RTI: An Overview for Elementary Schools Jim Wright www.interventioncentral.org

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RTI An Overview for Elementary SchoolsJim
Wrightwww.interventioncentral.org
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RTI Elementary Schools Agenda
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The quality of a school as a learning community
can be measured by how effectively it addresses
the needs of struggling students.--Wright
(2005)
Source Wright, J. (2005, Summer). Five
interventions that work. NAESP Leadership
Compass, 2(4) pp.1,6.
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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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RTI Assumption Struggling Students Are Typical
Until Proven Otherwise

• RTI logic assumes that
• A student who begins to struggle in general
  education is typical, and that
• It is general educations responsibility to find
  the instructional strategies that will unlock the
  students learning potential
• Only when the student shows through
  well-documented interventions that he or she has
  failed to respond to intervention does RTI
  begin to investigate the possibility that the
  student may have a learning disability or other
  special education condition.

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Essential Elements of RTI (Fairbanks, Sugai,
Guardino, Lathrop, 2007)

1. A continuum of evidence-based services available
   to all students" that range from universal to
   highly individualized intensive
2. Decision points to determine if students are
   performing significantly below the level of their
   peers in academic and social behavior domains"
3. Ongoing monitoring of student progress"
4. Employment of more intensive or different
   interventions when students do not improve in
   response" to lesser interventions
5. 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.
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RTI Pyramid of Interventions
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Tier 1 Core Instruction

• Tier I core instruction
• Is universalavailable 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 schools 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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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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Complementary RTI Models Standard Treatment
Problem-Solving Protocols

• The two most commonly used RTI approaches are
  (1) standard treatment and (2) problem-solving
  protocol. While these two approaches to RTI are
  sometimes described as being very different from
  each other, they actually have several common
  elements, and both fit within a problem-solving
  framework. In practice, many schools and
  districts combine or blend aspects of the two
  approaches to fit their needs.

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.betterhighschool
s.org/pubs/ p. 5
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RTI Interventions Standard-Treatment vs.
Problem-Solving
There are two different vehicles that schools can
use to deliver RTI interventions Standard-Protoco
l (Standalone 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
students unique needs. Problem-solving
(Classroom-Based Intervention). Individualized
research-based interventions match the profile of
a particular students 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 students needs.
However, developing intervention plans for
individual students can be time-consuming.
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Tier 2 Supplemental (Group-Based)
Interventions(Standard Treatment Protocol)

• Tier 2 interventions are typically delivered in
  small-group format. About 15 of students in the
  typical school will require Tier 2/supplemental
  intervention support. Group size for Tier 2
  interventions is limited to 4-7 students.
  Students placed in Tier 2 interventions should
  have a shared profile of intervention need.
• Programs or practices used in Tier 2
  interventions should be evidence-based.
• The progress of students in Tier 2
  interventions are monitored at least 2 times per
  month.

Source Burns, M. K., Gibbons, K. A. (2008).
Implementing response-to-intervention in
elementary and secondary schools. Routledge New
York.
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Tier 3 Intensive Individualized
Interventions(Problem-Solving Protocol)

• Tier 3 interventions are the most intensive
  offered in a school setting.
• Students qualify for Tier 3 interventions
  because
• they are found to have a large skill gap when
  compared to their class or grade peers and/or
• They did not respond to interventions provided
  previously at Tiers 1 2.
• Tier 3 interventions are provided daily for
  sessions of 30 minutes or more. The
  student-teacher ratio is flexible but should
  allow the student to receive intensive,
  individualized instruction.
• The reading progress of students in Tier 3
  interventions is monitored at least weekly.

Source Burns, M. K., Gibbons, K. A. (2008).
Implementing response-to-intervention in
elementary and secondary schools. Routledge New
York.
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Team Activity Rate Your Elementary Schools RTI
Readiness p. 5

• In your elbow groups
• Review the RTI implementation survey in your
  packet
• Rate your school on this survey.
• Discuss how RTI ready your school is at the
  present time.

