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Response-to-Intervention Research: Is the Sum of the Parts as Great as the Whole?Additional Articles
Additional ResourcesHow often do special education teachers hear that an intervention is "research based?" The answer is, just about every time a publisher tries to the sell them intervention materials. Fortunately, teachers have become more adept at recognizing the ones that are supported by research. This is an important shift because education has such a long history of fads that Ellis (2005) concluded that in education, "today's flagship is often
RTI Models as a Whole
Researching the Parts of RTITier 1
An effective RTI model should begin with quality core instruction that adequately addresses the needs of most of the students. If more than 20-25% of the students require additional support than what is provided in Tier 1, then the school will not have the resources necessary to address the needs of those students. Moreover, interventions should be highly and correctly targeted to be effective, but students cannot learn to read and do math if they are not receiving quality balanced instruction in addition to supplemental support. Fortunately, the National Reading Panel (2000) and National Mathematics Advisory Panel (2008) have both conducted meta-analyses to determine what constitutes quality instruction in those core areas. Moreover, individual studies of math (Crawford & Snider, 2000) and reading (Foorman, Francis, & Fletcher, 1998) have used strong research designs and found that the quality of the curriculum and the explicitness of the instruction led to improved student learning and reduced future student failures. It would go beyond the scope of this article to describe what these studies and meta-analyses found to be critical components of quality instruction and curriculum, but there is a well-confirmed research base that quality instruction leads to fewer students needing additional support. Readers are encouraged to examine the Florida Center for Reading Research website (www.fcrr.org) and the report of the National Reading Panel (2000) for more information about quality instructional practices.
Tier 2According to many publications about the three-tier model of RTI, a school's goal is for no more than 20% of students to require additional support beyond good Tier I curriculum and instruction (Burns et al., 2005). For those students, an RTI model relies on supplemental interventions delivered in small groups for 20 to 30 minutes daily (Vaughn, Wanzek, Linan-Thompson, & Murray, 2007). The few meta-analyses of small-group interventions that have been conducted found moderate to strong effects of daily Tier 2 instruction (Elbaum, Vaughn, Hughes, & Moody, 2000). However, a panel convened by the Institute for Education Science (IES) found strong evidence for the effectiveness of providing small-group interventions as supplemental instruction to support the Tier I core curriculum (Gersten et al., 2009a). According to the panel, small-group supplemental instruction should a) target the components of reading instruction in which the student needs additional support, b) be implemented three to five times each week for approximately 20 to 40 minutes each session, and c) build skills gradually with high student-teacher interaction and frequent opportunities to practice the specific skill and receive feedback. It is also important to note, that the instruction provided within Tier 2 needs to focus on an aspect of reading (e.g., decoding) and that students need practice in that specific skill. Simply allowing a struggling reader more time to read, even if the text is carefully selected to provide an appropriate level of challenge, will likely not remediate the deficit in the long run. After reviewing research on math instruction, the IES panel reached a similar conclusion regarding Tier 2 for math as did the reading experts. Tier 2 interventions are critical for success in math as well, and there is strong evidence to support the effectiveness of the interventions if they include explicit and systematic instruction and focus on common underlying structures of problems (Gersten et al., 2009b).
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Tier | Practice | Reference |
2 | se explicit and systematic instruction | Gersten et al. (2009a) |
2 | Use groups of three to five students | Elbaum et al. (2000) |
2 | Provide instruction in up to three foundational reading skills | Gersten et al. (2009a) |
2 & 3 | Focus on underlying skills and structures for math and reading | Gersten et al. (2009a;b) |
2 & 3 | Progress should be closely monitored until approximately eight data points are collected to assure sufficient reliability | Christ (2006) |
3 | Use an intervention with at least three components that are different from Tiers 1 and 2 | Swanson & Sachse-Lee (2000) |
3 | Potential intervention components include (a) highly targeted, (b) provides an appropriate level of challenge for the indvidual student, (c) explicitly teaches a specific skill, (d) allows many opportunities to respond, and (e) provides immediate corrective feedback for an individual student | Burns et al. (2008) |
Batsche, G., Elliott, J., Graden, J. L., Grimes, J., Kovaleski, J. F., Prasse, D., et al. (2005). Response to intervention policy considerations and implementation. Reston, VA: National Association of State Directors of Special Education.
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Ellis, A. K. (2005). Research on educational innovations (4th ed.). Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.
Foorman, B. R., Francis, D. J., & Fletcher, J. M. (1998). The role of instruction in learning to read: Preventing reading failure in at-risk children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90, 37–55.
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Gersten, R., Beckmann, S., Clarke, B., Foegen, A., Marsh, L., Star, J. R., et al. (2009b). Assisting students struggling with mathematics: Response to intervention for elementary and middle schools. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education Institute of Educational Sciences.
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National Mathematics Advisory Panel. (2008). Foundations for success: Final report of the national math advisory panel. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.
National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. reports of the subgroups. Bethesda, MD: National Institute for Literacy.
Swanson, H. L., & Sachse-Lee, C. (2000). A meta-analysis of single-subject-design intervention research for students with LD. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 33, 114–136.
VanDerHeyden, A. M., Witt, J. C., & Gilbertson, D. A. (2007). Multi-year evaluation of the effects of a response to intervention (RTI) model on identification of children for special education. Journal of School Psychology, 45, 225–256.
Vaughn, S., Wanzek, J., Linan-Thompson, S., & Murray, C. (2007). Monitoring response to intervention for students at-risk for reading difficulties: High and low responders. In S. R. Jimerson, M. K. Burns, & A. M. VanDerHeyden (Eds.), The handbook of response to intervention: The science and practice of assessment and intervention (pp. 234–243). New York: Springer.
What Works Clearinghouse (2008). What works clearinghouse evidence standards for reviewing studies. Washington, DC: United States Department of Education.
This article was originally published in Perspectives on Language and Literacy, vol. 36, No. 2, Spring 2010, copyright by The International Dyslexia Association. www.interdys.org Used with permission.