Response to Intervention RTI: Research-Based Interventions for Reading, Math, and Writing Jim Wright

Response to Intervention

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RTI: Research-Based Interventions for Reading, Math, and Writing Jim Wrightwww.interventioncentral.org



RIT Academic Interventions: Workshop Agenda

RTI Interventions: Introduction

Writing Interventions

Reading Interventions

Math Interventions

Web Resources to Support RTI Interventions


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Big Ideas: Student Social & Academic Behaviors Are Strongly Influenced by the Instructional Setting

(Lentz & Shapiro, 1986)

• Students with learning problems do not exist in isolation. Rather, their instructional environment plays an enormously important role in these students’ eventual success or failure

Source: Lentz, F. E. & Shapiro, E. S. (1986). Functional assessment of the academic environment. School Psychology Review, 15, 346-57.



Big Ideas: Learn Unit (Heward, 1996)

The three essential elements of effective student learning include:1. Academic Opportunity to Respond. The student is presented with

a meaningful opportunity to respond to an academic task. A question posed by the teacher, a math word problem, and a spelling item on an educational computer ‘Word Gobbler’ game could all be considered academic opportunities to respond.

2. Active Student Response. The student answers the item, solves the problem presented, or completes the academic task. Answering the teacher’s question, computing the answer to a math word problem (and showing all work), and typing in the correct spelling of an item when playing an educational computer game are all examples of active student responding.

3. Performance Feedback. The student receives timely feedback about whether his or her response is correct—often with praise and encouragement. A teacher exclaiming ‘Right! Good job!’ when a student gives an response in class, a student using an answer key to check her answer to a math word problem, and a computer message that says ‘Congratulations! You get 2 points for correctly spelling this word!” are all examples of performance feedback.

Source: Heward, W.L. (1996). Three low-tech strategies for increasing the frequency of active student response during group instruction. In R. Gardner, D. M.S ainato, J. O. Cooper, T. E. Heron, W. L. Heward, J. W. Eshleman,& T. A. Grossi (Eds.), Behavior analysis in education: Focus on measurably superior instruction (pp.283-320). Pacific Grove, CA:Brooks/Cole.



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.





Big Ideas: Similar Behaviors May Stem from Very Different ‘Root’ Causes

(Kratochwill, Elliott, & Carrington Rotto, 1990)

• Behavior is not random but follows purposeful patterns.

Students who present with the same apparent ‘surface’ behaviors may have very different ‘drivers’ (underlying reasons) that explain why those behaviors occur.

A student’s problem behaviors must be carefully identified and analyzed to determine the drivers that support them.

Source: Kratochwill, T. R., Elliott, S. N., & Carrington Rotto, P. (1990). Best practices in behavioral consultation. In A. Thomas and J. Grimes (Eds.). Best practices in school psychology-II (pp. 147=169). Silver Spring, MD: National Association of School Psychologists..



Common ‘Root Causes’ or ‘Drivers’ for Behaviors Include…

• Social attention (adult or peer)• Escape or avoidance• Access to tangibles or rewards or privileges

(‘pay-offs’)• [Inattention or impulsivity]



• Individuals are always performing SOME type of behavior: watching the instructor, sleeping, talking to a neighbor, completing a worksheet (‘behavior stream’).

• When students are fully engaged in academic behaviors, they are less likely to get off-task and display problem behaviors.

• Academic tasks that are clearly understood, elicit student interest, provide a high rate of student success, and include teacher encouragement and feedback are most likely to effectively ‘capture’ the student’s ‘behavior stream’.

Big Ideas: Behavior is a Continuous ‘Stream’ (Schoenfeld & Farmer, 1970)

Source: Schoenfeld, W. N., & Farmer, J. (1970). Reinforcement schedules and the ‘‘behavior stream.’’ In W. N. Schoenfeld (Ed.), The theory of reinforcement schedules (pp. 215–245). New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.



Student academic problems cause many school behavior problems.

“Whether [a student’s] problem is a behavior problem or an academic one, we recommend starting with a functional academic assessment, since often behavior problems occur when students cannot or will not do required academic work.”