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Tier 1 Developing the Capacity for Classroom
Teachers to Become Intervention First
RespondersJim Wrightwww.interventioncentral.or
g
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RTI Pyramid of Interventions
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Tier 1 Focus on School Factors That We Can
Control

• Some factors in students lives (such as family
  divorce, moving frequently, drug use, and poor
  teaching) lower the probability that these
  students will learn and/or get along with others.
  These are often referred to as risk factorsRisk
  factors do not assure student failure. Risk
  factors simply make the odds of failure greater.
  Aligning assessment and instruction allows
  teachersto introduce new factors into the
  students life that raise the probability of
  learning. These are often called protective
  factors since they protect against the risks
  associated with risk factorsThe use of
  protective factors to raise the probability of
  learning is often referred to as resilience.

Source Hosp, J. L. (2008). Best practices in
aligning academic assessment with instruction. In
A. Thomas J. Grimes (Eds.), Best practices in
school psychology V (pp.363-376). Bethesda, MD
National Association of School Psychologists.
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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 students Tier 1
   intervention plan.
5. The teacher monitors the students 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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Engaging the Reluctant Teacher 7 Reasons Why
Instructors May Resist Implementing Classroom RTI
Interventions
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Teacher Tolerance as an Indicator of RTI
Intervention Capacity

• I call the range of students whom teachers
  come to view as adequately responsive i.e.,
  teachable as the tolerance those who are
  perceived to be outside the tolerance are those
  for whom teachers seek additional resources. The
  term tolerance is used to indicate that
  teachers form a permissible boundary on their
  measurement (judgments) in the same sense as a
  confidence interval. In this case, the teacher
  actively measures the distribution of
  responsiveness in her class by processing
  information from a series of teaching trials and
  perceives some range of students as within the
  tolerance. (Gerber, 2002)

Source Gerber, M. M. (2003). Teachers are still
the test Limitations of response to instruction
strategies for identifying children with learning
disabilities. Paper presented at the National
Research Center on Learning Disabilities
Responsiveness-to-Intervention Symposium, Kansas
City, MO.
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RTI Teacher Reluctance

• The willingness of teachers to implement
  interventions is essential in any school to the
  success of the RTI model. Yet general-education
  teachers may not always see themselves as
  interventionists and indeed may even resist the
  expectation that they will provide individualized
  interventions as a routine part of their
  classroom practice (Walker, 2004).
• It should be remembered, however, that teachers
  reluctance to accept elements of RTI may be based
  on very good reasons. Here are some common
  reasons that teachers might be reluctant to
  accept their role as RTI intervention first
  responders

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Engaging the Reluctant Teacher 7 Reasons Why
Instructors May Resist Implementing Classroom RTI
Interventions

• Lack of Skills. Teachers lack the skills
  necessary to successfully implement academic or
  behavioral interventions in their content-area
  classrooms (Fisher, 2007 Kamil et al., 2008).
• Not My Job. Teachers define their job as
  providing content-area instruction. They do not
  believe that providing classwide or individual
  academic and behavioral interventions falls
  within their job description (Kamil et al., 2008).

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Engaging the Reluctant Teacher 7 Reasons Why
Instructors May Resist Implementing Classroom RTI
Interventions(Cont.)

• No Time. Teachers do not believe that they have
  sufficient time available in classroom
  instruction to implement academic or behavioral
  interventions (Kamil et al., 2008 Walker,
  2004).
• No Payoff. Teachers lack confidence that there
  will be an adequate instructional pay-off if they
  put classwide or individual academic or
  behavioral interventions into place in their
  content-area classroom (Kamil et al., 2008).

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Engaging the Reluctant Teacher 7 Reasons Why
Instructors May Resist Implementing Classroom RTI
Interventions (Cont.)

