Response to Intervention: An Overview for WRSD Schools

1. Response to Intervention: An Overview for WRSD Schools

2. Recommendations from WRSD Elementary Principals About Important Ideas to Include in Building RTI Introduction • RTI’s goal is to improve student learning • RTI will provide support to teachers, through a collegial, team-based process and by giving them successful strategies to use with struggling students • RTI validates teachers’ ‘good teaching’ methods while providing more ideas • RTI encourages collaboration/communication across teachers, other staff • RTI results in a consistent problem-solving approach for struggling kids across classroom, grade levels, and schools • RTI means making additional good teaching strategies available to instructors • RTI means providing more resources to teachers to support classroom interventions

3. Discussion: Read the quote below: “The quality of a school as a learning community can be measured by how effectively it addresses the needs of struggling students.”--Wright (2005) Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why? Source: Wright, J. (2005, Summer). Five interventions that work. NAESP Leadership Compass, 2(4) pp.1,6.

4. Essential Elements of RTI (Fairbanks, Sugai, Guardino, & Lathrop, 2007) • A “continuum of evidence-based services available to all students" that range from universal to highly individualized & intensive • “Decision points to determine if students are performing significantly below the level of their peers in academic and social behavior domains" • “Ongoing monitoring of student progress" • “Employment of more intensive or different interventions when students do not improve in response" to lesser interventions • “Evaluation for special education services if students do not respond to intervention instruction" Source: Fairbanks, S., Sugai, G., Guardino, S., & Lathrop, M. (2007). Response to intervention: Examining classroom behavior support in second grade. Exceptional Children, 73, p. 289.

5. What does RTI look like when applied to an individual student? A widely accepted method for determining whether a student has a Learning Disability under RTI is the ‘dual discrepancy model’ (Fuchs, 2003). • Discrepancy 1: The student is found to be performing academically at a level significantly below that of his or her typical peers (discrepancy in initial skills or performance). • Discrepancy 2: Despite the implementation of one or more well-designed, well-implemented interventions tailored specifically for the student, he or she fails to ‘close the gap’ with classmates (discrepancy in rate of learning relative to peers).

6. Avg Classroom Academic Performance Level Discrepancy 1: Skill Gap (Current Performance Level) Discrepancy 2: Gap in Rate of Learning (‘Slope of Improvement’) Target Student ‘Dual-Discrepancy’: RTI Model of Learning Disability(Fuchs 2003)

7. The steps of RTI for an individual case… Under RTI, if a student is found to be performing well below peers, the school will: • Estimate the academic skill gap between the student and typically-performing peers • Determine the likely reason(s) for the student’s depressed academic performance • Select a scientifically-based intervention likely to improve the student's academic functioning • Monitor academic progress frequently to evaluate the impact of the intervention • If the student fails to respond to several well-implemented interventions, consider a referral to Special Education

8. How can a school restructure to support RTI? The school can organize its intervention efforts into 3 levels, or Tiers, that represent a continuum of increasing intensity of support. (Kovaleski, 2003; Vaughn, 2003). Tier I is the lowest level of intervention and Tier III is the most intensive intervention level. Universal intervention: Available to all students Example: Additional classroom literacy instruction Tier I Individualized Intervention: Students who need additional support than peers are given individual intervention plans. Example: Supplemental peer tutoring in reading to increase reading fluency Tier II Intensive Intervention: Students whose intervention needs are greater than general education can meet may be referred for more intensive services. Example: Special Education Tier III

9. Tier I Interventions Tier I interventions are universal—available to all students. Teachers often deliver these interventions in the classroom (e.g., providing additional drill and practice in reading fluency for students with limited decoding skills). Tier I interventions are those strategies that instructors are likely to put into place at the first sign that a student is struggling. Tier I interventions attempt to answer the question: Are routine classroom instructional modifications sufficient to help the student to achieve academic success?

