Overview to Response to Intervention (RtI) Now Available

SEDL Letter

SEDL program associate Ada Muoneke has written a useful overview of RtI that can be found online in one of the issues of SEDL Letter titled Reading: Practices to Help Improve Instruction, on pages 25-34. Muoneke explains that RtI reflects the philosophy of the President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education that "children placed in special education are general education children first." RtI is a process that 1) provides high-quality instruction and interventions matched to student need, 2) monitors progress frequently to make appropriate decisions about instruction, and 3) uses student response data in decision making.

According to Maurice McInerney, the managing director of the American Institutes for Research, the evidence base for RtI among elementary school students is especially strong in the early elementary grades. "For these students, the intervention and assessment dimensions of RtI have very strong potential to substantially enhance student achievement and to reduce the prevalence of reading disabilities, mathematics disabilities, and behavior problems."

WWC reviewed 887 studies of
153 beginning reading programs

Resources for Best-Practices Database

SEDL's Southeast Comprehensive Center has a searchable database of resources for best practices. It features more than 40 topics including information on assessments, content areas such as reading and science, English Language Learners, interventions (which includes information on RtI), and classroom management. 

What Works Clearinghouse – Review of Reading Interventions

The U.S. Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse published findings related to its review of 887 studies of 153 beginning reading programs.  It ranks the programs as related to alphabetics, fluency, comprehension, and general reading achievement. The report may be downloaded at http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/documentsum.aspx?sid=27.

National Center on Response to Intervention

The National Center on Response to Intervention publishes a monthly newsletter and has established a standard process to evaluate the scientific rigor of commercially available tools and interventions that can be used in an RTI context. The Web site offers a variety of resources and hosts several discussion forums.