• Loss of Classroom Control. Teachers worry that if
  they depart from their standard instructional
  practices to adopt new classwide or individual
  academic or behavior intervention strategies,
  they may lose behavioral control of the classroom
  (Kamil et al., 2008).
• Undeserving Students. Teachers are unwilling to
  invest the required effort to provide academic or
  behavioral interventions for unmotivated students
  (Walker, 2004) because they would rather put that
  time into providing additional attention to
  well-behaved, motivated students who are more
  deserving.

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Engaging the Reluctant Teacher 7 Reasons Why
Instructors May Resist Implementing Classroom RTI
Interventions (Cont.)

• The Magic of Special Education. Content-area
  teachers regard special education services as
  magic (Martens, 1993). According to this view,
  interventions provided to struggling students in
  the general-education classroom alone will be
  inadequate, and only special education services
  have the power to truly benefit those students.

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Team Activity Engaging the Reluctant Teacher
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Building Teacher Capacity to Deliver Tier 1
Interventions An 8-Step Checklist p. 12
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Team Activity Building Tier 1 Capacity

• At your tables
• Consider the eight steps to building Tier 1
  teacher capacity to deliver effective classroom
  interventions.
• Discuss the strengths and challenges that your
  school or district presents in promoting
  classroom teachers appropriate and effective use
  of Tier 1 interventions.
• Be prepared to share your discussion with the
  larger group!

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Tier 2 Group-Based Interventions
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Tier 2 Supplemental (Group-Based)
Interventions(Standard Treatment Protocol)

• Tier 2 interventions are typically delivered in
  small-group format. About 15 of students in the
  typical school will require Tier 2/supplemental
  intervention support. Group size for Tier 2
  interventions is limited to 4-7 students.
  Students placed in Tier 2 interventions should
  have a shared profile of intervention need.
• Programs or practices used in Tier 2
  interventions should be evidence-based.
• The progress of students in Tier 2
  interventions are monitored at least 1-2 times
  per month.

Source Burns, M. K., Gibbons, K. A. (2008).
Implementing response-to-intervention in
elementary and secondary schools. Routledge New
York.
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Group-Based Tier 2 Services How Much Time Should
Be Allocated?

• Emerging guidelines drawn largely from reading
  research suggest that standard protocol
  interventions should consist of at least three to
  five 30-minute sessions per week, in a group size
  not to exceed 7 students. Standard protocol
  interventions should also supplement, rather than
  replace, core instruction taking place in the
  classroom.

Sources Burns, Al Otaiba, S. Torgesen, J.
(2007). Effects from intensive standardized
kindergarten and first-grade interventions for
the prevention of reading difficulties. In S. R.
Jimerson, M. K. Burns, A. M. VanDerHeyden
(Eds.), Response to intervention The science and
practice of assessment and intervention (pp.
212-222). National Reading Panel. (2000).
Teaching children to read An evidence-based
assessment of the scientific research literature
on reading and its implications for reading
instruction. Bethesda, MD National Institute of
Child Health Human Development, National
Institutes of Health.
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Scheduling Elementary Tier 2 Interventions
Option 3 Floating RTIGradewide Shared
Schedule. Each grade has a scheduled RTI time
across classrooms. No two grades share the same
RTI time. Advantages are that outside providers
can move from grade to grade providing push-in or
pull-out services and that students can be
grouped by need across different teachers within
the grade.
Anyplace Elementary School RTI Daily Schedule
Classroom 1
Classroom 2
Classroom 3
Grade K
900-930
Classroom 1
Classroom 2
Classroom 3
Grade 1
945-1015
Classroom 1
Classroom 2
Classroom 3
Grade 2
1030-1100
Classroom 1
Classroom 2
Classroom 3
Grade 3
1230-100
Classroom 1
Classroom 2
Classroom 3
Grade 4
115-145
Grade 5
Classroom 1
Classroom 2
Classroom 3
200-230
Source Burns, M. K., Gibbons, K. A. (2008).
Implementing response-to-intervention in
elementary and secondary schools Procedures to
assure scientific-based practices. New York
Routledge.
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Level Tier 2 RTI Services Programming

