RTI

Response To Intervention 

The RTI process is designed to ensure students have access to high quality education and instruction before conducting any assessments or standardized testing to evaluate for disabilities. RTI is based on a tiered structure of services and instruction. The concept is that standard, high quality instruction will be effective for about 80% of students, approximately 15% of students will need more specialized education and small group instruction, and about 5% of students will require even more specialized, focused instruction in order to be successful.

 A group called the Intervention Assistance Team (IAT) works with teachers and parents to meet the needs of students. This team typically includes administrators or a building appointed IAT team leader, the school psychologist and/or school counselor and teachers. If a teacher has concerns about a particular student, the teacher brings that student to the IAT along with data tracking the student's current level of performance in the area(s) of concern. The team can look at the data, determine a plan for intervention and decide what kind of data and/or how much more data should be collected. The teacher is responsible for implementing the interventions and then the team meets again to assess if the student is making progress.

From the RTI Action Network's website:
"Response to Intervention (RTI) is a multi-tier approach to the early identification and support of students with learning and behavior needs. The RTI process begins with high-quality instruction and universal screening of all children in the general education classroom. Struggling learners are provided with interventions at increasing levels of intensity to accelerate their rate of learning. These services may be provided by a variety of personnel, including general education teachers, special educators, and specialists. Progress is closely monitored to assess both the learning rate and level of performance of individual students. Educational decisions about the intensity and duration of interventions are based on individual student response to instruction. RTI is designed for use when making decisions in both general education and special education, creating a well-integrated system of instruction and intervention guided by child outcome data."

The RTI Action Network's website is a great resource that contains information about RTI, behavioral supports, what RTI may look like in kindergarten and in the secondary grades, information for parents and many other helpful links.

RTI Tiers of service (as generally outlined)

The internet contains a vast array of potential resources for parents and educators. If you are an educator looking for a new way to provide instruction or a parent in search of some tricks to try at home, these are two great websites to spend some time exploring.

Intervention Central

This site is a great resource for ideas for interventions and is searchable based on grade level and/or skill to be addressed. There is a separate area focused on behavior interventions that contains behavior plan outlines as well as helpful materials for implementation. The interventions sourced through this page are all researched based and most provide a list of referenced research articles, if more information is desired.

Some interventions available on Intervention Central:

Interventions for classroom management

• Critters! Rewarding Positive Behaviors - this intervention uses defined classroom behavioral expectations, "Critter Slips" for positive reinforcement, and classroom privileges that may be earned with accumulated "Critter Slips"

• The Good Behavior Game - this class-wide intervention rewards students for displaying appropriate behaviors during instruction. Teams are formed and rewards are earned by the team with the lowest number of "disruptive points". A reward can also be earned by any team that keeps its total "disruptive points" below a predetermined number

• The Color Wheel- flexibility and classroom rules

Interventions to increase motivation

• High Probability Requests
• Activities Classroom

Interventions for challenging behavior

• Mystery Motivator- this strategy can be used with an entire class for for a specific student. A reward menu is created, specific behaviors are defined and explained, and a chart is created that has special "secret spaces" filled in with an 'M' for a reward. As students demonstrate the target behaviors, spaces on the chart are colored in-if an 'M' is revealed, the student earns a reward

• Talk Ticket- this can be used in instances when students are upset about an incident that occurred withing or outside of school and want an opportunity to discuss what happened. The "talk ticket" assures the student that they will be given a change to talk with the teacher and allows the teacher to find an appropriate time during the day to set several minutes aside to meet with the student. 

• Information about Behavior Contracts

What Works Clearinghouse

This site is similar to Intervention Central in that it provides information about interventions organized by grade level and area of concern. This site also goes a step further; the team at What Works Clearinghouse investigates the quality of the research behind interventions and determines if the research, the results, and resulting suggestions for education are valid. This site also provides information about the effectiveness of each intervention.

Current research undergoes Systematic reviews using explicit methods to identify, select, and critically appraise relevant research. Information from relevant studies is then extracted and analyzed. If it meets the rigorous standard, that study is summarized and provided to educators in order to help them make evidence-based decisions.