I have been teaching for 16 years and have been moved to the position as the Instructional Support Teacher in two elementary buildings. We are slowly implementing RTI as best we can in all of our schools. There has been some controversy as to whether... Print
... Reading Recovery would be considered a Tier 2 or Tier 3 intervention for first grade students. There are some that say it should be a Tier 2 intervention because children that are chosen may not necessarily have gotten any other interventions first. In other words these children have gone from the core Curriculum (Tier 1) and been chosen using the specific assessment data associated with Reading Recovery. Others say that since it is the most intense Reading intervention we have for a child - they have the child 1 on 1 for a set amount of time daily - and the child is progressed monitored often throughout the time the child is in the program, that Reading Recovery should be considered a Tier 3 intervention. What do you think?  

Response from Carol Connor, Professor, Department of Psychology, College of Arts and Sciences, Florida State University:

Dr. Stephanie Al Otaiba and I have just completed a randomized control study that shows that we get stronger student outcomes when children are assigned immediately to the tiered intervention that their scores would suggest is appropriate — that is, children with the greatest difficulties go immediately to Tier 3 and we don't waste time with Tier 2 — compared to traditional RTI. Because of its intensity, I would consider Reading Recovery a Tier 3 and would not worry whether children had received Tier 2 or not — if Reading Recovery is what they need, then I would enroll them.