• Tier 2 intervention programs may be group-based
  or computer-administered.
• A good source for possible Tier 2 intervention
  programs is the What Works Clearinghouse
  athttp//ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/

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Tier II Resources Maintain Flexibility by
Assigning to Grade Levels

• If there are personnel resources available to
  support classroom RTI (e.g., paraprofessional
  time, push-in support available from a reading
  teacher), those resources should be allocated to
  the grade level, not to individual classrooms.
  This permits greater flexibility in moving
  resources around to target shifting student needs.

Source Burns, M. K., Gibbons, K. A. (2008).
Implementing response-to-intervention in
elementary and secondary schools Procedures to
assure scientific-based practices. New York
Routledge.
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Tier 3 RTI Teams Following a Structured
Problem-Solving Model Jim Wrightwww.interventio
ncentral.org
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Tier 3 Interventions Are Developed With
Assistance from the Schools RTI
(Problem-Solving) Team

• Effective RTI Teams
• Are multi-disciplinary and include classroom
  teachers among their members
• Follow a structured problem-solving model
• Use data to analyze the academic problem and
  match the student to effective, evidence-based
  interventions
• Develop a detailed research-based intervention
  plan to help staff with implementation
• Check up on the teachers success in carrying out
  the intervention (intervention integrity)

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The Problem-Solving Model Multi-Disciplinary
Teams

• A school consultative process (the
  problem-solving model) with roots in applied
  behavior analysis was developed (e.g., Bergan,
  1995) that includes 4 steps
• Problem Identification
• Problem Analysis
• Plan Implementation
• Problem Evaluation
• Originally designed for individual consultation
  with teachers, the problem-solving model was
  later adapted in various forms to
  multi-disciplinary team settings.

Source Bergan, J. R. (1995). Evolution of a
problem-solving model of consultation. Journal of
Educational and Psychological Consultation, 6(2),
111-123.
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Team Roles

• Coordinator
• Facilitator
• Recorder
• Time Keeper
• Case Manager

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RTI Team Consultative Process

• Step 1 Assess Teacher Concerns 5 Mins
• Step 2 Inventory Student Strengths/Talents 5
  Mins
• Step 3 Review Background/Baseline Data 5 Mins
• Step 4 Select Target Teacher Concerns 5-10 Mins
• Step 5 Set Academic and/or Behavioral Outcome
  Goals and Methods for Progress-Monitoring 5 Mins
• Step 6 Design an Intervention Plan 15-20 Mins
• Step 7 Plan How to Share Meeting Information
  with the Students Parent(s) 5 Mins
• Step 8 Review Intervention Monitoring Plans 5
  Mins

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RTI Teams Improving Problem-Solving Through
Effective Case Management
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Case Manager Role

• Meets with the referring teacher(s) briefly prior
  to the initial RTI Team meeting to review the
  teacher referral form, clarify teacher concerns,
  decide what additional data should be collected
  on the student.
• Touches base briefly with the referring
  teacher(s) after the RTI Team meeting to check
  that the intervention plan is running smoothly.

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Case Manager Pre-Meeting

• Prior to an initial RTI Problem-Solving Team
  meeting, it is recommended that a case manager
  from the RTI Team schedule a brief (15-20 minute)
  pre-meeting with the referring teacher. The
  purpose of this pre-meeting is for the case
  manager to share with the teacher the purpose of
  the upcoming full RTI Team meeting, to clarify
  student referral concerns, and to decide what
  data should be collected and brought to the RTI
  Team meeting.

