Create Your Implementation Blueprint
Stage 5: Innovation

There is no “RTI in a Box.” Instead, it will have to be customized to fit the context of each individual school. For example, whether it is better for an interventionist to “push-in” to a classroom or for teachers to group across an entire grade level depends upon staffing, level of teacher cooperation, and even facility layout. There is no single right way to organize the delivery model for intervention groups. Yet, it is important to implement with practices that have been proven to be effective in schools similar to yours. Only after fully understanding what you are trying to do and successfully getting results with the proven process should you then make changes. As Fixsen, Naoom, Blase, and Wallace (2007) said, “learn the intervention, learn how to do it with fidelity, do it long enough to learn the nuances of its applications, and then work on how to improve the intervention itself” (p. 7). Success and student results during the first full year of implementation are crucial to getting complete staff buy-in, so it’s better not to allow teachers to create their own way until after they have implemented the district’s selected approach first. 

During the innovation stage, schools typically make improvements to their assessment calendar, data analysis practices, grouping practices, timing of intervention in the master schedule, and model for the delivery of the groups. During this stage, RTI may be added to upper grade levels or to the rest of the schools now that the process and practices are fully understood and working well at the lower grade levels or pilot buildings.

REFERENCE

Fixsen, D., Naoom, S., Blase, K., & Wallace, F. (2007, Winter/Spring). Implementation: The missing link between research and practice. The APSAC Advisor, 4–10.