Response to Intervention
The Key Role of the
Classroom Teacher in
RTI at Middle and High
Schools
Jim Wright
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Response to Intervention
Workshop PPTs and Handouts
Available at:
• http://www.jimwrightonline.com/
CFIHS.php
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Response to Intervention
Workshop Agenda
1. Key Concepts About RTI at the
Secondary Level
2. The Classroom Teacher as Interventionist: 6
Steps
3. Tier 1 Intervention: Case Example
4. Review of Selected Web Resources to Help With
Classroom Intervention, Assessment
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Response to Intervention
School Instructional Time: The Irreplaceable Resource
“In the average school system, there are 330
minutes in the instructional day, 1,650 minutes in
the instructional week, and 56,700 minutes in the
instructional year. Except in unusual circumstances,
these are the only minutes we have to provide
effective services for students. The number of years
we have to apply these minutes is fixed. Therefore,
each minute counts and schools cannot afford to
support inefficient models of service delivery.”
p. 177
Source: Batsche, G. M., Castillo, J. M., Dixon, D. N., & Forde, S. (2008). Best practices in problem analysis. In A. Thomas & J.
Grimes (Eds.), Best practices in school psychology V (pp. 177-193).
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Response to Intervention
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
• Are often in a process of disengaging from learning
even as adults in school expect that those students will
move toward being ‘self-managing’ learners…
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Response to Intervention
School Dropout as a Process, Not an Event
“It is increasingly accepted that dropout is best
conceptualized as a long-term process, not an
instantaneous event; however, most interventions
are administered at a middle or high school level
after problems are severe.”
Source: Jimerson, S., Reschly, A.L., & Hess, R. (2008). Best practices in increasing the likelihood of school completion. In A. Thomas & J.
Grimes (Eds). Best Practices in School Psychology - 5th Ed (pp. 1085-1097). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists..
p.1090
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Response to Intervention
Student Motivation & The Need for Intervention
“A common response to students who struggle in sixth
grade is to wait and hope they grow out of it or adapt, to
attribute early struggles to the natural commotion of
early adolescence and to temporary difficulties in
adapting to new organizational structures of schooling,
more challenging curricula and assessment, and less
personalized attention. Our evidence clearly indicates
that, at least in high-poverty urban schools, sixth
graders who are missing 20% or more of the days,
exhibiting poor behavior, or failing math or English do
not recover. On the contrary, they drop out. This says
that early intervention is not only productive but
absolutely essential.”
Source: Balfanz, R., Herzog, L., MacIver, D. J. (2007). Preventing student disengagement and keeping students on the graduation
path in urban middle grades schools: Early identification and effective interventions. Educational Psychologist,42, 223–235. .
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Response to Intervention
Mining Archival Data: What Are the ‘Early Warning Flags’
of Student Drop-Out?
•
•
•
•
A sample of 13,000 students in Philadelphia were tracked for 8
years. These early warning indicators were found to predict
student drop-out in the sixth-grade year:
Failure in English
Failure in math
Missing at least 20% of school days
Receiving an ‘unsatisfactory’ behavior rating from at least one
teacher
Source: Balfanz, R., Herzog, L., MacIver, D. J. (2007). Preventing student disengagement and keeping students on the graduation
path in urban middle grades schools: Early identification and effective interventions. Educational Psychologist,42, 223–235. .
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Response to Intervention
What is the Predictive Power of These Early
Warning Flags?
Number of ‘Early Warning Flags’ in
Student Record
Probability That Student Would
Graduate
None
56%
1
36%
2
21%
3
13%
4
7%
Source: Balfanz, R., Herzog, L., MacIver, D. J. (2007). Preventing student disengagement and keeping students on the graduation
path in urban middle grades schools: Early identification and effective interventions. Educational Psychologist,42, 223–235. .
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Response to Intervention
Five Core Components of RTI Service Delivery
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Student services are arranged in a multi-tier model
Data are collected to assess student baseline levels
and to make decisions about student progress
Interventions are ‘evidence-based’
The ‘procedural integrity’ of interventions is measured
RTI is implemented and developed at the school- and
district-level to be scalable and sustainable over time
Source: Glover, T. A., & DiPerna, J. C. (2007). Service delivery for response to intervention: Core components and directions
for future research. School Psychology Review, 36, 526-540.
