1. student ser vices
Tiered interventions—including whole-school, small-group, and individual
interventions—are what make RTI initiatives successful.
F
ive years ago, Steven Waitz, the principal Why RTI Matters
of Maple Middle School in Northbrook, RTI is a schoolwide initiative that fits within
IL, attended a training about “flexible school reform and school improvement ef-
Note: This article is the service delivery” and was impressed with the forts. Its main objective is to help all students
second in a two-part emphasis on data-based decision making and achieve at a proficient level. RTI generally con-
series. The first part evidence-based practice. Although the training sists of three tiers of intervention. (See figure
included a general focused on elementary students, he immedi- 1.) It requires collaboration and team building
explanation of response ately saw implications for addressing the most among administrators, teachers, specialists,
to intervention (RTI), its common academic difficulty his school faced: and parents, making strong leadership from
importance to second- student homework completion. Following the the principal a key ingredient in the successful
ary school principals, training, Maple implemented a project to col- implementation of any RTI model.
and a description of the lect homework completion data for all students
components of effective and initiated a systemic homework completion Components of RTI
RTI programs. intervention. The most important component Although RTI can be applied to various aca-
of these efforts was establishing a process to demic subjects and behavioral concerns, as ex-
identify the students who needed additional plained in the February 2008 Student Services
support. Over time, Waitz and his faculty ex- column, the following discussion illustrates
panded the project beyond homework comple- the use of RTI processes to improve the literacy
tion and developed a multitiered system of skills of middle level and high school students
service delivery that includes universal screening who are not meeting grade-level standards.
and benchmark assessments to identify students
who are in need of assistance and implement-
ing appropriate interventions for small groups Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) is by far
of students. When the term response to interven- the most commonly used assessment model in
tion (RTI) became widely used, staff members at RTI. CBM of literacy skills essentially involves
Maple realized that it applied to what they were having a student read three 1-minute probes
doing. aloud while an examiner records the correct and
Perhaps the most significant outcome of incorrect responses. The number of words read
Matthew K. Burns is an Maple’s RTI efforts is that all the students at correctly per minute can serve as screening data
associate professor of Maple can now be successfully held to the high to identify students in need of more intense
school psychology and expectations of the community. Moreover, intervention (benchmark assessment in tier I)
program coordinator
at the University of at the middle level, the curriculum is mostly and to monitor the progress of student learning
Minnesota. literacy-based rather than reading-based, and (tiers II and III). National norms through grade
teachers can intervene with students who do 8 are available online for free at www.readnatu-
Student Services is not have sufficient reading skills for success rally.com/howto/whoneeds.htm. Oral reading
produced in collaboration
as well as reduce the number of students who fluency is closely linked to general reading
with the National
Association of School require special education services. RTI is, ac- outcomes in elementary grades, but it becomes
Psychologists (NASP). cording to Waitz, a shift in focus from what a poorer indicator of general reading skills after
Articles and related educators cannot do to help students to what about grade 6. Therefore, middle level and high
handouts can be
downloaded from www educators can do, and his students have ben- schools should consider a number of measures
.naspcenter.org/principals. efited from the change. at the various tiers.
Copyright National Association of Secondary School Principals, the preeminent organization for middle level
12 PRINCIPAL Leadership MARCH 2008 and high school leadership. For information on NASSP products and services, visit www.principals.org.

2. Indicators That RTI May Help Your School
The school did not make AYP.
The student population in your building has high needs (e.g., a high-poverty
environment).
More than 2% of your student population is referred for an initial consideration
of special education eligibility.