Big Ideas: Academic Delays Can Be a Potent Cause of Behavior

Problems (Witt, Daly, & Noell, 2000)

Source: Witt, J. C., Daly, E. M., & Moell, G. (2000). Functional assessments: A step-by-step guide to solving academic and behavior problems. Longmont, CO: Sopris West, p. 13



Interventions, Accommodations & Modifications: Sorting Them Out

• Interventions. 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 is said to be research-based when it has been demonstrated to be effective in one or more articles published in peer–reviewed scientific journals. Interventions might be based on commercial programs such as Read Naturally. The school may also develop and implement an intervention that is based on guidelines provided in research articles—such as Paired Reading (Topping, 1987).




• Accommodations. An accommodation is intended to help the student to fully access the general-education curriculum without changing the instructional content. An accommodation for students who are slow readers, for example, may include having them supplement their silent reading of a novel by listening to the book on tape.

An accommodation is intended to remove barriers to learning while still expecting that students will master the same instructional content as their typical peers. Informal accommodations may be used at the classroom level or be incorporated into a more intensive, individualized intervention plan.




• Modifications. A modification changes the expectations of what a student is expected to know or do—typically by lowering the academic expectations against which the student is to be evaluated.

Examples of modifications are reducing the number of multiple-choice items in a test from five to four or shortening a spelling list. Under RTI, modifications are generally not included in a student’s intervention plan, because the working assumption is that the student can be successful in the curriculum with appropriate interventions and accommodations alone.



Essential Elements of Any Academic or Behavioral Intervention (‘Treatment’) Strategy:

• Method of delivery (‘Who or what delivers the treatment?’)Examples include teachers, paraprofessionals, parents, volunteers, computers.

• Treatment component (‘What makes the intervention effective?’)Examples include activation of prior knowledge to help the student to make meaningful connections between ‘known’ and new material; guide practice (e.g., Paired Reading) to increase reading fluency; periodic review of material to aid student retention. As an example of a research-based commercial program, Read Naturally ‘combines teacher modeling, repeated reading and progress monitoring to remediate fluency problems’.



Scheduling & Managing a Schoolwide RTI Literacy Model



RTI ‘Pyramid of Interventions’

Tier 1

Tier 2

Tier 3

Tier 1: Universal interventions. Available to all students in a classroom or school. Can consist of whole-group or individual strategies or supports.

Tier 2: Individualized interventions. Subset of students receive interventions targeting specific needs.

Tier 3: Intensive interventions. Students who are ‘non-responders’ to Tiers I & II may be eligible for special education services, intensive interventions.



Tier I Instruction/InterventionsTier I instruction/interventions:

• Are universal—available to all students.• Can be delivered within classrooms or throughout the school. • Are likely to be put into place by the teacher at the first sign that a student is struggling.

All children have access to Tier 1 instruction/interventions. Teachers have the capability to use those strategies without requiring outside assistance.

Tier 1 instruction/interventions encompass:

• The school’s core curriculum and all published or teacher-made materials used to deliver that curriculum.

• Teacher use of ‘whole-group’ teaching & management strategies.• Teacher use of individualized strategies with specific students.

Tier I instruction/interventions attempt to answer the question: Are routine classroom instructional strategies sufficient to help the student to achieve academic success?



Building Tier 1 Capacity in the Teaching of Reading: Example of Differentiating Instruction

In grades K-3, teachers can differentiate instruction for children during the block of ‘core literacy instruction’ through flexible small-group instruction.

• Reading centers are set up in the classroom, at which students might work in groups, in pairs, or individually.

• These centers might be designed for students to access independently or to be teacher-led.

• Group sizes can range from 3-5 for ‘struggling students’ up to 5-7 for those students who are on grade level.