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Response to Intervention
The Purpose of RTI in Secondary Schools: What
Students Should It Serve?
Early Identification.
As students begin to
show need for
academic support, the
RTI model proactively
supports them with
early interventions to
close the skill or
performance gap with
peers.
Chronically At-Risk.
Students whose
school performance is
marginal across
school years but who
do not qualify for
special education
services are identified
by the RTI Team and
provided with ongoing
intervention support.
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Special Education.
Students who fail to
respond to
scientifically valid
general-education
interventions
implemented with
integrity are classified
as ‘non-responders’
and found eligible for
special education.
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Response to Intervention
RTI ‘Pyramid of
Interventions’
Tier 3
Tier 2
Tier 1
Tier 3: Intensive interventions.
Students who are ‘nonresponders’ to Tiers I & II may be
eligible for special education
services, intensive interventions.
Tier 2 Individualized
interventions. Subset of
students receive interventions
targeting specific needs.
Tier 1: Universal interventions.
Available to all students in a
classroom or school. Can consist
of whole-group or individual
strategies or supports.
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Response to Intervention
Tier 1 Core Instruction
Tier I core instruction:
• Is universal—available to all students.
• Can be delivered within classrooms or throughout the school.
• Is an ongoing process of developing strong classroom instructional
practices to reach the largest number of struggling learners.
All children have access to Tier 1 instruction/interventions. Teachers have
the capability to use those strategies without requiring outside assistance.
Tier 1 instruction encompasses:
• The school’s core curriculum.
• Al published or teacher-made materials used to deliver that curriculum.
• Teacher use of ‘whole-group’ teaching & management strategies.
Tier I instruction addresses this question: Are strong classroom instructional
strategies sufficient to help the student to achieve academic success?
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Response to Intervention
Tier I (Classroom) Intervention
Tier 1 intervention:
• Targets ‘red flag’ students who are not successful with core
instruction alone.
• Uses ‘evidence-based’ strategies to address student academic
or behavioral concerns.
• Must be feasible to implement given the resources available in
the classroom.
Tier I intervention addresses the question: Does the student make
adequate progress when the instructor uses specific academic
or behavioral strategies matched to the presenting concern?
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Response to Intervention
What Are Appropriate Content-Area Tier 1
Universal Interventions for Secondary Schools?
“High schools need to determine what
constitutes high-quality universal instruction
across content areas. In addition, high school
teachers need professional development in, for
example, differentiated instructional techniques
that will help ensure student access to
instruction interventions that are effectively
implemented.”
Source: Duffy, H. (August 2007). Meeting the needs of significantly struggling learners in high school. Washington, DC: National High
School Center. Retrieved from http://www.betterhighschools.org/pubs/ p. 9
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Response to Intervention
The Key Role of Classroom Teachers in RTI:
6 Steps
1. The teacher defines the student academic or behavioral
problem clearly.
2. The teacher decides on the best explanation for why the
problem is occurring.
3. The teacher selects ‘evidence-based’ interventions.
4. The teacher documents the student’s Tier 1 intervention plan.
5. The teacher monitors the student’s response (progress) to the
intervention plan.
6. The teacher knows what the next steps are when a student fails
to make adequate progress with Tier 1 interventions alone.
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Response to Intervention
The Key Role of Classroom
Teachers in RTI…
1. The teacher defines the student academic or
behavior problem in clear, specific, measurable
terms.
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Response to Intervention
Defining Academic or Behavioral Problems
Describe the student problem to provide a meaningful
instructional context. The teacher is more likely to select an
effective intervention to help a struggling student if the student
problem is first clearly defined and put into a meaningful context.
This expanded definition includes information about the conditions
under which the academic problem is observed and typical or
expected level of performance.
– Conditions. Describe the environmental conditions or task demands in place
when the academic problem is observed.
– Problem Description. Describe the actual observable academic behavior in
which the student is engaged. Include rate, accuracy, or other quantitative
information of student performance.
– Typical or Expected Level of Performance. Provide a typical or expected
performance criterion for this skill or behavior. Typical or expected academic
performance can be calculated using a variety of sources,
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Response to Intervention
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Response to Intervention
The Key Role of Classroom
Teachers in RTI…
2. The teacher decides on the best explanation for
what is causing the student problem.