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Case Manager Pre-Meeting Steps

• Here is a recommended agenda for the case
  manager-teacher pre-meeting
• Explain the purpose of the upcoming RTI
  Problem-Solving Team meeting The case manager
  explains that the RTI Team meeting goals are to
  (a) fully understand the nature of the students
  academic and/or behavioral problems (b) develop
  an evidence-based intervention plan for the
  student and (c) set a goal for student
  improvement and select means to monitor the
  students response to the intervention plan.

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Case Manager Pre-Meeting Steps

1. Define the student referral concern(s) in clear,
   specific terms. The case manager reviews with the
   teacher the most important student referral
   concern(s), helping the teacher to define those
   concern(s) in clear, specific, observable terms.
   The teacher is also prompted to prioritize his or
   her top 1-2 student concerns.

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Case Manager Pre-Meeting Steps

1. Decide what data should be brought to the RTI
   Team meeting. The case manager and teacher decide
   what student data should be collected and brought
   to the RTI Team meeting to provide insight into
   the nature of the students presenting
   concern(s).

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Case Manager Pre-Meeting Steps
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Team Activity Defining the RTI Team Pre-Meeting

• At your table
• Discuss how your school can structure the
  pre-meeting in which the case manager and
  teacher meet to clarify the teachers referral
  concern(s) and to decide what data to bring to
  the actual RTI Team meeting.
• Brainstorm ideas for finding the time for such
  pre-meetings.

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Connecting the Tiers
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Tier 1 Grade-Level Team or Consultant

• Who consults on the student case?
• Choice A The teacher brings the student to a
  grade-level meeting to develop an intervention
  plan, check up on the plan in 4-8 weeks.
• Choice B The teacher sits down with a consultant
  (selected from a roster or assigned to the
  classroom or grade level). Together, consultant
  and teacher develop an intervention, check up on
  the plan in 4-8 weeks.

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Tier 1 Grade-Level Team or Consultant

• What is the next step if the student is a
  non-responder?
• Choice A The student case is referred to a
  single clearinghouse person in the school
  (e.g., reading teacher, school psychologist,
  assistant principal) who can review the case and
  match the student to any appropriate Tier 2
  services if available. If the student case is
  unique, it may be referred directly to the Tier 3
  Problem-Solving Team.
• Choice B Preferred The student case is
  referred to the school or grade-level Tier 2 Data
  Team. The Team places the student into
  appropriate Tier 2 services if availableor may
  decide to refer directly to the Tier 3
  Problem-Solving Team.

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Tier 2 Data Team

• Who makes up the Data Team and what is its
  purpose?
• The Data Team is a school-wide or grade-specific
  team that typically includes classroom teachers,
  a school administrator, and perhaps other
  participants.
• The Data Team reviews school-wide screening data
  (e.g., DIBELS NEXT, AimsWeb) three times per year
  to determine which students are at risk and
  require supplemental (Tier 2) intervention.
• The Team continues to meet (e.g., monthly) to
  review student progress and to move students out
  of, into or across Tier 2 groups depending on
  progress and classroom performance.

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Tier 2 Data Team

• Who makes up the Data Team and what is its
  purpose? (Cont)
• The Data Team can also take Tier 1 (classroom)
  referrals for struggling students who were not
  picked up in the academic screening(s) but are
  showing serious academic difficulties.

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Tier 2 Data Team

• What is the next step if the student is a
  non-responder?
• The Data Team refers the student to the Tier 3
  RTI Problem-Solving Team if the student fails to
  make acceptable progress during at least one
  intervention trial.

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Tier 3 RTI Problem-Solving Team

• How does a referral come in to the
  Problem-Solving Team?
• Referral route A The Tier 2 Data Team meets
  periodically to review student progress. If a
  student is found not to be making expected
  progress, he or she can then be referred on to
  the RTI Team.
• Referral route B If the school lacks a standard
  treatment Tier 2 intervention for a student
  concern (e.g., behavior, math), the student may
  be referred directly from Tier 1 to Tier 3 via a
  teacher referral.

