Response to Intervention/Response to Instruction (RTI)

IDEA Group

The IDEA group is so named because its touchstone is the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)—specifically, the section of the law that authorizes local agencies to use research-based intervention as part of the process to determine whether a child has a learning disability. Those who constitute the IDEA group interpret this section of the law to mean that RTI should promote both early intervention and more valid methods of disability identification. Further, the group holds that the two are inextricably connected: Effective intervention leads to more meaningful identification by accelerating the progress of many low achievers, thereby eliminating them from consideration as disabled. Students who are unresponsive to generally effective intervention are in need of more intensive instruction, which may include special education.

A model developed by the National Research Center on Learning Disabilities, among others, is used to illustrate the IDEA group's version of RTI. In this model, RTI begins with the classroom teacher screening all students at the start of the school year to identify a subset who are potentially at risk for school failure. These children's academic performances are then monitored weekly for 5 to 8 weeks as the teacher implements evidence-based instruction. This constitutes Tier 1 of the RTI model. “Non-responsive” children move to Tier 2, which offers tutoring in small groups by an adult using a standard treatment protocol. This often scripted, or partly scripted, protocol—of which many exist for early reading (fewer for math and none in the content areas)—has typically been tested in one or more randomized controlled studies or quasi-experimental studies. Instruction at this second tier is designed to promote the acquisition of new skills and requires specialized training of personnel.

The specialized training, together with the explicitness of the instruction and its empirical validation; the small and homogeneous student groups; and the greater frequency and duration of the tutoring sessions (minimally 8–10 weeks, 4 days per week, 30 minutes per session), makes Tier 2 more intensive than Tier 1. As “early intervention,” its purpose is to provide at-risk students with the academic boost they need. Equally important from an IDEA group perspective is that the instruction is a “test” of students' capacities to respond to generally effective educational practice. As with conventional tests, this instruction must be valid: evidence-based, implemented in accordance with researchers' directions, and replicable. In this context, replicable means that content and delivery are unchanging—as a standardized test's content and delivery are constant from one administration to the next. Put differently, if one student's responsiveness to instruction is to be compared to that of her or his classmates, her or his instruction must be the same as theirs; otherwise, the comparisons make little sense.

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