| RTI Practices | Caveats and Concerns | School Examples |
Blue Ball Elementary School has an enrollment of 393 students in kindergarten through sixth grade, with two classes for each grade. Of the total student population, 21 percent receive free or reduced lunch, 26 students are served in special education, and eight students are English language learners. Blue Ball Elementary's responsiveness-to-intervention model uses the following structure: Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, and special education.
Within Tier 1, kindergartners are assessed three times. Assessments used include Curriculum Based Measurement-math, DIBELS (reading), letter identification, Concepts About Print, and a fall writing sample. In first grade (Tier 1), assessment data is gathered three times from DIBELS, text level reading, fall writing sample, and four AIMSWeb measures: oral counting, number identification, missing numbers, and quantity discrimination. Second-grade students take the following assessments three times during the year: DIBELS, Degrees of Reading Power (DRP), fall writing sample, and Monitoring Basic Skills Progress in math skills and computation. Assessments for students in Tier 1, grades three through six, are the same, occur three times per year, and consist of DIBELS, 4Sight Reading and Math assessment, Degrees of Reading Power, fall writing sample, and Monitoring Basic Skills Progress in math skills and computation.
Assessment data for Tier 2 are collected more frequently than for Tier 1 - either weekly (for students needing and receiving intensive support) or monthly (for students needing and receiving strategic, or supplemental, support). Kindergarten measures are DIBELS, letter identification, Concepts About Print, and fall writing sample. Tier 2 assessments for grades one through six are the same as those for Tier 1, but they, as for the other assessments in Tier 2, occur either weekly or monthly rather than just three times per year.
Tier 3 kindergarten assessments occur weekly and consist of DIBELS and four AIMSWeb measures: oral counting, number identification, missing numbers, and quantity discrimination. Tier 3 measures for grades one through six also occur weekly and consist of four AIMSWeb assessments: oral reading fluency (ORF), MAZE, math, and written expression.
Kindergarten through sixth-grade students in the special education tier are assessed with CORE Phonics and Phonological Segmentation twice a year, reading comprehension oral retell once a month, and Precision Teaching daily. In addition, kindergartners in special education are assessed with five AIMSWeb measures: written expression, oral counting, number identification, missing numbers, and quantity discrimination. Additional measures for students in grades one through six are four AIMSWeb assessments: oral reading fluency, MAZE, math, and written expression.
All screening data are reviewed in late September or early October at grade-level team meetings. Students are identified as "advanced/benchmark," "strategic," or "intensive" in reading and math. Students identified as strategic or intensive are those students whose scores on screening measures fall below the 25th percentile. Strategic and intensive students move to Tier 2 instructional groupings (small groups), and the grade-level teachers develop an intervention plan to address their needs. The progress of strategic students is monitored every month; the progress of intensive students is monitored every week. Intensive students whose progress remains on or above the aim line remain at the Tier 2 level. Intensive students whose progress falls below the aim line (student trend line is below the goal line) are moved to Tier 3, where they will receive Tier 3 interventions. After five weeks, students' progress monitoring graphs are reviewed to determine whether interventions or group structure need to be refined.
Students at all grades may remain at the Tier 2 level until they achieve proficiency on progress monitoring measures or if their progress remains below the aim line for five weeks. Students move from Tier 2 back to Tier 1 if they score in the proficient range on progress monitoring measures. A student leaves Tier 2 and moves to Tier 3 when fall screening data indicate partial proficiency on all measures of a skill area, i.e., all reading measures or all math measures, or when progress monitoring data remain below the aim line for five weeks.
For all grade levels, Tier 3 interventions continue for 10 to 20 weeks. If, after 10 weeks, a student receiving Tier 3 interventions achieves the target intervention goal, he or she will move to Tier 2. Students move back to Tier 1 upon achieving proficiency on Tier 2 progress monitoring measures. If, after 10 to 20 weeks of Tier 3 intervention, a student's progress trend line continues to fall below the goal line or if a positive response requires an intensity of resources not available in general education, parent permission is sought to consider the student for special education services.
Students receive special education services until they are able to achieve the individualized criteria established in the IEP.
Funding for NRCLD is provided by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special
Education Programs. Award No. H324U010004. Opinions expressed herein are those of the National
Research Center on Learning Disabilities and do not necessarily represent the position of the U.S.
Department of Education.
© 2007 National Research Center on Learning Disabilities
Last Updated: November 19, 2007
Contact: nrcld@ku.edu