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Tier 3 RTI Problem-Solving Team

• Who consults on the student case?
• The RTI Problem-Solving Team is a
  multi-disciplinary team that consults with the
  teacher at the RTI Team Meeting.
• The school may also want to have other staff
  (e.g., school nurse, math title teacher)
  available to attend RTI Team meetings on an
  as-needed basis for specific student cases.

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Tier 3 RTI Problem-Solving Team

• What is the next step if the student is a
  non-responder?
• The school district should adopt uniform
  decision rules that indicate when a student
  should be referred on to the Special Education
  Eligibility Team. Example A district decided
  that across Tiers 2 and 3a student should go
  through at least 3 separate interventions of 6-8
  instructional weeks each before that student
  could be designated a non-responder and
  referred to Special Education.

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RTI Intervention Key Concepts
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Core Instruction, Interventions, Accommodations
Modifications Sorting Them Out

• Core Instruction. Those instructional strategies
  that are used routinely with all students in a
  general-education setting are considered core
  instruction. High-quality instruction is
  essential and forms the foundation of RTI
  academic support. NOTE While it is important to
  verify that good core instructional practices are
  in place for a struggling student, those routine
  practices do not count as individual student
  interventions.

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Core Instruction, Interventions, Accommodations
Modifications Sorting Them Out

• Intervention. 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 can be thought of as a set of
  actions that, when taken, have demonstrated
  ability to change a fixed educational trajectory
  (Methe Riley-Tillman, 2008 p. 37).

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Core Instruction, Interventions, Accommodations
Modifications Sorting Them Out

• Accommodation. An accommodation is intended to
  help the student to fully access and participate
  in the general-education curriculum without
  changing the instructional content and without
  reducing the students rate of learning (Skinner,
  Pappas Davis, 2005). An accommodation is
  intended to remove barriers to learning while
  still expecting that students will master the
  same instructional content as their typical
  peers.
• Accommodation example 1 Students are allowed to
  supplement silent reading of a novel by listening
  to the book on tape.
• Accommodation example 2 For unmotivated
  students, the instructor breaks larger
  assignments into smaller chunks and providing
  students with performance feedback and praise for
  each completed chunk of assigned work (Skinner,
  Pappas Davis, 2005).

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Teaching is giving it isnt taking away.
(Howell, Hosp Kurns, 2008 p. 356).


Source Howell, K. W., Hosp, J. L., Kurns, S.
(2008). Best practices in curriculum-based
evaluation. In A. Thomas J. Grimes (Eds.), Best
practices in school psychology V (pp.349-362).
Bethesda, MD National Association of School
Psychologists..
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Core Instruction, Interventions, Accommodations
Modifications Sorting Them Out

• Modification. A modification changes the
  expectations of what a student is expected to
  know or dotypically by lowering the academic
  standards against which the student is to be
  evaluated. Examples of modifications
• Giving a student five math computation problems
  for practice instead of the 20 problems assigned
  to the rest of the class
• Letting the student consult course notes during a
  test when peers are not permitted to do so

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Ideas to Build Teacher Understanding and Support
for RTI p. 11
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Offer RTI information to teachers in a series of
short presentations or discussion forums

• A common mistake that schools make in rolling out
  RTI is to present their teachers with RTI
  information in a single, long presentationwith
  little opportunity for questions or discussion.
  Instead, schools should plan a series of RTI
  information-sharing sessions with teachers
  throughout the school year. Any large-group RTI
  training sessions (e.g., at faculty meetings)
  should be kept short, to ensure that the audience
  is not overwhelmed with large volumes of
  information. Consider using smaller instructional
  team or department meetings as a vehicle for
  follow-up presentations, discussion, and teacher
  questions about RTI.