10. 1. What are the likely reason(s) for the student’s academic skill or performance deficit(s)? 7.How can we assess the quality of the intervention ‘follow-through’? 6.What are ways we can motivate students so that they will be motivated to engage in the intervention plan? 2.What research-based interventions best match the student’s needs? 3.Where can we find the resources necessary to implement the intervention plan? 4.How can the intervention best be ‘packaged’ to increase the likelihood that it will be done right? 5.How can we support teachers as they implement the plan in the classroom? Key Questions About Implementing Classroom Interventions

11. Tier II Interventions Tier II interventions are individualized, tailored to the unique needs of struggling learners. They are reserved for students with significant skill gaps who have failed to respond successfully to Tier I strategies. Tier II interventions attempt to answer the question: Can an individualized intervention plan carried out in a general-education setting bring the student up to the academic level of his or her peers?

12. Tier II Interventions There are two different vehicles that schools can use to deliver Tier II interventions: Problem-solving (Classroom-Based Intervention). Individualized research-based interventions match the profile of a particular student’s strengths and limitations. The classroom teacher often has a large role in carrying out these interventions. A plus of the problem-solving approach is that the intervention can be customized to the student’s needs. However, developing intervention plans for individual students can be time-consuming.Standard-Protocol (Standalone Intervention). Group intervention programs based on scientifically valid instructional practices (‘standard protocol’) are created to address frequent student referral concerns. These services are provided outside of the classroom. A middle school, for example, may set up a structured math-tutoring program staffed by adult volunteer tutors to provide assistance to students with limited math skills. Students referred for a Tier II math intervention would be placed in this tutoring program. An advantage of the standard-protocol approach is that it is efficient and consistent: large numbers of students can be put into these group interventions to receive a highly standardized intervention. However, standard group intervention protocols often cannot be individualized easily to accommodate a specific student’s unique needs.

13. Tier III Interventions Tier III interventions are the most intensive academic supports available in a school and are generally reserved for students with chronic and severe academic delays or behavioral problems. In many schools, Tier III interventions are available only through special education. Tier III supports try to answer the question, What ongoing supports does this student require and in what settings to achieve the greatest success possible?

14. Levels of Intervention: Tier I, II, & III Tier I: Universal100% Tier II: Individualized10-15% Tier III: Intensive5-10%

15. Secondary Students: Unique Challenges… Struggling learners in middle and high school may: • Have significant deficits in basic academic skills • Lack higher-level problem-solving strategies and concepts • Present with issues of school motivation • Show social/emotional concerns that interfere with academics • Have difficulty with attendance *Students at the secondary level are also moving toward being ‘self-managing’ learners…

16. Implementing Response to Intervention in Schools: Key Challenges to Changing a SystemJim Wrightwww.interventioncentral.org

17. Making RTI Work in Your Schools: Key Expectations

18. Making RTI Work in Your Schools: Key Expectations • Teachers try a larger number of research-based classroom strategies before referring a student to the school’s RTI Team. • Schools are able to find time and personnel coverage to schedule RTI Team meetings. • The job descriptions of key people in a school change to match the needs of RTI (e.g., school psychologist, special education teacher). • The school recognizes that RTI is an ‘umbrella’ problem=solving approach that helps the district to address a range of important school issues such as low state test scores, deficient academic skills, absenteeism, and drop-outs.

19. Making RTI Work in Your Schools: Key Expectations (Cont.) • Administrators show strong support for RTI, using their influence to encourage teacher follow-through with classroom interventions, helping to rework job descriptions to match RTI’s needs, etc. • RTI is accepted by the school community as a mainstream initiative, with the majority of representatives on the RTI Steering Group drawn from general education (e.g., Curriculum Director). • RTI is given the resources that it needs to grow, including funds for staff development and for the purchase of assessment services or products and intervention materials. • The district has a multi-year plan to implement RTI that builds the model at an ambitious but sustainable rate.

20. Role of ‘School Culture’ in the Acceptability of Interventions “…school staffs are interested in strategies that fit a group instructional and management template; intensive strategies required by at-risk and poorly motivated students are often viewed as cost ineffective. Treatments and interventions that do not address the primary mission of schooling are seen as a poor match to school priorities and are likely to be rejected. Thus, intervention and management approaches that are universal in nature and that involve a standard dosage that is easy to deliver (e.g., classwide social skills training) have a higher likelihood of making it into routine or standard school practice.” Source: Walker, H. M. (2004). Use of evidence-based interventions in schools: Where we've been, where we are, and where we need to go. School Psychology Review, 33, 398-407. pp. 400-401

