Transcript Document

What is ‘Response to Intervention’
(RTI)?
2 major fields:
1.Alternative to discrepancy analysis in
identification of learning disability
2.A schoolwide multi-tier prevention system
There are numerous RTI models – not a program
but a framework for identification and
intervention
“Response to Intervention integrates assessment and
intervention within a multi-level prevention system
to maximize student achievement and to reduce
behavioural problems.
With RTI, schools use data to identify students at risk
for poor learning outcomes, monitor student
progress, provide evidence-based interventions and
adjust the intensity and nature of those interventions
depending on a student’s responsiveness, and
identify students with learning disabilities or other
disabilities” (National Center on Response to Intervention,
2010).
Assumptions
All students can learn – neither biology nor SES
precludes success in learning
Learning is strongly influenced by the quality of
instruction – especially for at-risk students
There is a predictable relationship between
instructional quality and learning outcomes
Both general classroom programs and specific
interventions are evidence-based to provide greater
instructional quality
Assumptions
Assuming the curriculum content is evidencebased - other causal variables include intensity:
academic engaged time, lesson frequency,
program duration, group size, engagement,
lesson pacing, mastery criteria, number of
response opportunities, correction procedures,
goal specificity, instructor skill.
Useful for both beginning and remedial
instruction
 All beginning students are screened for the preskills that evidence highlights are necessary for
success
 All students are provided with researchvalidated instruction from the beginning
 A student with slow progress is given one or more
additional research-validated interventions
 Academic progress is monitored frequently to detect
change using CBM measures
 If no worthwhile change is occurring, fidelity to the
program is checked
 If fidelity is evident, then alter presentation aspects frequency, duration, group size, or use a specialist
instructor
3 Tiers of intervention
3 Tier approach (applicable to
academics and behaviour)

Tier I: Universal intervention:
Available to all students, e.g., additional
classroom literacy instruction if needed

Tier II: Individualized plan:
Students who need further additional support provide individual intervention plans (maybe
10%). Example: Supplemental peer tutoring in
reading to increase reading fluency
Tier III: Intensive Intervention:
Students whose intervention needs are greater
than these general education services can meet
may be referred for more intensive intervention
(maybe 5%)
Example: referral to special education services,
educational psychology, speech pathology. Small
group or individual intense instruction.
Group size
“Although there is no agreed on number of how
many students makes a “small group,” group size
can vary significantly from 1-to-1 to as many as 1to-10. … There is compelling research indicating
that instruction provided to groups of 3 to 5
students is as effective as 1-to-1 instruction, even
for the most at-risk students” (Wanzek & Vaughn,
2008).
What are advantages of RTI?
 It allows schools to intervene early to meet the
needs of struggling learners, and prevent Matthew
Effects.
 RTI procedures document what specific
instructional strategies are found to benefit a
particular student.
 High accountability
How to estimate an academic skill gap

Local Norms: A sample of students at a school is
screened in an academic skill to create grade
norms

Research Norms: Norms for ‘typical’ growth are
derived from a research sample, published, and
applied by schools to their own student
populations e.g., standardised tests or state norms

Criterion-Referenced Benchmarks: A minimum
level of competence is determined for a skill.
Example of a criterion-referenced
benchmark:
DIBELS [Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early
Literacy Skills].
3rd-grade students are at ‘low risk’ for reading
problems if they reach these reading-fluency
goals:
– Start of School Year: 77 Words Correctly
Read Per Min
– Middle of School Year: 92 WC/M
– End of School Year: 110 WC/M
Example of a criterion-referenced
benchmark
The single strongest predictor of a prep child’s end-ofyear spelling ability is a 1-minute letter-sound fluency
test at the year’s beginning (Al Otaiba et al., 2010)
Example: Initial Sound Fluency (DIBELS)
Student shown sets of 4 pictures for a total of 1 minute.
“This is: tomato, cub, plate, doughnut” (point to each picture).
Which picture begins with /d/?
ISF < 4
4 < ISF < 8
ISF > 8
At risk
Some risk
Low risk
Determine reason for low performance:
Skill Deficit: Student lacks the necessary skills to
perform the academic task.
Fragile Skills: Student possesses the necessary skills
but is not yet fluent and automatic in those skills.
Motivation Deficit: The student has the necessary
skills but lacks the motivation to complete the
academic task.
Select an evidence-based intervention
to improve academic functioning:
Any intervention chosen for the student is backed
by scientific research (e.g., empirical research
articles in peer-reviewed professional journals)
demonstrating that the intervention is effective in
addressing similar students’ underlying reason(s)
for academic failure.
Example, research on struggling ESL
students
The beginning reading programs with the
strongest evidence of effectiveness in this review
made use of systematic phonics, such as Success
for All, Direct Instruction, and Jolly Phonics
(Slavin & Cheung, 2003).
Monitor struggling students’ academic
progress frequently to evaluate the
impact of the intervention:
Interventions monitored frequently (e.g., weekly)
using valid and reliable measures sensitive to
short-term gains in student performance.
Tests also need to be brief given time constraints
Measures for classroom academic and general
behaviours
Measures for Basic Academic Skills:
CBM probes - short, timed assessments to measure
phonemic awareness, oral reading fluency, maths
computation, writing, and spelling skills
Daily Behaviour Report Cards:
Customized teacher rating forms allow the teacher to
evaluate the student’s behaviours each day
Direct Observation:
An external observer visits the classroom to observe the
student’s rates of on-task and academically engaged
behaviours.
Only if failure to respond to several wellimplemented intervention levels - consider
a full assessment.

