RTI       Response To Intervention

Background

The reauthorization of the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 2004) changed the way students are evaluated for special services by encouraging schools to use research-based interventions to address diverse students’ needs early on.

What is RTI?

Response to Intervention (RTI) is not a particular program, curriculum, or model. Rather, it is a framework for allocating instructional services that are aligned to students’ individual needs. It aims to prevent unnecessary assignments to special education through the provision of tiers of intervention and continuous progress monitoring.

RTI includes:

Providing tiers of increasingly intensive, research-based intervention matched to students needs Measuring and continually monitoring students’ progress over time

Using resulting data to drive educational decision-making

The purpose of RTI is: 

To focus on prevention and early identification of students in need of special services

To better integrate services between the general and special education population

The Multitiered Intervention Model

RTI uses a multitiered model of service delivery to promote efficient response to students’ needs.  Each tier provides increasingly intense support structures to ensure that students succeed.

Tier 1: Core Instructional Interventions

General curricula for all students

Proactive interventions based on instructional variables within whole-group instruction

Tier 2:Targeted Group Interventions

Supplemental instruction for students who are not successful in Tier 1

Targeted interventions oriented towards small-group instruction

Explicit instruction, rapid response

Tier 3: Intensive, Individual Interventions

Individualized instruction for students who are not successful in Tier 2

Intensive interventions oriented towards individual students

Diagnostic assessments to determine student need

Higher intensity, longer duration