April 2009
Educators cite best practices for Response to Intervention
By Jennifer Leclaire

 In most instances, an experienced teacher easily can spot a student who is struggling to grasp at-grade-level concepts. The challenge lies in knowing how to support these students once they’re identified. Let’s face it: Time and resources are limited. Teachers can’t always justify spending a lot of time to help one student when there are more than a dozen others to instruct. Moreover, appropriate resources aren’t always available to accommodate the different learning styles of a diverse student body.

In 2004, the U.S. Congress recognized the Response to Intervention (RTI) model in its reauthorization of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) as one approach for school districts to use to identify students with learning disabilities. Developed in the 1970s, RTI is a multi-tier model that allows for early and intensive intervention in a general education setting before referring a struggling student to special education. Experts say RTI can be used instead of, or in conjunction with, the “discrepancy model” method, which uses severe discrepancies between a child’s IQ and his or her educational achievement to identify learning disabilities.

In other words, RTI is not merely a new system for referring students to special education programs. RTI is a system for helping students “connect with the curriculum” in a general education environment.

“RTI is about ensuring the fidelity of the core instructional strategies and techniques we use,” says Andrea Ogonosky, Ph.D., LSSP, NCSP and author of The Response to Intervention Handbook. “Many children struggle learning to read not because they have a learning disability, but just because they learn differently or slower. In the past, they were placed in special education even though they may not truly have a learning disorder. RTI changes the way we look at educating struggling students.”

Ogonosky says many school districts have struggled with implementing RTI, and oftentimes it is because they fail to establish a unified front prior to moving forward. Willis ISD avoided plenty of mistakes by following Ogonosky’s advice.

Carolyn Baird, the district’s executive director of special education programs, says getting buy-in from both supervisors and teachers is a vital first step.

Baird and Sherry Smith, Willis ISD director of elementary services, spent a year identifying key faculty on each campus and sending them to RTI training before implementing the program. Despite the groundwork, the first year of implementation was still a challenge, though Baird says it was one worth taking.

“The old mindset considered how to get the students tested for special ed. RTI is a philosophical change that asks what training and education it will take to make a child successful so they don’t have to be tested for special ed,” Baird says. “It’s a mindset that says we don’t have to label kids with a learning disability to help them succeed — and we’re seeing students succeeding with RTI.”

Deanna Martin, director of Conroe ISD’s Curriculum and Instruction Department, planned her RTI implementation for two years. The district formed a committee of superintendents, principals, teachers and others with a voice in the process. Last year, Conroe ISD ran pilot RTI programs on two campuses to test the waters. Martin reports “great success” so far.

“Some districts have attempted to implement RTI without planning or first developing best practices for general education,” Martin says. “The primary goal is for students to succeed in general education without an intervention, so failing to take the time to develop the decision-making processes, flow charts, forms and interventions is a mistake.”

Rethinking the reaction
Ogonosky says another key to successful RTI implementation is taking the emotion out of the process and allowing the data  to guide your discussions about each student’s performance. Through RTI methods, student performance is measured regularly so that teachers can see whether their delivery of instruction is effective. Through consistent data collection, teachers can track student performance and progress.    

“Some of our biggest proponents are those who initially resisted the concept,” Smith admits. “They can see the proof in the pudding. The principals can see the professional development needs of the teachers, and the teachers can see the instructional needs of the students.”

That may seem counterintuitive to teachers who feel they know their students and what they need, but the data doesn’t lie.

“It’s emotionally exhausting to get anxious about a child’s performance and start pulling them out for special education so they don’t fail,” Ogonosky says. “But successful RTI implementation means following the data and initiating changes necessary to help the child succeed. That may mean bringing in another teacher to assist, or sending the child’s primary teacher for more training or changing the curriculum altogether.”

Baird and Smith say continuous professional development among staff members is critical to a successful RTI program, because there’s turnover every year. They also cite ongoing student evaluations, funding for special instructional materials, and open communication among faculty as vital.

“To make RTI work, you need a strong collaboration between general education and special education,” Baird says. “You have to break down the barriers, because it’s about putting your focus and resources on what the child needs.”

Ogonosky further suggests taking inventory of your district’s existing resources before outlining an RTI implementation strategy. In other words, ask your department: Given what’s available in staffing and resources, what’s possible for us right now?
But at the same time, don’t make excuses. Do the very best with what you have. As Smith sees it, educators often are trapped by the mindset that they need additional staff to implement RTI — but “more hands on deck” isn’t always the answer.

Getting rid of the box
“Sometimes it’s just a matter of using the resources you have in a different way,” Smith says. “That’s something that we still address on a daily basis with many of our administrators, teachers and staff. You frequently hear the phrase, ‘Think outside box.’ But in this case, Andrea has always said to us, ‘Take the box down. There is no box.’”

Having followed many of these best practices, Martin reports tremendous progress on two fronts: Fewer children are requiring intervention, thanks to strong general education best practices. And most of the students who do require intervention are getting the support they need to succeed much sooner.

“I’ve heard principals say, ‘I absolutely love RTI, but I can’t say it was love at first sight,’” Martin says. “RTI is certainly a paradigm shift, but it’s well worth it.

JENNIFER LECLAIRE is a freelance writer based in Florida. She covers education, business, technology and creative industries.

What the law says about RTI… and what that means to you

Response to Intervention (RTI) arises from a congressional initiative that seeks to address the needs of underperforming students in a general education setting instead of automatically referring them to special education programs.

“In our special education law, there are a number of different categories of disability that apply, but students with learning disabilities comprise about 50 percent of the total population,” says Jim Walsh, an attorney with Walsh Anderson Brown Aldridge & Gallegos PC and editor in chief of Texas School Business. “The Texas Education Agency changed eligibility criteria for students with a learning disability in response to RTI in order to transition from the old methods that simply involve comparing an IQ score with an achievement score.”

RTI might be a term that is frequently associated with special education, but the onus is on general education teachers to help students learn the curriculum so that entering into a special education program isn’t necessary. RTI mandates a comprehensive and sophisticated analysis, which includes tiers of intervention that become increasingly focused and intense.

Within Tier 1, all students receive high-quality, scientifically based instruction provided by qualified personnel who strive to ensure that student-learning difficulties are due to a learning disability, not inadequate instruction. Tier 2 students receive increasingly intensive instruction matched to their needs on the basis of levels of performance and rates of progress. Tier 3 students receive individualized intensive interventions that target the students’ skill deficits. Students who continue not to respond at this tier are considered for special education.

“There’s still room for each school district to make its own decisions,” Walsh says. “But the state offers guidance as to what each tier should look like. The point is to allocate school resources most effectively to improve the student’s ability to learn."