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Response to Intervention
Big Ideas: The Four Stages of Learning Can Be
Summed Up in the ‘Instructional Hierarchy’
(Haring et al., 1978)
Student learning can be thought of as a multi-stage process. The
universal stages of learning include:
• Acquisition: The student is just acquiring the skill.
• Fluency: The student can perform the skill but
must make that skill ‘automatic’.
• Generalization: The student must perform the skill
across situations or settings.
• Adaptation: The student confronts novel task
demands that require that the student adapt a
current skill to meet new requirements.
Source: Haring, N.G., Lovitt, T.C., Eaton, M.D., & Hansen, C.L. (1978). The fourth R: Research in the classroom. Columbus,
OH: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Co.
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Response to Intervention
The Key Role of Classroom
Teachers in RTI…
3. The teacher selects one or more ‘evidencebased’ interventions to address the student
problem.
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Response to Intervention
A Sampling of Intervention Websites
• The What Works Clearinghouse has a series of free practice
guides that detail best recommended practices for promoting
adolescent literacy, study and organizational skills and more.
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/publications/
practiceguides/
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Response to Intervention
A Sampling of Intervention Websites
• Intervention Central has a collection of research-based
interventions for academic and behavioral concerns
http://www.interventioncentral.org
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Response to Intervention
The Key Role of Classroom
Teachers in RTI…
4. The teacher documents the student’s Tier 1
(classroom) intervention plan.
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Response to Intervention
Interventions: Potential ‘Fatal Flaws’
1.
2.
3.
4.
Any intervention must include 4 essential elements. The absence of any one of the
elements would be considered a ‘fatal flaw’ (Witt, VanDerHeyden & Gilbertson, 2004) that
blocks the school from drawing meaningful conclusions from the student’s response to the
intervention:
Clearly defined problem. The student’s target concern is stated in specific, observable,
measureable terms. This ‘problem identification statement’ is the most important step of
the problem-solving model (Bergan, 1995), as a clearly defined problem allows the teacher
or RTI Team to select a well-matched intervention to address it.
Baseline data. The teacher or RTI Team measures the student’s academic skills in the
target concern (e.g., reading fluency, math computation) prior to beginning the intervention.
Baseline data becomes the point of comparison throughout the intervention to help the
school to determine whether that intervention is effective.
Performance goal. The teacher or RTI Team sets a specific, data-based goal for student
improvement during the intervention and a checkpoint date by which the goal should be
attained.
Progress-monitoring plan. The teacher or RTI Team collects student data regularly to
determine whether the student is on-track to reach the performance goal.
Source: Witt, J. C., VanDerHeyden, A. M., & Gilbertson, D. (2004). Troubleshooting behavioral interventions. A systematic
process for finding and eliminating problems. School Psychology Review, 33, 363-383.
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Response to Intervention
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Response to Intervention
The Key Role of Classroom
Teachers in RTI…
5. The teacher monitors the students response
(progress) to the intervention plan.
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Response to Intervention
Classroom Methods of Data Collection
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Existing records
Global skills checklist
Rating scales
Behavioral frequency count
Behavioral log
Student work samples
Work performance logs
Timed assessments (e.g., Curriculum-Based
Measurement)
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Response to Intervention
Example of Classroom Progress-Monitoring
Tool: Global Skills Checklists
• Description: The teacher selects a global skill.
The teacher then breaks that global skill down
into specific, observable ‘subskills’. Each subskill
can be verified as ‘done’ or ‘not done’.
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Response to Intervention
Skills Checklists: Example
• The teacher selects the global skill ‘organizational
skills’.
• That global skill is defined as having the following
components, each of which can be observed:
arriving to class on time;
bringing work materials to class;
following teacher directions in a timely manner;
knowing how to request teacher assistance when
needed;
having an uncluttered desk with only essential work
materials.
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Response to Intervention
The Key Role of Classroom
Teachers in RTI…
6. The teacher knows what the next steps are when
a student fails to make adequate progress with
Tier 1 interventions alone.
