Content area
Full Text
Abbreviations
MTSS: Multi-tiered Systems of Support
RTI: Response to Intervention
RTI2: Response to Instruction and Intervention
Quality core instruction is the hallmark of Tier 1, whether you call it Response to Intervention (RTI), or its more comprehensive cousin, Multi-tiered Systems of Support (MTSS). California planted an early stake in the ground in 2009 by articulating an approach they called Response to Instruction and Intervention (RTI2). As with MTSS, the principal assumption in RTI2 is that all students, whether performing well above or well below expected levels, benefit first and foremost from effective teaching. The RTI2 approach is conceived as a multilayered, or tiered, system of instruction, supplemental supports, and individual intensive interventions. Tier 1 quality core instruction is the first in this system, and describes the research-based, effective classroom instruction that all students should receive. A smaller number of students need supplemental small group intervention (Tier 2), which is often delivered in the classroom to avoid disrupting Tier 1 instruction. Despite Tier 2 efforts, some of these students fail to progress, and are thus provided with Tier 3 intensive interventions, often delivered individually and in a separate setting, and with more frequent monitoring (i.e., weekly as opposed to one or two times per month). But too often school organizations offer only glancing acknowledgment of the importance of quality core instruction, instead investing human and fiscal capital in the development of Tier 2 supplemental intervention and Tier 3 intensive interventions. What often results is an unsustainable initiative that attempts to serve too many students who are actually victims of mediocre instruction rather than complex learning issues. This is a "Band-Aid" approach to fix ineffective Tier 1 instruction and is neither systematic nor data-driven (Fisher & Frey, 2010).
Most discouraging of all is that the resources that could have been used for the hardest-to-teach students are instead diluted. In other words, the instruction part of the formula is overlooked, while intervention is viewed as the way to support any student who struggles. But "struggle" is not a diagnosis (despite the proliferation of the euphemism struggling student); struggle is situational. Our task is to determine what is causing nonproductive struggle. Is it lack of instruction? Is it a lack of knowledge? Or is it a possible disability?...