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Offer RTI information to teachers in a series of
short presentations or discussion forums

• ACTION STEP Create a year-long RTI
  information-sharing plan. Determine what RTI
  information your school would like to present to
  staff, as well as the degree of faculty input and
  discussion needed. Then draft a year-long plan to
  communicate with staff about RTI. Each year,
  update the plan to keep faculty updated about
  implementation of the RTI model.

81
Present RTI as a coordinated, schoolwide approach
to address long-standing teacher concerns about
struggling students

• Schools should consider framing RTI as a broad,
  schoolwide solution to help teachers to better
  instruct, motivate, and manage the behaviors of
  struggling learners. Teachers want fewer class
  disruptions, more uninterrupted instructional
  time, higher performing students, targeted
  supplemental academic help for students who need
  it, and better communication among educators
  about the needs of all students. As schools make
  the case for RTI, they should demonstrate how it
  will help teachers to manage the day-to-day
  challenges that they face in their classrooms.

82
Present RTI as a coordinated, schoolwide approach
to address long-standing teacher concerns about
struggling students

• ACTION STEP Get feedback from teachers about
  their classroom concerns. Find opportunities to
  engage teachers in productive discussions about
  what they see as the greatest challenges facing
  them as instructors. Note the teacher concerns
  that surface most often. For each teacher
  concern, generate ideas for how an RTI model in
  your school might help teachers with that issue.
  Craft these ideas for instructor support into
  talking points and include them in your
  schools RTI presentations.

83
Solicit teacher input when building your schools
RTI model

• Teachers are a valuable resource that schools
  should tap when implementing RTI. When schools
  solicit teacher questions about RTI, include
  teachers on planning teams to help to develop the
  RTI process, and treat teacher objections or
  concerns about RTI as helpful feedback rather
  than stubborn resistance, those schools send the
  message that teachers are full partners in the
  RTI planning process.

84
Solicit teacher input when building your schools
RTI model

• ACTION STEP Include teachers on the RTI
  Leadership Team. One of the best ways to ensure
  that teachers have input into the RTI development
  process is to include teacher representatives on
  the RTI Leadership Team, the group that oversees
  the districts implementation of RTI.

85
Link all significant school and district
initiatives to RTI

• RTI is a comprehensive, proactive model to
  identify and assist struggling students. Yet
  teachers may erroneously perceive RTI as just
  another program that is likely to last for only
  a short time and then disappear. Any RTI training
  for staff should make the point that RTI is not a
  single-self contained program but is actually an
  all-inclusive and flexible framework for student
  support that encompasses all existing student
  support programs and strategies.

86
Link all significant school and district
initiatives to RTI

• ACTION STEP Organized all school programs under
  the RTI framework. Schools should present RTI as
  an elastic multi-tier problem-solving framework.
  First, the school lists all of its significant
  current programs or initiatives intended to
  assess or intervene with students with academic
  or behavioral needs. The school then assigns each
  of the programs or initiatives to Tier 1, 2, or 3
  in the RTI framework. The message for staff is
  that, while specific programs may come and go,
  the overarching RTI model is both adaptable and
  durable--and that much of the power of RTI rests
  on its potential to integrate a series of
  isolated programs into a larger unified and
  coordinated continuum of student support.

87
RTI Next Steps Planning Activity

• Element 1 Build Classroom Teacher Understanding
  Support for RTI p.36
• Element 2 Create Teacher Capacity to Deliver
  Effective Classroom (Tier 1) Interventions p.38
• Element 3 Inventory Evidence-Based Supplemental
  Intervention Programs Available at Tiers 2 3
  p.40
• Element 4 Establish an RTI Problem Solving Team
  at Tier 3 p.43
• Element 5 Select Measures for Universal
  Screening and Progress Monitoring to Evaluate
  Student Response to Intervention p.45

• At your tables
• Select one of the key RTI tasks listed to the
  right..
• Discuss the steps needed to accomplish the task.
• Write down those steps on the RTI Goals Planning
  Sheet included in your packet.
• Be prepared to report out.