The interventions were carried out as
designed (treatment/intervention integrity)

Progress-monitoring data shows that the
student failed to meet the goal set for his or
her improvement
In the RTI model what is different?
 A structured format for problem-solving.
 Knowledge of a range of scientifically based
interventions that address common reasons for
school failure.
 The ability to use various methods of assessment to
monitor student progress in academic and
behavioural areas.
Implementing RTI: Next Steps
Train staff to collect frequent progress-monitoring
data. Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) can be used
to assess a student’s accuracy and speed in basic-skill areas
such as reading fluency, math computation, writing,
spelling, and pre-literacy skills.
Teachers can measure the behaviour of struggling learners
on a daily basis by using classroom daily behaviour report
cards: simple rating forms to track work completion,
attention to task, compliance with teacher directions, and
other behaviours that influence learning.
The issue of teacher training to properly
implement interventions in Australia.
 Teacher training does not generally equip
teachers in either the evidence base for the initial
teaching of reading or with the tools to intervene
effectively with students who struggle with
literacy in particular (Fielding-Barnsley, 2010;
Mellard, 2009; Productivity Commission, 2012).
What type of training is needed within
schools?
(Mellard, 2009).
The misunderstood role of fluency
There is a misunderstanding about what it means
to be “good at” something, and how we measure
it.
We tend to make an
assumption that
mastery = 100% correct.
Carl Binder on fluency
Fluency = Accuracy + Speed
= Doing the right thing without hesitation
= Automatic or “second nature” response
= True Mastery
Fluency levels
1.
2.
3.
4.
Incompetence (no measurable performance)
Beginner's level (inaccurate and slow)
100% accuracy (traditional "mastery")
Fluency (true mastery = accuracy + speed)
Practice & curriculum design make the difference
Children who struggle even with strong interventions
usually display fluency problems from the start
(Harn, Jamgochian, & Parisi, 2009).
Other fluency measures (DIBELS)
Initial Sound Fluency - Begin Preschool to late Prep
Letter Naming Fluency - Begin Preschool to mid Prep
Phoneme Segmentation Fluency - Mid prep to end of
1st Year
Nonsense Word Fluency - Mid prep to end of 1st Year
Oral Reading Fluency - Mid 1st Year to end of 6th
Phonemic Awareness Fluency
 Blend sounds to form words (hear/say) 12 – 10 / min
 Segment words into sounds moving colored blocks
to mark sounds (hear-do/say) 50-40 sounds /min
 Make new words by substituting one phoneme for
another (hear/say) 20 – 15 / min
Phonics Fluency
 Read consonants and vowel sounds (see/say) 120 –
80 /min
 Read nonsense words (see/say) 120 – 100 / min
 Read real words (see/say) 130 – 100 / min
Basic Arithmetic
 Count by 1’s, 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s (free/say) 120 – 100
/min
 Read numbers (see/say) 150 – 120 / min
 Write numbers 0-9 repeatedly (free/write) 120 – 100
/ min
 Say or write answers to basic +, -, x, and / facts
(see/write, see/say) 100-70 /min
Other free CBM measures
 AIMSweb http://www.aimsweb.com/
Benchmarking and progress monitoring assessments for
Reading, Language and Maths, Grades P-8
 Easycbm http://www.easycbm.com/
Benchmarking and progress monitoring assessments for
Reading and Maths, Grades P-8
See http://www.interventioncentral.org/cbm_warehouse#2
AIMSweb Year 3 oral reading passage
Setting a 2.5 crwm/week fluency target
- from 30 to 55 crwm in 10 weeks
Outcomes associated with fluency:
Improvement in:
 Retention and maintenance of skill
 Endurance, attention span, resistance to
distraction
 Application of knowledge and skill to more
complex tasks e.g., fluency with number
tables improves maths problem solving
 Decoding fluency enhances comprehension
Reading fluency and comprehension
 You don’t need to use your conscious mind to read it
 This frees up resources for comprehension
 Very high (0 .91) correlations between oral reading
rate and reading comprehension (Fuchs et al., 2001)
 Oral reading fluency is easy to test.
Students in 3rd grade at or above 110 wcpm are at low
risk of reading below grade level (9%) on the state
reading comprehension test (FCAT, like NAPLAN)
Students scoring below 80 wcpm are at high risk
Fluency (wcpm)
Reading fluency and the brain
