by Cheryl Abney

Created on: August 05, 2010

The acronym RtI (Response to Intervention) has been heard often the last few years as schools approached the deadline for the state mandated implementation.  You may have contacted the school regarding your child’s academic struggles and been advised about the RtI process. You were assured your child’s needs were being addressed, but may have felt confused by some of the terminology such as discrepancy model, fidelity, progress monitoring, etc. I’ll explain these in describing the process.

RtI stands for “Response to Intervention” and is an effort to improve the academic and behavior skills of all students. It is data-based decision making.  A team of professionals look at the results of providing students scientifically researched interventions (tested and proven ways to correct problem areas).  They then determine how to continue and provide the best high quality instruction for each child.

For example: 

1.  Universal screening of the entire class identifies your child as having difficulty with phonic skills when reading.

2.  A school-based RtI team, including your child’s teacher, decides what intervention will be provided in small group over the next few weeks. Possible interventions may be to review phonic concepts utilizing games and activities previously taught, or acquiring a list of words and phrases from the student’s reading material which he/she does not recognize and practice phonics using these words.

3.  Progress monitoring involves evaluating the student’s progress when provided an intervention.  If your child masters phonics, they will no longer need small group instruction.  If they are improving, small group teaching may continue with strengthened interventions.  If they’re not making progress, not responding to the intervention, your child will then receive more intensive instruction, usually provided by special education staff.

What does this have to do with having your child tested to determine if they have a learning disability? Testing to determine if a child will receive exceptional student education (ESE) services is called the “discrepancy model”.  With the federal and state required RtI model, schools do not run a full battery of tests as in the past. IDEA 2004 addresses how we determine a child’s eligibility for special education. It says that a school district should follow a documented process that provides scientific, research-based interventions.  If the intervention targets the child’s weakness and is delivered accurately (with fidelity) and progress monitored, the RtI team can identify a child as eligible for special education services when intensive interventions are necessary. 

RtI is a three tier process with each tier providing more intensive instruction. To make the process as clear and simple as possible within the confines of a brief article, I have not broken the initiative into Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3.  However, Further information may be found at http://www.florida-rti.org/RtI-Parent-Brochure.pdf.

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