Response-to-Intervention embraced by state as educational strategy

On Board Online • Issues in Education • October 13, 2008

By Paul Heiser
Research Analyst

When a teacher in an elementary classroom gave students an oral reading exam, one boy could only produce about five words per minute – well below the target of 30 words per minute for his grade level. His school temporarily moved the boy, named Jordan, out of his classroom so he could receive more intensive instruction.

Teachers measured his oral fluency in reading frequently, and this showed Jordan was responding to the extra help. Eventually he returned to the general classroom.

This scenario, which comes from a report by the National Research Center on Learning Disabilities, is one example of how “Response-to-Intervention” (RtI) is designed to work.

In New York State, as well as across the nation, RtI is gaining currency as a core educational strategy to help students meet educational standards in reading, particularly in the early grades.

In April, the State Education Department’s Office of Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities (VESID) sent a memo to all public school superintendents and school board presidents in the state encouraging them to implement RtI programs in their schools.

RtI is one of the research-based programs that the state allows in its Contracts for Excellence program (see story, page 3).

The commissioner of education has  also issued regulations that RtI can be used to satisfy state requirements regarding the criteria that districts use to determine if a student has a learning disability. Effective in 2012, all school districts will be required to have an RtI program in place as part of the process to determine if a student in grades K-4 is a student with a learning disability in the area of reading.  

What is Response-to-Intervention?

According to the State Education Department (SED), RtI is a “multi-tiered, problem-solving approach that identifies general education students struggling in academic and behavioral areas early and provides them with systematically applied strategies and targeted instruction at varying levels of intervention.”

Translation: RtI is a teaching and monitoring strategy that seeks to prevent small learning problems from growing into insurmountable gaps. It has been used with success with general education students as well as English language learners and students with disabilities. Research suggests that RtI leads to more appropriate identification of – and interventions for – students with learning disabilities.

Schools have always given extra help to students. What makes RtI different?

According to SED, an RtI program must include, among other things:

•  Scientifically-based reading instruction for all general education students.
•  School-wide screenings that measure students’ levels of proficiency in various aspects of reading.
•  Identification of those who are not making academic progress at expected rates or fail to meet age or grade level expectations.
•  Instruction that is matched to student needs.
•  Repeated assessments of student achievement to determine if interventions are helping students make progress toward age or grade level standards.

What makes RtI scientific? It requires schools to rely on data to make decisions that involve making changes in goals, instruction or services, as well making referrals for special education programs or services.

The term “Response-to-Interven-tion” was coined by education research-ers in the 1980s. According to the Harvard Education Letter, “RtI entered the mainstream, however, with No Child Left Behind, embedded in the $1 billion a year Reading First program. It got another boost from the federal government in final regulations issued for the 2004 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the law governing special education.” 

For now, just K-3

To date, Response-to-Intervention has been used only in grades K-3 in New York, according to Matt Giugno, who oversees the state’s RtI initiative for VESID. The efficacy of RtI in the middle and secondary grades has not yet been confirmed. However, Giugno told On Board that the department’s interest goes beyond K-3 to making sure that middle school-grade students maintain the gains they have made from the support they received in the earlier grades.

One school that uses RtI is Boulevard Elementary School in the Gloversville school district in Fulton County. Intervention starts in kindergarten.

“We go after them early to make sure their fundamentals are solid,” Principal Thomas Komp told On Board. “The whole premise is to identify students’ needs and meet those needs.”

All children get tested on their reading ability three times per year: in September, January and May. These screenings identify students who are reading at grade level and those who are not, compared with national norms.

The next step is to identify which students need targeted extra services – an intervention – to help them catch up. Another assessment tool is used every two weeks to see if the interventions are working.

If the interventions are not working, the services can be changed. The monitoring goes on for the entire school year. The hope is to move students along fast enough so that they’ll ultimately catch up with their peers.

The interventions provided may take the form of extra time after school, but it is more commonly accomplished by adjusting schedules of students and staff to provide extra time within the confines of the regular school day. Boulevard also has a 45-minute time slot before school starts where a lot of professional development is done, such as having reading coaches do turnkey training for teachers.

Komp credits Response-to-Intervention for greatly reducing the number of students classified as special education at the 640-student school. Before the RtI initiative, about 15 to 20 students were classified as needing special education each year. Since the implementation of the RtI initiative, the number of students being classified as special education each year has decreased to about five or six students per year.

Komp cautions that implementing an effective RtI program does not happen overnight. Preparation takes about three to five years, including staff development; classroom teachers and reading specialists need to be trained and kept up to date on the latest research.

RtI is done only in reading right now, Komp said, because that is where most of the research in this area has been done. He said research on math looks promising but is not quite ready for widespread use. 

Next steps

SED plans to establish a state Technical Assistance Center on RtI to assist school districts in their development of such programs. In addition, SED will provide start-up funding to approximately 14 schools to establish model RtI programs throughout the state.

The U.S. Department of Education has funded a National Technical Assistance Center on RtI. SED will be working closely with this center to support NYS school districts as they develop and implement high-quality RtI programs. Resources relating to RtI can be accessed at www.rti4success.org.