21. Barriers in Schools to Innovations in Interventions “Factors that have been identified as barriers to … acceptance and implementation by educators [of effective behavioral interventions for at at-risk students] include characteristics of the host organization, practitioner behavior, costs, lack of program readiness, the absence of program champions and advocates within the host organization, philosophical objections, lack of fit between the program's key features and organizational routines and operations, and weak staff participation.” Source: Walker, H. M. (2004). Use of evidence-based interventions in schools: Where we've been, where we are, and where we need to go. School Psychology Review, 33, 398-407. p. 400

22. Measuring the ‘Intervention Footprint’: Issues of Planning, Documentation, & Follow-ThroughJim Wrightwww.interventioncentral.org

23. Essential Elements of Any Academic or Behavioral Intervention (‘Treatment’) Strategy: • Method of delivery (‘Who or what delivers the treatment?’)Examples include teachers, paraprofessionals, parents, volunteers, computers. • Treatment component (‘What makes the intervention effective?’)Examples include activation of prior knowledge to help the student to make meaningful connections between ‘known’ and new material; guide practice (e.g., Paired Reading) to increase reading fluency; periodic review of material to aid student retention. As an example of a research-based commercial program, Read Naturally ‘combines teacher modeling, repeated reading and progress monitoring to remediate fluency problems’.

24. Interventions, Accommodations & Modifications: Sorting Them Out • Interventions. An academic intervention is a strategy used to teach a new skill, build fluency in a skill, or encourage a child to apply an existing skill to new situations or settings. An intervention is said to be research-based when it has been demonstrated to be effective in one or more articles published in peer–reviewed scientific journals. Interventions might be based on commercial programs such as Read Naturally. The school may also develop and implement an intervention that is based on guidelines provided in research articles—such as Paired Reading (Topping, 1987).

25. Interventions, Accommodations & Modifications: Sorting Them Out • Accommodations. An accommodation is intended to help the student to fully access the general-education curriculum without changing the instructional content. An accommodation for students who are slow readers, for example, may include having them supplement their silent reading of a novel by listening to the book on tape. An accommodation is intended to remove barriers to learning while still expecting that students will master the same instructional content as their typical peers. Informal accommodations may be used at the classroom level or be incorporated into a more intensive, individualized intervention plan.

26. Interventions, Accommodations & Modifications: Sorting Them Out • Modifications. A modification changes the expectations of what a student is expected to know or do—typically by lowering the academic expectations against which the student is to be evaluated. Examples of modifications are reducing the number of multiple-choice items in a test from five to four or shortening a spelling list. Under RTI, modifications are generally not included in a student’s intervention plan, because the working assumption is that the student can be successful in the curriculum with appropriate interventions and accommodations alone.

27. Evaluating the Quality of Intervention Research: The ‘Research Continuum’

28. Intervention ‘Research Continuum’ Evidence-Based Practices “Includes practices for which original data have been collected to determine the effectiveness of the practice for students with disabilities. The research utilizes scientifically based rigorous research designs (i.e., randomized controlled trials, regression discontinuity designs, quasi-experiments, single subject, and qualitative research).” Source: The Access Center Research Continuum (n.d.). Retrieved on June 1, 2008 from http://www.k8accesscenter.org/training_resources/documents/ACResearchApproachFormatted.pdf

29. Intervention ‘Research Continuum’ Promising Practices “Includes practices that were developed based on theory or research, but for which an insufficient amount of original data have been collected to determine the effectiveness of the practices. Practices in this category may have been studied, but not using the most rigorous study designs.” Source: The Access Center Research Continuum (n.d.). Retrieved on June 1, 2008 from http://www.k8accesscenter.org/training_resources/documents/ACResearchApproachFormatted.pdf

30. Intervention ‘Research Continuum’ Emerging Practices “Includes practices that are not based on research or theory and on which original data have not been collected, but for which anecdotal evidence and professional wisdom exists. These include practices that practitioners have tried and feel are effective and new practices or programs that have not yet been researched.” Source: The Access Center Research Continuum (n.d.). Retrieved on June 1, 2008 from http://www.k8accesscenter.org/training_resources/documents/ACResearchApproachFormatted.pdf