Do you believe that all of your students can learn at high levels? I’m going to ask one more time and see if you can answer honestly:

Do you believe that ALL of your students can learn at high levels?

Would you believe me if I told you that question is what drives a Response to Intervention (RTI) program (or at least it should)? You may be reading this from a wide spectrum of experiences with RTI. Perhaps you’ve never heard of it before, or you have participated in an RTI program in the past. Whatever your background, I am here to help reframe your thinking.  The RTI framework can make a big impact on learning for ALL your students. 

Now, let’s go back to our first question.  Do you believe that ALL of your students can learn at high levels?  I’m going to be honest and tell you what my initial response to that question was a few years ago: No.  I did not believe all my students could learn at high levels. 

In my mind, there were just too many components that led to my students not learning, and I felt like a lot of them were out of my control: parent involvement, student motivation, learning disabilities, etc. I could not see how it was possible for every single one of my students to learn at high levels.  In my experience, there were always just a few students who didn't get there by the end of the school year. I accepted it.  I still did my best to teach them as much as I could during the year, but I knew there was only so much I could do, or so I thought. 

Response to Intervention is a framework that helps us see it IS possible for ALL of our students to learn at high levels. The key is providing targeted research-based interventions consistently throughout the year.  Now, let me be clear, there are entire books on implementing RTI programs and best practices, so I won’t even get past the tip of the iceberg in this one article. 

But my goal here with you is to help you reframe your thinking towards RTI and maybe, you can see the possibility of implementing it in your classroom whether or not your school mandates it.

Here are 4 Keys to Help ALL your students be successful through RTI:

1. Interventions must be TIMELY

2. Interventions must be TARGETED

3. Interventions must be CONSISTENT

4. Interventions must be EFFECTIVE

1. TIMELY INTERVENTIONS

Research shows that once there is an achievement gap between a student and their grade-level peers, it widens every year IF there is nothing done about it.  This undergirds the need for TIMELY interventions.  As soon as you see a student is struggling, you need to provide intervention as soon as possible.  The longer you wait, the more likely that student is to fall even further behind than they already are.  Even a week can make a BIG difference.

You may asking yourself: How do I get started right away?  Won’t I need to work with my administration first and have to fill out a bunch of paperwork?  Well, actually YOU are in charge in your own classroom and YOU have the tools you need to get started providing interventions right away. (Even if you feel you don’t have the tools, I’m here to tell you where to look!)

Won’t I have to do extensive assessments first to see just how far behind they are? It doesn’t take very many assessments to identify a student who is in desperate need of help.  You can usually tell the first or second day of school. Once you identify what area they are struggling (Reading/ Writing/ Math), a simple diagnostic assessment can help you get started.  You only need ONE skill to work on at first, so extensive assessments aren’t necessary. Just get started as soon as possible. 

2. TARGETED Interventions

The next step in providing interventions once you’ve identified a child that is in need of them, is to target the specific skills they are deficient in.  Then, you must find an intervention for that specific skill. It will be a waste of time if you provide an intervention to a child for something that they aren’t really struggling with. 

If you have trouble finding out what the child is specifically struggling with or what intervention to use, this is where I would recommend you reach out to the professionals you have access to at your school-site.  This could be your grade level team, other teachers, or your administration. They are going to be your best first resource.  Every teacher has different types of expertise, so you are bound to find someone who has the skills in the area you are looking for. Before reaching out to someone, I do recommend you have some data to bring to them when you are asking for help.  This can be as simple as anecdotal notes from your observations or a short assessment you gave them. But you won’t be able to identify the specific skill that needs support until you have some form of data.  

3. CONSISTENT Interventions

Once you have an intervention to try with the student, the next step is to implement it consistently in your classroom.  Depending on the severity of the student’s needs, I recommend you provide the intervention to the child at least 2 times a week. As you work with the child, collect progress monitoring data at least once a week to track how they are responding to the intervention.

The key here is to be consistent.  Students who are struggling will continue to struggle if you don’t intervene. Inconsistent and spread out interventions won’t really help them.   It’s also important that you have accurate data to see if your interventions are actually working. 

4. EFFECTIVE Interventions

Lastly, you want to assess the effectiveness of your interventions.  Give it 2 or 3 weeks of consistently providing the intervention you have planned and collecting data on the specific skill each week.  Then, at the end of that time, analyze the data.  Has the student shown any progress in the specific skill you were working on? If so, what level of progress? 

These guiding questions can help you ascertain whether the intervention was effective or not.  If the intervention was NOT effective, meaning the student showed minimal to no progress, then ditch it immediately and try a different one.  Start at the beginning of the process again. If the intervention was effective, then stick with it. 

Perhaps you increase the amount of days a week you are working with the student, or you maintain the same schedule and revisit again in 3 weeks to see where they are at.  Your ultimate goal is to help that student get to grade level competency in the particular skill you have identified.  Once that happens, celebrate with the student.  This will empower them and give them confidence in their abilities. 

Finally, you need to decide the next steps.  Is there another skill you can begin working on with the student? Or can you stop interventions because they are now back to grade level in all areas?  Then, begin the process all over again. 

Implementing this process in your classroom is much easier when you have the support of your colleagues and/or your administrators.  So I would highly recommend getting them on board.  However, it’s not necessary for you to intervene for YOUR students.  They need you.  They need help.  And you can make a huge difference for those kids. 

Are there any other obstacles that are getting in the way of you starting reading intervention with your students?