RTI is so ingrained into how things are done at my school that I had been using the process without even realizing it. With the support of my mentor and master teachers, I used my universal screening assessment at the beginning of the year to create small groups of students with similar abilities and needs. Then I determined how much intensive instruction each group would need and built my instruction around that. I planned intensive small group instruction based on the needs that were demonstrated by the assessment. Ongoing formative assessment has helped me to adjust my groups and my instruction as needed, as well as to gauge the effectiveness of my small group and whole group instruction. After doing research into Response to Intervention, I realized that RTI is exactly what I’ve been doing in my literacy class.
Tier I
Currently, I have a total of fifteen students in my literacy class. From that number, I have created four small groups with similar needs. Nine of my students are on track to reaching grade level. I meet with these students about once a week to check in and practice some standard second grade skills in a smaller setting. These are my Tier I students (split into two small groups). I know by their growth that most of their needs are met during my whole-group instruction. In a true RTI model, I would not meet with them in small group at all. However, I do like to meet with them once a week for about 15 minutes to assess their progress and to give them more individual feedback than I am able to do during whole group.
Tier 2
An additional four students are behind but do not have far to go to catch up to their peers. These are my “at risk” Tier 2 students. I was meeting with these students in a small group setting twice a week for 15-20 minutes. After doing more research into RTI, I realized that I needed to adjust my schedule to meet with them more frequently. Starting this week, I made small changes to my benchmarking schedule so that I will be able to meet with them three times a week. I am excited to see how they will benefit from this extra intervention time, and I am hopeful that it may be the extra push they need to get them to grade level. Their greatest needs are fluency and comprehension.
Tier 3
Lastly, I have two students that are far behind their grade-level peers. One student moved here about two weeks ago from Mexico. For the purposes of this blog, we will call her Cecilia. I still have much to learn about her. She reads very laboriously and slowly, but with a high level of accuracy. Despite her slow pace, she also can demonstrate that she understands what she read by re-telling the story and answering comprehension questions. However, her spelling is very poor. She will often leave out a letter if a word has a consonant blend. I am very curious to see what kind of growth Cecilia shows with the support she is getting at this school.
My other student struggles enormously with reading fluency. For this blog I will refer to him as Pablo. I noticed his fluency difficulties at the beginning of the year and set up an intervention for him. We meet daily to do a one-minute oral reading fluency test. Pablo has a bar graph that we examine each day before taking the test and set a goal. After the test, we review how many words he read correctly compared to his goal and how many errors he made. We practice reading those error words again. Then he colors in his score. Pablo reads the same passage four days in a row, and he is encouraged by the improvement he makes with each read. He knows that when he reads a new passage for the first time, he will not reach the same level of the previous passage that he had practiced four times. However, we set a goal that is higher than his first read of the previous passage. Our ultimate goal is that the first read numbers go up each time. At the beginning of the year, this was the case. However, in the past few months his fluency has stagnated. His spelling also continues to be very poor. Like Cecilia, he will often leave out a letter when there is a consonant blend. He also confuses his R and his D, and I have asked our speech pathologist to meet with him to determine if this is also a speech issue.
The Problem Solving Process
It has become clear that Pablo needs more support than I can give him. I filled out a referral to the Problem Solving Team at our school and informed his parents of my concern. We have a meeting set up for March 7 during which I will present my data and explain my concerns about Pablo’s needs. From there, the Problem Solving Team will decide what actions to take. A possible action would be to place him into a Tier 3 intervention group with the special education teacher. I hope that this is the outcome of this meeting because I believe his needs are greater than those of my other students, with the possible exception of Cecilia.
Pablo used to be part of a Tier 2 intervention group. Now that a student has arrived with similar needs (Cecilia), I have created my own separate Tier 3 group that I will meet with four times a week for 15 minutes each. I will also continue my ORF intervention for Pablo, at least until we can discuss whether it is a good strategy during our Problem Solving meeting.
It is not a “true” Tier 3 intervention because I am not a specialist and I do not have a systematic, intensive, research-support program to give them. I will continue to use my knowledge of fluency and phonics instruction for their intervention. We will see what happens for Pablo as a result of the problem-solving meeting, and what kind of growth Cecilia shows in this school setting. In the meantime, I will give them the best Tier 3 intervention that I am able.
The image demonstrates the Tiers of intervention in my classroom and how much instruction (whole and small group) my students receive in a week.
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