Poor readers’ brain activity before
phonologically based instruction
Left Hemisphere
Right Hemisphere
Poor readers’ brain activity after 80
hrs phonologically based instruction
Left Hemisphere
Right Hemisphere
What about dyslexia?
“ … we are not suggesting that children diagnosed
as having dyslexia cannot make progress in
learning to read. Rather, our claim is that these
children require more intensive instruction of
longer duration of the kind provided in the third
tier of RTI models” (Tunmer & Greaney, 2010).
How do I find evidence-based programs?
NECTAC: National Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center
[http://www.nectac.org/topics/evbased/evbased.asp]
The American Institutes for Research: http://www.air.org/files/csrq.pdf
Florida Center for Reading Research:
http://www.fcrr.org/interventions/Interventions.shtm
Oregon Reading First Center: http://reading.uoregon.edu
Council for Exceptional Children:
http://www.cec.sped.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Publications1
Center for Data-Driven Reform in Education:
http://www.bestevidence.org
Education Consumers Foundation: http://www.education-consumers.org
What Works Clearinghouse http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/
Free Curriculum-Based Measurement resources at CBM Warehouse
http://www.interventioncentral.org/cbm_warehouse
References
Al Otaiba, S., Puranik, C.S., Rouby, D.A., Greulich, L., Sidler, J.F., Lee, J. (2010). Predicting
kindergarteners' end-of-year spelling ability based on their reading, alphabetic, vocabulary, and
phonological awareness skills as well as prior literacy experiences. Learning Disability
Quarterly, 33(3), 171-183.
Binder, C., Haughton, E., & Bateman, B. (2002). Fluency: Achieving true mastery in the learning
process. www.fluency.org/Binder_Haughton_Bateman.pdf
Fielding-Barnsley, R. (2010): Australian pre-service teachers' knowledge of phonemic awareness and phonics in
the process of learning to read. Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties, 15(1), 99-110.
Harn, B.A. Jamgochian, E., & Parisi, D.M. (2009). Characteristics of students who don’t respond to
research-based interventions. Council for Exceptional Children.
http://www.cec.sped.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=CEC_Today1&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=10645
Mellard, D., McKnight, M., & Jordan, J. (2010). RTI tier structures and instructional intensity.
Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 25(4), 217–225.
Mellard, D. (2009, June). Response to intervention: Reforms to meet the needs of all students.
Presented at the Supporting Student Learning Conference, Indianapolis, IN.
National Center on Response to Intervention (March 2010). Essential Components of RTI – A close
look at Response to Intervention. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of
Special Education Programs, National Center on Response to Intervention.
http://www.rti4success.org/pdf/rtiessentialcomponents_042710.pdf
Sadler, C., & Sugai, G. (2009). Effective behavior and instructional support: A district model for
early identification and prevention of reading and behavior problems. Journal of Positive
Behavior Interventions, 11, 35-46.
Slavin, R.E., & Cheung, A. (2003). Effective reading programs for English language learners: A
best-evidence synthesis. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University, Center for Research on the
Education of Students Placed at Risk. Retrieved 5/2/2004 from
ww.csos.jhu.edu/crespar/techReports/Report66.pdf
Tunmer, W., & Greaney, K. (2010). Defining dyslexia. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 43(3) 229–
243.
Other Resources
National Center on Response to Intervention
[http://www.rti4success.org/]
National Association of State Directors of Special Education
[http://www.nasdse.org/]
International Reading Association
[http://www.reading.org/resources/issues/focus_rti_library.html]
RTI Action Network [http://www.rtinetwork.org/]
National Center for Learning Disabilities
A Parent Guide to RTI [http://www.ncld.org/publications-amore/parent-advocacy-guides/a-parent-guide-to-rti]
Research Roundup [http://www.ncld.org/ld-basics/research-roundup]
Wrightslaw [http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/rti.index.htm]
Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports
[http://www.pbis.org/default.aspx]
Acknowledgement
This presentation has borrowed shamelessly
from the work of Carl Binder and Jim Wright.