CCSD#1 utilizes the Response to Intervention (RtI) process to screen, assess, identify, plan for, and provide interventions to any student at risk of school failure due to academic or behavior needs.
What are the essential components of RtI?
What are the essential components of RtI?
- High quality, research-based instruction and behavioral support in general education
- Universal (school-wide) screening in order to determine which students need close monitoring or additional interventions
- Multiple tiers of increasingly intense scientific, research-based interventions that are matched to student need
- Use of a collaborative approach by school staff for development, implementation, and monitoring of the intervention process
- Continuous monitoring of student progress
- Follow-up measures providing information that the intervention was implemented as intended and with appropriate consistency
What are the key terms?
Universal Screening is a step taken by school personnel to determine which students are “at risk” for not meeting grade level standards. Converse County Schools' universal screening is accomplished by administering brief fluency screenings in the areas of reading, writing, and math three times each year.
Student Progress Monitoring is a scientifically based practice that is used to assess students’ academic performance and evaluate the effectiveness of instruction. All students within CCSD#1 receiving interventions are progress-monitored 2-4 times per month.
Does every child get the same kind of help?
No. The type of help depends on the learning problem or behavior problem. It also depends on how much help the student needs to catch up to his or her classmates.
To help organize interventions, RtI is divided into “Tiers.”
Tier 1: Theoretically, the Universal or Classroom tier should meet the needs of 80%-90% of all students through good instruction in the general classroom.
Tiers 2-3: The Targeted tiers should then serve 10%-15% of all students. Specific instructional or behavior support is provided in small groups either within the regular classroom or through pull-out sessions with progressively more intensive time and instruction.
Tier 4: Finally the Intensive tier would serve the 5%-7% of students who need highly individualized and specialized support to be successful in school.
Who steers the progress of these at-risk students?
Groups of teachers and school staff meet regularly to help design interventions for and monitor progress of students at risk for failure. There is currently a committee for reading, math, and writing.
How do these committees work?
Step 1: A student is referred to the committee by the classroom teacher, as indicated by assessment scores and/or classroom performance. The Team gathers information to determine the specific barriers to student success.
Step 2: The committee identifies student strengths and needs in academics and/or behavior.
Step 3: The committee creates an action plan. The plan specifies the intervention(s), the length of time they will be tried, who will implement the intervention(s), and how progress will be monitored.
Step 4: The committee charts student progress until everyone, including the student and the parent, is satisfied that the student is making adequate progress toward success.
What are the potential benefits of RtI?
Perhaps the most commonly cited benefit of an RtI approach is that it eliminates a “wait to fail” situation because students get help promptly within the general education setting. Secondly, an RtI approach has the potential to reduce the number of students referred for special education services. Since an RtI approach helps distinguish between those students whose achievement problems are due to a learning disability versus those students whose achievement problems are due to other issues such as lack of prior instruction, referrals for special education evaluations are often reduced. Finally, parents and school teams alike find that the student progress monitoring techniques utilized in an RtI approach provide more instructionally relevant information than traditional assessments.
What can parents do?
Expect your child to be successful in school
- Ask your child about homework.
- Make sure your child has a place and time to do homework every night.
- If your child is struggling, try to find out why.
- Talk to his or her teachers.
- Ask to see student work or progress monitoring data.
- Ask to see progress monitoring graphs.
What Interventions are currently used at CCSD Schools?
Interventions include but are not limited to the following:
Reading:
- Soar to Success (Houghton Mifflin)
- FAST FORWARD
- Learning Through Sports
- Read Naturally
- Wiggle Works
- Reading Plus
- Tune Into Reading
- Rocket Math
- Study Dog
- FASTT Math
- ASCEND Math
- Starter Paragraph Punch
- SkillWriter
- Step Up to Writing