The “How-To” of Response to Intervention

The struggle to accurately assess students for learning disabilities and subsequent special services has been a challenge in special education for years. That challenge has been compounded by the fact that when low socioeconomic background intersects with cultural and linguistic difference, a student is at greater risk for academic failure. This looming risk makes even more critical the provision of appropriate, targeted instruction for children from diverse backgrounds if they are to be successful academically. Providing this “appropriate, targeted instruction” constitutes a central tenet of the educational approach called Response to Intervention, or RtI.

Despite the fact that it is a process that takes place within the general education classroom, RtI has generated a great deal of interest among special education teachers and policy-makers. Given its approach and potential impact on struggling students, this is no surprise.

A large percentage of children receiving special education services are diagnosed as having specific learning disabilities (SLD). However, there are many factors that could contribute to a child appearing to have SLD, when in fact no disability exists. A child may come from a home where adults have no time to read or where no English is spoken. As a result, the child arrives in kindergarten completely lacking in pre-reading skills—those things that mark a child’s beginning understanding of what a book is for and how it works. Or a child may have spent his early years in foster homes, or with little adult supervision, or with no preschool experience. Every teacher knows these are likely precursors to behavioral challenges, especially when a child is suddenly in school and expected to know how to stand in line, wait his turn, sit quietly at a table, and so on. Or the child may have transferred from a school that did not have an adequate curriculum, or skilled teachers, or trained teachers at all.

All of these factors certainly can work against a child’s early success in school, and they may affect his progress in learning the curriculum. But the low academic achievement in these cases results from disadvantage, not from disability. Every special educator knows how difficult it is to accurately assess students when a low socioeconomic background is combined with cultural and linguistic differences. While these conditions put a student at greater risk for academic failure, they also make even more critical the provision of appropriate, targeted instruction—some iteration of RtI—for children from diverse backgrounds, if they are to achieve academically.

So, one of the strengths of RtI—and its particular interest to special education—is the way it incorporates many checks and balances to reduce the possibility of misidentifying a student as having a disability. RtI is designed to ensure accurate assessment and identification.

Federal authority for implementing RtI comes from two sources: the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), from general education; and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), from special education. To varying degrees, both laws address the importance of early intervention; valid, reliable data from regular assessments that then inform instructional decisions; and research-based teaching strategies.

From the special education perspectives, one of the several arguments in favor of RtI is its shift in focus, away from the severe discrepancy model of identifying a student for special education services and toward a model of intervening early to prevent failure. Research shows that when resources are used to prevent failure, the cost of those preventive services is recouped three-fold by what is saved in avoiding later, more intensive supports. According to Allan Lloyd-Jones, Special Education Division consultant at the California Department of Education, RtI “simply allows for a more efficient use of resources,” especially when “research-based curriculum and strategies are applied with fidelity and data are used to ensure that students have appropriate interventions before they are referred for assessment.” He describes RtI as “a change in emphasis; toward assessing risk and providing targeted intervention, and away from determining failure.” In short, intervening early ensures that no child falls behind through lack of appropriate instruction. Those who do are most likely to be appropriately identified as students with a disability.

Because of the importance of RtI for both general and special education, the California Department of Education formed a technical workgroup, which consisted of representatives from a variety of interests and disciplines—school administrators, psychologists, teachers, parents, and various other stakeholders. This group was charged with the task of writing a document that would serve as a guide in the creation of whole-school systems that supported student success and prevented failure. In short, the implementation of RtI. The complete document  will be posted to the CDE Web site after an internal review. What follows is a number of the guide’s key points.

Defining RtI

RtI is not a packaged program or a strategy that can be learned in a single training session. It is a process that uses all resources within a school in a collaborative manner to create a single, well-integrated system of instruction and interventions that are guided by student outcome data. It fits within a school-wide process of early intervention and prevention of academic and behavioral problems. RtI involves special education teachers and general education teachers working together and jointly using their resources
and expertise to help all students. Within an RtI system, students are regularly evaluated on how well they’re learning in response to the strategies and approaches used. The results of these ongoing evaluations—the data—are what guide the next steps of instruction.

RtI is a multi-step process of providing high-quality, research-based instruction and interventions at varying levels of intensity to students who struggle with learning and behavior. The interventions are matched to the student’s needs, and their progress is closely monitored at each level of intervention. Student progress guides further instruction or interventions.  The following are three ways RtI is used in the schools:

1. Prevention.
All students are screened to determine how well they are performing. These screenings are considered in light of grade-level benchmarks; the screening results for each student are examined for any sign of academic and behavioral difficulties. Schools that employ an RtI approach provide research-based strategic instruction within general education. This helps struggling students before they fail and gives them a chance to catch up to their grade-level peers.