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Response to Intervention
Tier 1: Decision Rules
•
•
•
•
•
The classroom teacher knows that Tier 1 (classroom)
interventions alone are not sufficient for the struggling student
when:
The student problem is clearly defined.
Appropriate evidence-based interventions have been selected
that match the student’s presenting concern(s).
The intervention plan has been tried for an adequate amount of
time (e.g., 4-8 instructional weeks).
Student baseline performance is measured, a goal is calculated,
and progress-monitoring data is collected during the intervention.
The student has not significantly closed the gap with peers
despite the classroom intervention plan.
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Response to Intervention
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Response to Intervention
Secondary-Level Academic
Tier 1 Intervention: Case
Example
Jim Wright
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Response to Intervention
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Response to Intervention
Tier 1 Case Example: Patricia:
Reading Comprehension
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Response to Intervention
Case Example: Reading Comprehension
The Problem
• A student, Patricia, struggled in her social studies class,
particularly in understanding the course readings. Her teacher,
Ms. Cardamone, decided that the problem was significant
enough that the student required some individualized support.
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Response to Intervention
Case Example: Reading Comprehension
The Evidence
• Student Interview. Ms. Cardamone met with Patricia to ask her
questions about her difficulties with social studies content and
assignments. Patricia said that when she reads the course text
and other assigned readings, she doesn’t have difficulty with
the vocabulary but often realizes after reading half a page that
she hasn’t really understood what she has read. Sometimes
she has to reread a page several times and that can be
frustrating.
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Response to Intervention
Case Example: Reading Comprehension
The Evidence (Cont.)
• Review of Records. Past teacher report card comments
suggest that Patricia has had difficulty with reading
comprehension tasks in earlier grades. She had received help
in middle school in the reading lab, although there was no
record of what specific interventions were tried in that setting.
• Input from Other Teachers. Ms. Cardamone checked with other
teachers who have Patricia in their classes. All expressed
concern about Patricia’s reading comprehension skills. The
English teacher noted that Patricia appears to have difficulty
pulling the main idea from a passage, which limits her ability to
extract key information from texts and to review that information
for tests.
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Response to Intervention
Case Example: Reading Comprehension
The Intervention
• Ms. Cardamone decided, based on the evidence collected, that
Patricia would benefit from training in identifying the main idea
from a passage, rather than trying to retain all the information
presented in the text. She selected two simple interventions:
Question Generation and Text Lookback. She arranged to have
Patricia meet with her during an open period to review these
two strategies. During that meeting, Ms. Cardamone
demonstrated how to use these strategies effectively with the
social studies course text and other assigned readings.
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Response to Intervention
Question
Generation
Students are taught to boost
their comprehension of
expository passages by (1)
locating the main idea or key
ideas in the passage and (2)
generating questions based
on that information.
http://www.interventioncentral.org/htmdocs/interventions/
rdngcompr/qgen.php
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Response to Intervention
Text
Lookback
Text lookback is a simple
strategy that students can
use to boost their recall of
expository prose by
identifying questions that
require information from the
text and then looking back in
the text in a methodical
manner to locate that
information.
http://www.interventioncentral.org/htmdocs/interventions/
rdngcompr/txtlkbk.php
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Response to Intervention
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Response to Intervention
Case Example: Reading Comprehension
Documentation and Goal-Setting
• Ms Cardamone filled out a Tier 1 intervention plan for the
student. On the plan, she listed interventions to be used, a
checkup date (4 instructional weeks), and data to be used to
assess student progress.
• Data: Ms. Cardamone decided that she would rate the
student’s grasp of text content in two ways:
– Student self-rating (1-3 scale; 1=don’t understand; 3 = understand
well)
– Quiz grades.
• She collected baseline on both and set a goal for
improvement.
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Response to Intervention
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Response to Intervention
Case Example: Reading Comprehension
The Outcome
• When the intervention had been in place for 4 weeks, Ms.
Cardamone noted that Patricia appeared to have a somewhat
better grasp of course content and expressed a greater grasp
of material from the text.
• She shared her intervention ideas with other teachers working
with Patricia. Because Patricia’s self-ratings of reading
comprehension and quiz grades met the goals after 4 weeks,
Ms. Cardamone decided to continue the intervention plan with
the student without changes.
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