Although benchmark assessments through
grade 8 should probably incorporate a CBM Fewer than 90% of students in your building who are referred for special educa-
of oral reading fluency, the maze procedure is tion are found eligible.
probably the best indicator beginning in grade Students from minority groups are overrepresented in your special education
7 or 8. The maze procedure involves having programs.
the students silently read a passage with every
fifth or seventh word deleted. In place of the
deleted word are three choices from which the
student circles the word that best fits the sen-
tence. Although group tests can be somewhat Figure 1.
helpful for screening, progress monitoring data
Activities Associated With the Three-Tiered
are important for tiers II and III, and group
RTI Model
tests cannot measure progress. As of today,
maze and CBM appear to be the most effective
approaches. STUDENT
In addition to CBM of oral reading fluency POPULATION DESCRIPTION ASSESSMENT DATA
and maze, state accountability test results and
Tier I All Students Universal: quality Benchmark assessments
data from other group tests should be con-
research-based conducted at least three
sidered as part of a secondary school’s bench-
core curriculum and times per year
mark assessment, as should such important instruction
behavioral indicators as attendance, discipline
referrals or suspensions, and measures of
Tier II Approximately Targeted: small- Frequent measurement
school climate for the individual student (e.g., 15% group (three to of the skill deficit and
Comprehensive Assessment of School Environments six students) at least twice-monthly
by NASSP, 1987). interventions progress monitoring of
Three times each year, a data management delivered as part of general outcome skill
team should examine CBM of oral reading general education for
fluency and maze data, students’ results on the 30 minutes each day
most recent accountability test, and other data in addition to core
to decide which students require more inten- reading instruction
sive interventions than what is provided in the
core curriculum. Tier III Approximately Intensive: At least weekly progress
5% individualized monitoring and frequent
interventions that are informal classroom-based
Although many people think of individualized based on problem- assessments
solving models;
interventions as the crux of RTI, it is the more
could include special
standardized interventions used in tier II that
education services
directly determine the success of the model.
The hallmark of tier II is small-group interven-
tions. Students receive interventions on the ba- Source: Burns, M. K., & Coolong-Chaffin, M. (2006). Response-to-intervention: Role for and
sis of their needs with a standardized approach effect on school psychology. School Psychology Forum, 1(1), 3–15.
MARCH 2008 PRINCIPAL Leadership 13

3. student ser vices
to interventions. For example, students who II, problem solving tends to focus on iden-
RTI Resources
lacked phonic skills might all participate in tifying specific deficits (e.g., fluency versus
the Rewards program by Archer, Gleason, and comprehension), but sometimes more-intense
ASSESSMENT
Vachon (2005) and those with reading fluency interventions are needed for students who are
Research Institute on
deficits might participate in Read Naturally by not successful with the remedial efforts. In
Progress Monitoring
Hasbrouck, Ihnot, and Rogers (1999). those cases, a more in-depth problem analysis
www.progressmonitoring
Tier II interventions at the secondary level is used to identify individualized interventions.
.net
are often implemented in specially designed This usually involves a collaborative effort to
Edcheckup courses, but how those courses function de- identify the current level of performance, the
www.edcheckup.com pends on the characteristics of the individual desired level of performance, and variables
AIMSweb school. Schools that use a 50-minute (or one- that prevent the student from obtaining that
www.aimsweb.com hour) course block could provide a course in desired level. At the secondary level, this typi-
remedial reading instruction for students who cally involves a team of teachers from various
National Center on Student
are struggling readers in addition to regular disciplines and instructional or intervention
Progress Monitoring
literacy instruction. A common model used in specialists. The actual team membership will
www.studentprogress.org
high schools is to schedule the remedial course change depending on the student and the
Dynamic Indicators of simultaneously with a content area, such as so- problem, but a few core team members are
Basic Early Literacy Skills cial studies, and use the social studies curricu- needed, such as a remedial teacher, a school
http://dibels.uoregon.edu lum as the instructional material. For example, psychologist, and a content-area teacher.
25 minutes might be dedicated to content-area
INTERVENTION instruction and 25 minutes to comprehension Outcomes
PALS or decoding strategies applied to the content- Research has consistently found that RTI
http://kc.vanderbilt.edu/ area text. This would allow students to transfer initiatives lead to gains in student achieve-
pals back and forth between the courses (flexible ment and schoolwide improvements, such as
Intervention Central grouping) with relatively little disruption. reduced referrals to and placements in special
www.interventioncentral A block schedule of 90 minutes could education and a higher rate of students scoring
.com incorporate 30 minutes of reading enrich- proficiently on state tests (Burns, Appleton,
What Works Clearinghouse ment in which students with strong or average & Stehouwer, 2005). Windram, Scierka, and
www.whatworks.ed.gov reading skills would read independently and Silberglitt (2007) described two secondary
the teacher could run a small flexibly grouped initiatives and found a 66% proficiency rate
The Florida Center for remedial intervention in the same room. on a group-administered accountability test
Reading Research Alternatively, a reading specialist could coteach among the 18 high school students who were
www.fcrr.org a course and provide remediation or could run considered at risk for failing the tests and who
Best Evidence a small group in a different setting. The latter participated in the pilot RTI project.
