Simplifying Response to Intervention: Four Essential Guiding Principles

In Simplifying Response to Intervention, the authors of Pyramid Response to Intervention pick up where they left off--advocating that RTI is not a series of implementation steps to cross off on a list, but a way of thinking about how educators can ensure each child receives the time and support needed to achieve success. They go on to submit that for RTI to be effective, work must be divided between collaborative teacher teams and two schoolwide teams (a leadership team and an intervention team). Together, the entire school assumes responsibility for the learning of every student.

Based on four essential guiding principles--collective responsibility, concentrated instruction, convergent assessment, and certain access--and with their experience working with hundreds of schools in North America, the authors explain why bureaucratic, paperwork-heavy, compliance-oriented, test-score-driven approaches fail--and then show how to create an RTI model that works. They address both academics and behavior in each chapter, and provide considerations for district leadership as well.

Benefits

* Use the four guiding principles to guide thinking and implementation.

* Shift to a culture of collective responsibility.

* Build team structures for collaboration.

* Define essential learnings in a program of concentrated instruction.

* Create a toolbox of effective interventions.

* Develop a system of convergent assessment to identify students for intervention, determine their unique needs, monitor their progress, and revise or extend learning based on their progress.