Welcome to My Blog

Purpose

The intention of this blog is to explore the Response to Intervention process from multiple perspectives and at different levels. I will look at the current research behind RTI and how it is impacting schools, districts, and even our entire education system as it becomes increasingly prevalent. I also hope to examine the different ways that the RTI model can be applied, to everything from identifying students with learning disabilities to giving students the support they need to master a single learning target. Most importantly, I want to share my own experiences as a teacher with using the RTI process in my own classroom. In this blog I will share both the impact it is has on my own instruction and on my students’ achievement, as well as the challenges that come with implementing RTI.

Who am I?

As for the blogger, I am a second grade teacher in my second year of teaching. I teach in a dual-language school in a Colorado ski resort area. Half of our student population consists of native Spanish speakers, many of whom live below the poverty line. Their parents generally work in construction, landscaping, housekeeping and domestic services. Most of them live in trailer homes, sometimes with large families. The other half of the student populations consists of native English speakers from generally affluent families. These students ski every weekend of the winter, are involved in various extracurricular activities and often travel to foreign countries during vacation. It is a fascinating place to work, both culturally and socially.

I teach the second grade curriculum in Spanish. Students receive the core subjects of math, social studies and science in a mixed native language group. They spend 2 weeks learning these subjects in Spanish, from myself, and then they will switch to 2 weeks learning in English from a different teacher. We have two groups of 22 students that alternative between the two teachers. Literacy is the exception. In kindergarten through second grade, my school has a larger focus on native language instruction in literacy. Students are divided into native language groups and receive literacy class in their native language. Thus I teach Spanish literacy to native Spanish speakers. All students also receive a shorter daily class in their second language (English as a Second Language or Spanish as a Second Language). This class is also literacy based, but with a larger focus on oral speaking skills and expanding vocabulary. Therefore I teach Spanish as a Second Language (SSL) to native English speakers each day.

RTI in my School

I am fortunate to work in an award-winning elementary school in a progressive district that is committed to adapting the best research-based practices of our field. The school has been implementing RtI for reading instruction and behavior intervention for at least 5 years. Currently, our greatest focus is to close the achievement gap between our native Spanish speakers and our native English speakers, which is also to say between our poverty and non-poverty students. The gap is getting smaller, but we are still not there. As a Spanish literacy teacher, this goal is close to my heart and often on my mind. I know that if I can help my students become proficient readers and writers in Spanish, then the transition to proficiency in English will come more easily for them. I also feel that Spanish proficiency in itself is an important skill to foster as our country becomes increasingly bilingual. I am committed to helping my SSL students become fluent speakers, readers and writers of Spanish.

The Data Teams Process

My district began implementing a new form of RTI, the Data Teams process, this year. The Data Teams process is not intended to replace the form of RTI we have currently in place to help us determine reading interventions and identify students with learning disabilities. Instead, it is on on-going way of using formative assessment to determine the level of support each student will need to master a specific learning target or skill and place them in groups, or Tiers, based on their needs. This process is a collaborative one. Teachers go over assessment data, place students in the tiers based on the data, and then plan targeted instruction for each tier together. This is a powerful process that helps teachers became more deliberate and systematic in their instruction to meet the needs of every student, for any learning task. I witnessed the impact it can have on achievement first hand through my own participation in the process.

In this blog, I will be blending these personal experiences with a wider view of what the implementation of RTI, in many different capacities, means for both Colorado and national education system. I encourage you to comment on my blog with your own experiences, thoughts or suggestions about Response to Intervention!