CEC's RTI Blog

Levels of Interventions

By Daryl F. Mellard
Center for Research on Learning, University of Kansas

In this posting I’ll describe the conceptual organization of levels of interventions. You may have heard RTI referred to as a “tiered system of instruction,” in which each tier provides increasingly intense services to students. The results of screening and progress monitoring assessments are used to decide students’ appropriate placements among these levels, either to prevent academic or behavioral difficulties or as an intervention framework for students experiencing difficulties.

The whole point of these screening and progress monitoring assessments is to provide an objective, accurate, and reliable framework in which to make student-focused decisions about the appropriateness of the preventative efforts. We use those assessment data to decide if a student’s placement level should be maintained, increased (more intense), or reduced (less intense).

Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) Evidence as an Approach to Progress Monitoring

By Daryl F. Mellard
Center for Research on Learning, University of Kansas

In the previous posting, I emphasized that progress monitoring was critical for a successful implementation of RTI. If school staffs are not willing to specify, collect, analyze, and use their formative assessment data for informing their decisions about students’ learning and performance and about the choices of their curriculum and instructional practices, they may as well stay with horoscopes to guide their decisions.

The research literature is pretty narrow and not very deep regarding progress monitoring, but some guidance is offered. In this posting, I’ll synthesize three studies that several colleagues (Allison Layland and Barbara Parsons) and I recently described in our literature review focusing on progress monitoring. These three studies look at the application of curriculum-based measurement (CBM; Deno, 1985). CBM is one approach to progress monitoring with a long track record of successful application in elementary settings. CBM assesses different skills covered through the curriculum or intervention in a systematic way as frequently as once a week.

Progress Monitoring at the Secondary Level

By Daryl F. Mellard
Center for Research on Learning, University of Kansas

In this posting, I’ll synthesize a literature review* that several colleagues (Allison Layland and Barbara Parsons) and I recently completed that focused on progress monitoring. If a school doesn’t have an approach for formative assessment such as progress monitoring and using the results to inform instruction, RTI won’t make any sense. Progress monitoring addresses the assumption that our decisions about students’ learning and performance need to be based on objective, reliable data.

Progress monitoring is the process of assessing student responsiveness in the instructional or intervention program. Staff and school teams utilize progress-monitoring data in making decisions regarding a student’s response to the curriculum, instruction, or intervention and determining if any changes in the approach are necessary. In this framework, one can see the importance of progress monitoring as we work to improve academic and behavioral performance.

Universal Screening

By Daryl F. Mellard
Center for Research on Learning, University of Kansas

A question was posted about how one might get started with RTI at the secondary level. The possible entry points for getting started are numerous. For example, leadership is central. The leadership in the district and school will be critical. That leadership includes multiple stakeholders because most “everyone” is going to have a change in role and responsibilities as RTI gets developed, implemented, and maintained.

In this short posting, I want to emphasize the importance the screening component will have on RTI. Screening is an efficient, low-cost, repeatable test of age-appropriate essential skills given to all students in a school in order to identify students who are at risk for academic or behavior problems. To date, no research studies regarding academic screening at the secondary level have been completed; however, case studies suggest that staff use summative test scores, such as scores on state assessments, as a starting point for discussions.

Best Guesses and Remaining Challenges

By Daryl F. Mellard
Center for Research on Learning, University of Kansas

In the absence of scientific literature evaluating an overall application of RTI to the secondary school setting, we have to rely upon overall “best guesses” to envision what will effectively work for RTI in the middle and high schools. Here, I present some of these ideas as described in the literature.

Class schedule considerations
Burns and Gibbons (2008) suggest examples of the secondary level of RTI in middle and high schools, based upon whether the school follows a traditional or block schedule. In a school with a traditional scheduling of six to eight periods of 50 to 60 minutes each, Burns suggests that one period be used for remedial reading. The downside with this approach, however, is that it doesn’t allow for flexible grouping, as a student would have to remain in the remedial class for the entire semester or year due to the difficulties involved with switching classes. A second approach in a traditional setting involves the use of a content area such as social studies to deliver remedial reading. The materials used for teaching the subject matter could be used at the same time to teach reading strategies.

RTI in Secondary Schools – a Review of the Literature

By Daryl F. Mellard
Center for Research on Learning, University of Kansas

In our literature review* we focused on three key questions about RTI at the secondary level: 

1. What do we know about RTI implementation from the current research?
2. What does the current literature say about the key components of RTI?
3. What are the potential models for the secondary level?

We addressed these questions by using examples from published research, descriptive case studies and, where no research to date is available, best practices noted in the literature.

Multiple RTI models have been described in the literature but all of them share key components: effective high-quality general education instruction, universal school wide screening, progress monitoring, levels of interventions, and fidelity of implementation of the interventions (Fuchs et al., 2003; Johnson et al., 2006). An important note is that this general framework has been successfully applied to address both academic and behavior concerns.

Considerations on RTI in the Secondary Setting

By Daryl F. Mellard
Center for Research on Learning, University of Kansas

While RTI has received extensive focus in the elementary setting, little research has been completed in a middle school or high school setting. We even have extensive discussions on whether RTI makes sense for a high school setting! In this month’s blog I hope to explore with you what we know about secondary level implementation and some directions for implementation.

You might have some interest in my previous work regarding responsiveness to intervention (RTI) and how I came to offer this information. The background isn’t that exciting but does include a fair amount of work regarding RTI in both the research and applied domains.

Since 1982 I have been a research associate within the Center for Research on Learning (CRL) and I am the director of CRL’s Division of Adult Studies. Currently, I am one of the principal investigators at the national Dissemination and Technical Assistance Center on Response to Intervention (www.RTI4Success.org) and also at the National Research Center on Learning Disabilities (www.NRCLD.org). My other current projects involve improving adult literacy through interventions provided in adult education and Job Corps literacy programs.