2. Intervention.
Within an RtI model, the progress of all students in general education is frequently evaluated. This is also known as progress monitoring. When those evaluations show that a student in general education is not progressing at a rate or level of achievement that is appropriate for that grade, the teachers provide more intense interventions.

3. A Component of Specific Learning Disability (SLD) determination.
The RtI approach is one component of SLD determination as addressed in the IDEA 2004 statute and regulations. The data from the RtI process are a part of determining eligibility for special education services, ensuring that a student has received research-based instruction and interventions before being considered for special education.

The Core Components of RtI

1. High-quality classroom instruction. Students receive high-quality instruction in their general education classroom setting from highly qualified teachers. Instruction is given in the core curriculum, with the goal of achieving the state’s grade-level standards.

2. Research-based instruction. The instruction that is provided within the classroom is culturally responsive and has been demonstrated to be effective through scientific research.

3. Classroom assessment. General education teachers assume an active role in students’ assessment in the general education curriculum. This feature emphasizes the importance of implementing formative and summative assessments (see left insert) that are aligned to the California Content Standards.

4. Universal screening. School staff conducts universal screening to determine which students need closer monitoring, differentiated instruction, or a specific intervention.

5. Continuously monitoring student progress in the classroom. The classroom performance of all
students is monitored continually within the general education classroom. In this way, teachers can readily identify those learners who are not meeting the benchmarks (or other expected standards) and can adjust instruction accordingly.

6. Research-based interventions. When monitoring data indicates a lack of progress, an appropriate, research-based intervention is implemented. The interventions are designed to increase the intensity of instruction for the students.

7. Progress monitoring during interventions. School staff members use progress monitoring data to determine the effectiveness of the intervention and to make modifications, as needed. Carefully defined data are frequently collected to provide a cumulative record of the students’ response to the intervention.

8. Fidelity measures. “Fidelity of implementation” refers to the delivery of content and instructional strategies in the way in which they have been proven to be effective: accurately and consistently. Although interventions are aimed at learners, fidelity measures focus on how the intervention is provided.

9. Staff development and collaboration. All school staff are trained in research-based instructional practices and use a collaborative approach to the development, implementation, and monitoring of the intervention process. Collaboration may include blending resources from both general education and categorical resources. Accountability for positive outcomes for all students is a shared responsibility of all school staff members, who are all seen as valued members in the effort to educate all students. Each staff member is recognized for the value of his/her own expertise and contribution.

10. Parent involvement. The involvement and active participation of parents at all stages of the instructional and intervention process is essential to improving the educational outcomes of students. Parents are kept informed, in their native language or other mode of communication, of the progress of their children, and their input is valued by school staff in making appropriate decisions.

The Principles of RtI

1. Believe—and know—that all students can be effectively taught. All RtI practices are founded on the assumption and belief that all students can learn. It is then the responsibility of school staff to identify the most effective curricular, instructional, and environmental conditions that enable learning to take place and to provide the necessary resources to enable all students to learn.

2. Intervene early. It is best to intervene early when problems are relatively small and before students lag further behind their peers.

3. Use a multi-tiered model of intervention. To achieve high rates of success for all students, instruction must be differentiated in both its nature and intensity. A tiered model of intervention is one effective way to differentiate instruction.

4. Use research-based, scientifically validated interventions/instruction. NCLB requires schools to use scientifically based curricula and interventions. This approach ensures that students are exposed to curriculum and teaching that has the greatest degree of effectiveness.

5. Monitor student progress to inform instruction. The use of assessments that can be collected frequently and that are sensitive to small changes in a student’s performance is important in determining the effectiveness of instruction and intervention.

6. Use data to make decisions. A data-based decision regarding the students’ response to intervention is central to RtI practices. Decisions in RtI practice are based on the collective judgment of staff and parents and informed directly by student performance data. This principle requires two things: that ongoing data collection systems are in place and that resulting data are used to make informed instructional decisions.

7. Use assessment for three different purposes:

a) Universal screening to determine which students need closer monitoring, differentiated instruction, or a specific intervention

b) Progress monitoring to determine if interventions are producing the desired results

c) Diagnostics to determine what students can and cannot do in important academic areas.

Response to Intervention is better described as a “response to instruction.” It provides a triage process that allows for progressive increases in the intensity and duration of instruction for students who continue to struggle with the general education curriculum. Through this preventive process, schools can meet the needs of all students and reduce the numbers students inappropriately identified with specific learning disability.