Response to Intervention
RTI is an organizational preventative framework to close the achievement gap and help identify students with learning difficulties or disabilities. Teachers and schools are able to identify students at risk for poor outcomes, monitor student progress, and provide evidence-based interventions.
RTI components involve:
Identification
In the RTI model, identification of students with a learning difficulty or disability is determined following a universal screening process at the first tier. In Indiana schools, this is usually determined through mClass and DIBELS data. Students who are in the yellow range on DIBELS reading skills are usually monitored more closely as they may have more difficulty later on in the year. There is much more concern about students in the red for DIBELS and they are usually placed in small-group or individual interventions to help them learn the skills they are lacking. In this way the RTI process is meant to help students catch up with the rest of their grade and so the achievement gap is not widened any further.
(National Center on Response to Intervention, 2009)
Best Practices for Identification
Shinn, 2002 discusses using curriculum-based assessment (CBA) strategies to see how students are able to grasp the content of the general education classroom. He defines CBAs as any form of assessment, including homework samples, end of unit or end of year tests, performance assessments, etc. that help inform the teacher of how the class is doing as a whole.
The National Center on Response to Intervention provides a chart for evaluating the main universal screeners used by schools and their effectiveness. The most common assessments used in Indiana schools are Acuity, which tests English/Language Arts and Mathematics. Since these are the most common tested areas, there is a greater interest in making sure students are on track in English and Math skills. Another common screener used for identification is the DIBELS assessment system, which is administered 3 times a year (Beginning, Middle, and End) which looks at mastery of reading skills, such as nonsense word fluency, letter naming fluency, oral reading fluency, phoneme segmentation fluency, and first sound fluency.
Reading Rockets also provides a list of target areas to use for universal screeners for reading:
These assessments are given to all students at the same time, and the scores are compared to see which students are farther behind than their classmates on certain concepts. Students below a particular cut-off are identified as having greater issues mastering the particular skills being assessed and are then placed in a small-group (Tier 2) intervention to help improve mastery of those concepts.
RTI is an organizational preventative framework to close the achievement gap and help identify students with learning difficulties or disabilities. Teachers and schools are able to identify students at risk for poor outcomes, monitor student progress, and provide evidence-based interventions.
RTI components involve:
- universal screening
- tiers of instruction
- progress monitoring
- decision-making rules
Identification
In the RTI model, identification of students with a learning difficulty or disability is determined following a universal screening process at the first tier. In Indiana schools, this is usually determined through mClass and DIBELS data. Students who are in the yellow range on DIBELS reading skills are usually monitored more closely as they may have more difficulty later on in the year. There is much more concern about students in the red for DIBELS and they are usually placed in small-group or individual interventions to help them learn the skills they are lacking. In this way the RTI process is meant to help students catch up with the rest of their grade and so the achievement gap is not widened any further.
Best Practices for Identification
Shinn, 2002 discusses using curriculum-based assessment (CBA) strategies to see how students are able to grasp the content of the general education classroom. He defines CBAs as any form of assessment, including homework samples, end of unit or end of year tests, performance assessments, etc. that help inform the teacher of how the class is doing as a whole.
The National Center on Response to Intervention provides a chart for evaluating the main universal screeners used by schools and their effectiveness. The most common assessments used in Indiana schools are Acuity, which tests English/Language Arts and Mathematics. Since these are the most common tested areas, there is a greater interest in making sure students are on track in English and Math skills. Another common screener used for identification is the DIBELS assessment system, which is administered 3 times a year (Beginning, Middle, and End) which looks at mastery of reading skills, such as nonsense word fluency, letter naming fluency, oral reading fluency, phoneme segmentation fluency, and first sound fluency.
Reading Rockets also provides a list of target areas to use for universal screeners for reading:
- letter naming fluency
- phoneme segmentation
- nonsense word fluency
- word identification
- oral reading fluency
These assessments are given to all students at the same time, and the scores are compared to see which students are farther behind than their classmates on certain concepts. Students below a particular cut-off are identified as having greater issues mastering the particular skills being assessed and are then placed in a small-group (Tier 2) intervention to help improve mastery of those concepts.
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