convinces them to try — to raise their hand, to come to the tutoring session, to stay in the game even when it is hard. But once they are there, the quality of the help they receive either confirms or destroys that belief.
High-impact intervention — direct, targeted, focused, visible, and engaging — does something remarkable. It does not just close academic gaps. It builds a student’s belief that they are the kind of person who can close gaps. It transforms their identity.
That is the goal. Not just catching up — but becoming someone who knows, in their bones, that they belong here, they can do this, and the evidence is right there in front of them.
“When kids are engaged — when they feel seen, supported, and successful — that’s when intervention stops being a reminder of what they can’t do and becomes proof of what they can.” — Levenson & James, 2026
What This Means for Our School
As teachers and administrators, here are some questions worth sitting with together:
- Is our intervention time truly teacher-led, with direct instruction in multiple ways — or are students mostly working independently?
- Do our intervention teachers know the specific skill gaps of each student they serve, connected to upcoming grade-level content?
- Are we going deep on one subject, or spreading students thin across many?
- Can our students see their own progress, skill by skill, week by week?
- Do our students know that their teachers see them as whole people — not just as students who are behind?
These are not easy questions. But they are the right ones. And the research is clear: when we get intervention right, it is not just academic support. It is one of the most powerful belonging experiences a school can offer.
Hattie, J. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge.
Levenson, N., & James, D. (2026, February). Supercharge intervention and motivate struggling learners. Educational Leadership.
Langreo, L. (2023, May 9). Most students don’t have strong connections to their teachers, survey finds. EdWeek.
Lewis, K., & Kuhfeld, M. (2024, July). Recovery still elusive: 2023-24 student achievement highlights persistent achievement gaps and a long road ahead. NWEA Research.
Stuart Jr., D. (2018). These 6 things: How to focus your teaching on what matters most. Corwin.