Source: Kosanovich, M., Ladinsky, K., Nelson, L., & Torgesen, J. (n.d.). Differentiated reading instruction: Small group alternative lesson structures for all students. Florida Center for Reading Research. Retrieved on November 5, 2008, from http://www.fcrr.org/assessment/pdf/smallGroupAlternativeLessonStructures.pdf



Building Tier 1 Capacity in the Teaching of Reading: Example of Differentiating Instruction (Cont.)

Reading center activities can include guided reading and skills-focused lessons.

• ‘Guided reading’ activities provide more general reading instruction. The teacher guides a group discussion of the text (e.g., selection of the text, introducing the text to students, talking about the content of the text, providing instruction in ‘strategic strategies’ to better access the text, etc.).

• ‘Skills-focused’ lessons provide specific, focused instruction and practice in crucial reading skills (e.g., letter-sound correspondence, phoneme segmentation). Students with similar reading deficits are placed in specific skills-focused groups to allow targeted interventions.




Building Tier 1 Capacity in the Teaching of Reading: Example of Differentiating Instruction (Cont.)

The teacher determines the composition and instructional activities to be used in reading centers via ongoing reading assessment information (e.g., DIBELS progress-monitoring data, classroom observations, etc.).

• The teacher creates a master ‘reading center’ schedule ( a series of teacher-led and independent reading centers to accommodate all students in the classroom).

• Recruitment for reading centers is flexible: Children are assigned to specific reading centers based on their reading profile. Those center assignments are regularly updated based on classroom reading assessment data.




Documenting Tier 1 InterventionsTeachers can conveniently document their Tier 1 (classroom) intervention and progress-monitoring by using the Tier 1 Intervention Planner form (next slide). The Tier 1 Intervention Planner is most useful when it is filled in as part of a conversation with other educators about effective intervention ideas. For example:

• The teacher can bring the student up for discussion in a planning meeting with other teachers from the same grade level. Together, those instructors can brainstorm intervention strategies that the classroom teacher can try with the student.

• The teacher may have a list of consultants (e.g., reading specialist, school psychologist, special education teacher, school administrator) with whom that teacher is welcome to meet with to generate additional evidence-based classroom intervention strategies.






Tier 1

Tier 2

Tier 3






Tier 2: Supplemental (Group-Based) Interventions

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 4-6 students.

Students placed in Tier 2 interventions should have a shared profile of intervention need.

The reading 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.



Group-Based Tier II 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 6 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.



Tier 2: Exploring Use of Non-Instructional Personnel

To expand their intervention capacity, schools may want to explore using people other than teachers to assist with some RTI interventions, including:

– peer or older student tutors– adult volunteers– graduate students– paraprofessionalsOf course, any person serving as a tutor would need to be trained appropriately and their tutoring activities overseen by a certified educator. (Burns & Gibbons, 2008).




Tier 2 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.



Scheduling Elementary Tier 2 Interventions


Classroom 1 Classroom 2 Classroom 3Grade K

Classroom 1 Classroom 2 Classroom 3Grade 1





Anyplace Elementary School: 9:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.

Option 1: Independent Scheduling. Teachers independently schedule their own Tier 2 intervention time. An advantage is flexibility. A disadvantage is that scheduling outside providers to assist is difficult.











Anyplace Elementary School: 9:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.

Option 2: Schoolwide Shared Schedule. All teachers run Tier 2 interventions at the same time each day. An advantage is the ability to group students across classrooms and grades. A disadvantage is that outside providers cannot provide support to all classrooms.











Anyplace Elementary School: RTI Daily Schedule

Option 3: ‘Floating RTI’:Gradewide 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.

9:00-9:30

9:45-10:15

10:30-11:00

12:30-1:00

1:15-1:45

2:00-2:30



Secondary Students: Should Interventions Be ‘Off-Level’ or Focus on Grade-Level Academics?

There is a lack of consensus about how to address the academic needs of students with deficits in basic skills in secondary grades (Espin & Tindal, 1998).– Should the student be placed in remedial instruction at a point

of ‘instructional match’ to address those basic-skill deficits? (Instruction is adjusted down to the student)

– Or is time better spent providing the student with compensatory strategies to learn grade-level content and ‘work around’ those basic-skill deficits? (Student is brought up to current instruction)

Source: Espin, C. A., & Tindal, G. (1998). Curriculum-based measurement for secondary students. In M. R. Shinn (Ed.) Advanced applications of curriculum-based measurement. New York: Guilford Press.