Encyclopedia would allow the reading specialist to conduct Moreover, the average growth rate on a
www.bestevidence.org/ three groups, lasting 30 minutes each, within group-administered test for those students was
math/math_summary.htm the same 90-minute block. more than three times the national average
Because these are small groups, the tutor- among students in grade 9 and more than five
RTI IN GENERAL to-student ratio should be between 6 and 10 times their growth from the previous year. A
National Association of students for each instructor. Thus, one teacher similar program for mathematics in grade 8
School Psychologists and one paraprofessional (or two teachers) could led to growth rates that exceeded the national
www.nasponline.org/ teach up to 20 students, or one reading specialist average by a factor of almost six (Windram,
resources/rti/index.aspx could pull out up to 10 students at any one time. Scierka, and Silberglitt, 2007). Finally, the
Heartland Area (Iowa) Education Agency 11
National Center on
(2004) published extensive data regarding its
Response To Intervention
Problem solving is the basis for RTI in that well-known RTI approach and found high rates
www.RTI4Success.org
it involves any set of activities designed to of proficiency among middle level and high
“eliminate the difference between ‘what is’ school students, but perhaps more important,
and ‘what should be’ with respect to student it reported a drop-out rate of less than 2%,
development” (Deno, 2002, p. 38). In tier which is well below the national average.
14 PRINCIPAL Leadership MARCH 2008

4. Conclusion REFERENCES
Archer, A. L., Gleason, M. M., & Vachon, V.
RTI Resources
The national education community continues
to focus tremendous attention on RTI as an (2005). REWARDS secondary. Longmont, CO:
Sopris West. RTI IN GENERAL
effective means of improving student achieve- Burns, M. K., Appleton, J. J., & Stehouwer, J. D.
ment and reducing drop-out rates. The U.S. National Association of
(2005). Meta-analysis of response-to-intervention
Department of Education is currently fund- research: Examining field-based and research- State Directors of Special
ing numerous RTI-related research projects implemented models. Journal of Psychoeducational Education
Assessment, 23, 381–394. www.nasdse.org/projects
and technical assistance centers, such as the
Deno, S. L. (2002). Problem solving as “best .cfm
National Center for Response to Intervention practice.” In A. Thomas & J. Grimes (Eds.), Best
(www.rti4success.org). Schools throughout practices in school psychology (4th ed., pp. 37–66). The Council of
the country are implementing RTI initiatives, Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Administrators of Special
but research is ongoing and implementation Psychologists. Education
Hasbrouck, J. E., Ihnot, C., & Rogers, G.
efforts, especially at the secondary level, are www.casecec.org/rti.htm
(1999). Read naturally: A strategy to increase oral
remarkably inconsistent. Adhering to core reading fluency. Reading Research and Instruction, RTI Partnership at
RTI components will more likely ensure 39(1), 27–38. University of California–
successful outcomes. At the secondary level, Heartland Area Education Agency 11 (2004, Riverside
these core components are data-based deci- April 1). Heartland AEA 11 annual progress re-
port. Available online at www.aea11.k12.ia.us/
www.rti.ucr.edu
sion making with multiple sources of data
downloads/2004apr.pdf The IDEA Partnership
(including state accountability tests); flexible, National Association of Secondary School www.ideapartnership.org
small-group instruction in both skill strate- Principals. (1987). Comprehensive assessment of
gies and content; and collaborative problem school environments. Reston, VA: Author. National Research Center
analysis. PL Windram, H., Scierka, B., & Silberglitt, B. on Learning Disabilities
(2007). Response to intervention at the second- www.nrcld.org
ary level: A description of two districts’ models of
implementation. Communique, 35(5), 43–45.
MARCH 2008 PRINCIPAL Leadership 15