Response to Intervention How Do We Define a Tier I (Classroom-Based) Intervention? Jim Wright

Response to Intervention

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How Do We Define a Tier I (Classroom-Based) Intervention?

Jim Wrightwww.interventioncentral.org


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Essential Elements of Any Academic or Behavioral Intervention (‘Treatment’) Strategy:

• Method of delivery (‘Who or what delivers the treatment?’)Examples include teachers, paraprofessionals, parents, volunteers, computers.

• Treatment component (‘What makes the intervention effective?’)Examples include activation of prior knowledge to help the student to make meaningful connections between ‘known’ and new material; guide practice (e.g., Paired Reading) to increase reading fluency; periodic review of material to aid student retention. As an example of a research-based commercial program, Read Naturally ‘combines teacher modeling, repeated reading and progress monitoring to remediate fluency problems’.



Interventions, Accommodations & Modifications: Sorting Them Out

• Interventions. An academic intervention is a strategy used to teach a new skill, build fluency in a skill, or encourage a child to apply an existing skill to new situations or settings.

An intervention is said to be research-based when it has been demonstrated to be effective in one or more articles published in peer–reviewed scientific journals. Interventions might be based on commercial programs such as Read Naturally. The school may also develop and implement an intervention that is based on guidelines provided in research articles—such as Paired Reading (Topping, 1987).




• Accommodations. An accommodation is intended to help the student to fully access the general-education curriculum without changing the instructional content. An accommodation for students who are slow readers, for example, may include having them supplement their silent reading of a novel by listening to the book on tape.

An accommodation is intended to remove barriers to learning while still expecting that students will master the same instructional content as their typical peers. Informal accommodations may be used at the classroom level or be incorporated into a more intensive, individualized intervention plan.




• Modifications. A modification changes the expectations of what a student is expected to know or do—typically by lowering the academic expectations against which the student is to be evaluated.

Examples of modifications are reducing the number of multiple-choice items in a test from five to four or shortening a spelling list. Under RTI, modifications are generally not included in a student’s intervention plan, because the working assumption is that the student can be successful in the curriculum with appropriate interventions and accommodations alone.



Tier I InterventionsTier I interventions are universal—available to all students. Teachers often deliver these interventions in the classroom.

Tier I interventions are those strategies that instructors are likely to put into place at the first sign that a student is struggling.

These interventions can consist of:

-Effective ‘whole-group’ teaching & management strategies

-Modest individualized strategies that the teacher uses with specific students.

Tier I interventions attempt to answer the question: Are routine classroom instructional modifications sufficient to help the student to achieve academic success?



Examples of Evidence-Based Tier I Management Strategies (Fairbanks, Sugai, Guardino, & Lathrop, 2007)

• Consistently acknowledging appropriate behavior in class

• Providing students with frequent and varied opportunities to respond during instructional activities

• Reducing transition time between instructional activities to a minimum

• Giving students immediate and direct corrective feedback when they commit an academic error or engage in inappropriate behavior

Source: Fairbanks, S., Sugai, G., Guardino, S., & Lathrop, M. (2007). Response to intervention: Examining classroom behavior support in second grade. Exceptional Children, 73, p. 290.



Source: Internet Archive. Retrieved September 23, 2007, from http://www.archive.org/details/Maintain1947

Maintaining Classroom Discipline (1947): Pt. 1 of 3 (4:12)



Tier I Ideas to Help Students to Complete Independent Seatwork



Independent Seatwork: A Source of Misbehavior

When poorly achieving students must work independently, they can run into difficulties with the potential to spiral into misbehaviors. These difficulties can include:

• Being unable to do the assigned work without help• Not understanding the directions for the assignment• Getting stuck during the assignment and not

knowing how to resolve the problem• Being reluctant to ask for help in a

public manner• Lacking motivation to work independently on the assignment



Elements to Support Independent SeatworkDirections & Instructional Match. The teacher ensures that the student understands the assignment and can do the work.

Help Routine. The student knows how to request help without drawing attention (e.g., by asking a peer).

Reference Sheets. The student has a reference sheet with steps to follow to complete the assignment or other needed information.

Completed Models. The student has one or more models of correctly completed assignment items for reference.

Performance Feedback. The student can access an answer key (if appropriate) to check his or her work.

Teacher Feedback &

Encouragement. The teacher circulates

around the room (proximity) , spending brief amounts of time

checking students’ progress and giving

feedback and encouragement as

needed.



Discussion Question

Why would a teacher at your school be very happy to see an RTI model adopted? What is in it for him or her?



Common Student Problems: What Works?



How Do Schools ‘Standardize’ Expectations for Tier I Interventions? A Four-Step Solution

1. Develop a list of your school’s ‘top five’ academic and behavioral referral concerns (e.g., low reading fluency, inattention).

2. Create a survey for teachers, asking them to jot down the ‘good teaching’ ideas that they use independently when they encounter students who struggle in these problem areas.

3. Collect the best of these ideas into a menu. Add additional research-based ideas if available.

4. Require that teachers implement a certain number of these strategies before referring to your RTI Intervention Team. Consider ways that teachers can document these Tier I interventions as well.


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Activity: Selecting the ‘Best of the Best’ Tier I Intervention

Ideas



Tier I Interventions List: Activity

• Tables/rows count off by 4’s• Scan the intervention pages

assigned to your number• Select 2-4 TOP ideas

from your reading that you feel should be on every teacher’s ‘Tier I’ intervention list at your school

• Be prepared to share your ideas



Reading Assignments

1. Defiance/Non-Compliance Part 1: pp.55-56

2. Defiance/Non-Compliance Part 2: pp.57-59

3. Hyperactivity: pp. 60-62

4. Inattention: pp. 62-65

Documents

Response to Intervention How Do We Define a Tier I (Classroom-Based) Intervention? Jim Wright