K 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12Rdng Fluency

Rdng-Basic Comprehension

Subject-Area Rdng Comprehension

Remediating Academic Deficits: The Widening Curriculum Gap…

Reading Fluency

Small academic gap (elementary school). Student is only mildly off-level. The building curriculum overlaps the student’s point of ‘instructional match’.



K 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12Rdng Fluency





Reading Fluency

Widening academic gap (middle school). Student is significantly off-level. The building curriculum barely overlaps the student’s point of ‘instructional match’.



K 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12Rdng Fluency




Largest academic gap (high school). Student is significantly off-level. The building curriculum does not overlap the student’s point of ‘instructional match’ at all.




Tier 2 ‘Standard Protocol’ Treatments: Strengths & Limits in Secondary Settings

• Research indicates that students do well in targeted small-group interventions (4-6 students) when the intervention ‘treatment’ is closely matched to those students’ academic needs (Burns & Gibbons, 2008).

• However, in secondary schools:1. students are sometimes grouped for remediation by

convenience rather than by presenting need. Teachers instruct across a broad range of student skills, diluting the positive impact of the intervention.

2. students often present with a unique profile of concerns that does not lend itself to placement in a group intervention.




Caution About Secondary Tier 2 Standard-Protocol Interventions: Avoid the ‘Homework Help’ Trap

• Tier 2 group-based or standard-protocol interventions are an efficient method to deliver targeted academic support to students (Burns & Gibbons, 2008).

• However, students should be matched to specific research-based interventions that address their specific needs.

• RTI intervention support in secondary schools should not take the form of unfocused ‘homework help’.




Tier 1

Tier 2

Tier 3






Tier 3: Intensive Individualized Interventions

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. 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.




Tier 3 Interventions Are Developed With Assistance from the School’s 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 teacher’s success in carrying out the

intervention (‘intervention integrity’)



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 EvaluationOriginally 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.



Tier 3 Targets: Intervention, Curriculum, and Environment

“For [a tier 3] intervention to be effective and robust, it must focus on the specific needs of the student. It should also address the reason that the student is experiencing difficulty…. Rather than considering a [student] problem to be the result of inalterable student characteristics, teams are compelled to focus on change that can be made to the intervention, curriculum or environment that would result in positive student outcome. The hypothesis and intervention should focus on those variables that are alterable within the school setting. These alterable variables include learning goals and objectives (what is to be learned), materials, time, student-to-teacher ratio, activities, and motivational strategies.” p. 95




Tier 3: Scripting Interventions to Promote Better Compliance

Interventions should be written up in a ‘scripted’ format to ensure that:– Teachers have sufficient information about the

intervention to implement it correctly; and– External observers can view the teacher implementing the

intervention strategy and—using the script as a checklist—verify that each step of the intervention was implemented correctly (‘treatment integrity’).




Intervention Script Builder Form



Advancing Through RTI: Flexibility in the TiersFor purposes of efficiency, students should be placed in small-group instruction at Tier 2. In early reading instruction, this intervention option is usually simple to implement.

However, group interventions may not always be possible because –due to scheduling or other issues—no group is available. (For example, students with RTI behavioral referrals may not have a group intervention available.)

In such a case, the student will go directly to the problem-solving process (Tier 3)—typically through a referral to the school RTI Team.

Nonetheless, the school must still document the same minimum number of interventions attempted for every student in RTI, whether or not a student first received interventions in a group setting.



Increasing the Intensity of an Intervention: Key Dimensions

Interventions can move up the RTI Tiers through being intensified across several dimensions, including:

• Student-teacher ratio• Length of intervention sessions• Frequency of intervention sessions• Duration of the intervention period (e.g., extending an intervention

from 5 weeks to 10 weeks)• Type of intervention strategy or materials used• Motivation strategies


Kratochwill, T. R., Clements, M. A., & Kalymon, K. M. (2007). Response to intervention: Conceptual and methodological issues in implementation. In Jimerson, S. R., Burns, M. K., & VanDerHeyden, A. M. (Eds.), Handbook of response to intervention: The science and practice of assessment and intervention. New York: Springer.



