Secondary Interventions in a Three Tier Model: Program Features and System Issues

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Secondary Interventions in a Three Tier Model
Program Features and System Issues

• Joseph F. KovaleskiIndiana University of
  Pennsylvania

Responsiveness-to-Intervention Symposium December
4-5, 2003 Kansas City, Missouri The National
Research Center on Learning Disabilities, a
collaborative project of staff at Vanderbilt
University and the University of Kansas,
sponsored this two-day symposium focusing on
responsiveness-to-intervention (RTI) issues. The
symposium was made possible by the support of the
U.S. Department of Education Office of Special
Education Programs. Renee Bradley, Project
Officer. Opinions expressed herein are those of
the authors and do not necessarily represent the
position of the U.S. Department of
Education. When citing materials presented
during the symposium, please use the following
Kovaleski, J. F. (2003, December). Secondary
interventions in a three tier model Program
features and system issues. Paper presented at
the National Research Center on Learning
Disabilities Responsiveness-to-Intervention
Symposium, Kansas City, MO.
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Seeds of the Three Tier Model

• Original Definition of LD
• IDEA 97 Lack of Instruction
• Pioneering models SBPS, IST, ICT, etc.
• NCLB

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DEFINITION OF LEARNING DISABILITIES (excerpts
from IDEA)

• 300.541 Criteria for determining the existence
  of a specific learning disability. A team may
  determine that a child has a specific learning
  disability if- (1) The child does not achieve
  commensurate with his or her age and ability
  levels in one or more of the areas listed in
  paragraph (a)(2) of this section, if provided
  with learning experiences appropriate for the
  child's age and ability levels
• 300.543 A team may determine that a child has a
  specific learning disability if (6) Whether
  there is a severe discrepancy between achievement
  and ability that is not correctable without
  special education and related services

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(5) SPECIAL RULE FOR ELIGIBILITY DETERMINATION

• In making a determination of eligibility under
  paragraph (4)(A), a child shall not be determined
  to be a child with a disability if the
  determinant factor for such determination is lack
  of instruction in reading or math or limited
  English proficiency. IDEA 614(b)(5)

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What the Senate intended

• Students may be identified as LD because they
  were not taught the core skill of reading
  effectively.
• Not taught lack of instruction (LOI)
• LOI will decrease over-identification and focus
  schools efforts on instruction in the primary
  grades.

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Pennsylvanias Screening Requirements

• Academic assessment
• Behavioral assessment
• Intervention based on assessment
• Assessment of response to intervention
• Lack of instruction or limited English
  proficiency
• Ability of the regular education program to
  maintain the student
• Activities designed to gain the participation of
  parents

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Getting Clarity on the Tiers
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Tier 1 School-wide Screening and Intervention

• Conduct data analysis teaming of like teachers
  and specialists
• Access critical data on all students performance
  related to achievement of standards
• Analyze data and find which students have which
  gaps in attainments

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Tier 1 School-wide Screening and Intervention
contd

• Set measurable goals for the group to close the
  gap
• Brainstorm or create instructional strategies
• Deliver interventions to whole groups
• Monitor performance (quarterly)

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Benefits of Tier 1

• Promotion of evidence-based instruction on a
  whole-class, whole-school level
• Systematic identification of non-responders (not
  just teacher referral)
• Eventual focusing of resources on fewer students
  at tiers 2 and 3

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Tier 2 Problem-solving teams

• Focus on individual non-responders
• Begin with interventions to adapt general
  education instruction
• Ongoing support is consultative

• Focus on groups of non-responders (15-20)
• Ongoing push-in support
• Ongoing pull-out support

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Problem Solving for Individual Students Key
Features

• a core group of teachers working together to
  get the job done (Kamp Greenwood)
• Curriculum-based assessment
• Establishing the intervention
• Graphing and evaluating data
• Routinizing the intervention

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Tier 2 Ongoing Support
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Tier 2 Organizational Changes(Kamp Greenwood)

• special and general educators pooling resources
• creative/flexible scheduling to allocate
  sufficient time to small group instruction
• creative uses of personnel resources i.e., many
  people teaching reading groups

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Critical Features of Flexible Service Delivery

• Cross training of staff
• Non-categorical deployment of staff
• Remediation based on students needs
• Transitory services
• Services without labels

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Cross Training

• Identification of critical knowledge and
  strategies
• Training of all flex staff in ALL of the
  procedures

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Non-categorical Deployment

• Eliminate wide variety of job titles (at least
  conceptually)
• Specialists are fungible -- anyone can take
  anothers place or role

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Need-based Services

• Data are now used to sort students into
  appropriate levels and types of service
• Level how much time during school day
• Type what type of strategies are needed

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Transitory Service

• Students may not need a given service for entire
  years
• Program may be reorganized from month to month
  and from year to year
• Program organization follows needs of students,
  not a model

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Services without Labels

• No diagnostic activities
• Informed parental consent, but no IEP
• Guaranteed progress monitoring and reporting to
  parents
• Special-education-like instruction

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Special-education-like Instruction(McMaster et
al., 2003)

• immediate corrective feedback
• mastery of content before moving to next lesson
• more time on activities that were especially
  difficult
• more opportunities to respond
• fewer transitions
• setting goals and self-monitoring progress
• special relationship with tutor

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System Change for Flexible Services

• Consensus on evidence-based practice (a house
  divided)
• Administrative leadership and involvement
• Revision of paperwork and job descriptions
  (Allison, 2002)