Identifying ‘Evidence-Based’ Reading Interventions



Tier 1: What Are the Recommended Elements of ‘Core Curriculum’?: More Research Needed

“In essence, we now have a good beginning on the evaluation of Tier 2 and 3 interventions, but no idea about what it will take to get the core curriculum to work at Tier 1. A complicating issue with this potential line of research is that many schools use multiple materials as their core program.” p. 640

Source: Kovelski, J. F. (2007). Response to intervention: Considerations for research and systems change. School Psychology Review, 36, 638-646.



There is a lack of agreement about what is meant by ‘scientifically validated’ classroom (Tier I) interventions. Districts should establish a ‘vetting’ process—criteria for judging whether a particular instructional or intervention approach should be considered empirically based.

Source: Fuchs, D., & Deshler, D. D. (2007). What we need to know about responsiveness to intervention (and shouldn’t be afraid to ask).. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 22(2),129–136.

Schools Need to Review Tier 1 (Classroom) Interventions to Ensure That They Are Supported

By Research



Limitations of Intervention Research…

“…the list of evidence-based interventions is quite small relative to the need [of RTI]…. Thus, limited dissemination of interventions is likely to be a practical problem as individuals move forward in the application of RTI models in applied settings.” p. 33

Source: Kratochwill, T. R., Clements, M. A., & Kalymon, K. M. (2007). Response to intervention: Conceptual and methodological issues in implementation. In Jimerson, S. R., Burns, M. K., & VanDerHeyden, A. M. (Eds.), Handbook of response to intervention: The science and practice of assessment and intervention. New York: Springer.



RTI Interventions: What If There is No Commercial Intervention Package or Program Available?

“Although commercially prepared programs and the subsequent manuals and materials are inviting, they are not necessary. … A recent review of research suggests that interventions are research based and likely to be successful, if they are correctly targeted and provide explicit instruction in the skill, an appropriate level of challenge, sufficient opportunities to respond to and practice the skill, and immediate feedback on performance…Thus, these [elements] could be used as criteria with which to judge potential tier 2 interventions.” p. 88








Research-Based Elements of Effective Academic Interventions

• ‘Correctly targeted’: The intervention is appropriately matched to the student’s academic or behavioral needs.

• ‘Explicit instruction’: Student skills have been broken down “into manageable and deliberately sequenced steps and providing overt strategies for students to learn and practice new skills” p.1153

• ‘Appropriate level of challenge’: The student experiences adequate success with the instructional task.

• ‘High opportunity to respond’: The student actively responds at a rate frequent enough to promote effective learning.

• ‘Feedback’: The student receives prompt performance feedback about the work completed.

Source: Burns, M. K., VanDerHeyden, A. M., & Boice, C. H. (2008). Best practices in intensive academic interventions. In A. Thomas & J. Grimes (Eds.), Best practices in school psychology V (pp.1151-1162). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.



Staying Current on Intervention Research: Recommendations

• Bookmark intervention evaluation sites such as the What Works Clearinghouse (http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/) and check them periodically for updated information

• Appoint a ‘knowledge broker’ in your school for every major intervention target (e.g., reading fluency, reading comprehension, applied math concepts, acting-out behaviors). Allow that knowledge broker opportunities to stay current on intervention (and assessment) developments in their chosen intervention topic area.

• Put on the agenda for the RTI Steering Group to meet periodically to discuss intervention developments in those areas of high interest to your school. Discuss for example directions being pursued by your state education department (state standards, etc.), publication of national consensus documents (e.g., National Mathematics Advisory Panel Report of March 2008), etc.

Documents

Response to Intervention RTI: Research-Based Interventions for Reading, Math, and Writing Jim Wright