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Welcome to RTI_WIRE,
your 'one-stop' directory of free, high-quality 'Response-to-Intervention' resources available on the Internet!
What is RTI? 'Response to Intervention'
(RTI) is an emerging approach to the diagnosis of Learning Disabilities that holds considerable promise. In the
RTI model, a student with academic delays is given one or more research-validated interventions. The student's
academic progress is monitored frequently to see if those interventions are sufficient to help the student to catch
up with his or her peers. If the student fails to show significantly improved academic skills despite several well-designed
and implemented interventions, this failure to 'respond to intervention' can be viewed as evidence of an underlying
Learning Disability.
From Jim Wright:RTI Training Kit!
Here are some resources that you can download from Intervention Central
that can assist you to train your staff in the key concepts of RTI and to determine your school's readiness to
implement the RTI model:
Presenter Notes for Getting Started With RTI. These companion notes provide trainng suggestions for the RTI introductory PowerPoint.
RTI School Readiness Survey.
Complete this brief survey to determine how ready your school
is to put RTI into practice.
One advantage of RTI in the diagnosis of educational disabilities is that it allows schools to intervene early
to meet the needs of struggling learners. Another is that RTI maps those specific instructional strategies found
to benefit a particular student. This information can be very helpful to both teachers and parents.
How do schools put RTI into practice? To
implement RTI effectively, schools must develop a specialized set of tools and competencies, including a structured
format for problem-solving, knowledge of a range of scientifically based interventions that address common reasons
for school failure, and the ability to use various methods of assessment to monitor student progress in academic
and behavioral areas.
Consult the links below for more information about RTI!
Internet Resources for 'Response to Intervention'
1. RTI: Understand the Model
For many educators, RTI represents a new and very different methodology for identifying Learning Disabilities. These websites provide an explanation of the theoretical model that underpins RTI:
Arizona RTI . If you want to see how the Grand Canyon State is implementing RTI, go to Arizona RTI. To access this site's collection of informative PowerPoint trainings on RTI, CBM, and related topics, click on 'RTI Materials' and then click on 'Trainer's Page With Presentation and Training Resources'. The site's Project Director is Dolores Ratcliff. Many of the resources on the site were produced in collaboration with Dr. Joe Witt of Louisiana State University and colleagues.
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National Center for Learning Disabilities RTI Resources . The National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD) provides a compact page of well-chosen resources that provide an overview and background information about RTI, research articles on the topic, and links to other RTI web resources. Among helpful downloads from this site are two 'parent guides' to RTI!
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NRCLD: 2003 RTI Symposium . The National Research Center on Learning Disabilities held a symposium on RTI in December 2003. This web page contains papers, PowerPoint presentations, and brief video clips of nationally prominent RTI researchers. Speakers at the conference considered such issues as the basic feasibility of RTI in schools, operationalizing the concept of 'response to intervention', the number of 'Tiers' or levels of intervention that should be in place in the RTI model to identify and program for children at risk, and what other methods than RTI might be considered for identifying Learning Disabilities in children.
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Project ACHIEVE . Project ACHIEVE is an innovative school reform and school effectiveness program. It uses a systematic, three-tiered Response-to-Intervention (RtI) approach--called the SPRINT (School Prevention, Review, and Intervention Team) process--for both academics and instruction, and
behavior and positive behavioral support systems (PBSS). Project ACHIEVE's website (www.projectachieve.info) provides a comprehensive description of its components, strategies, evaluation approaches, and outcomes. It also provides an extensive array of free Technical Assistance Papers and PowerPoints on strategic planning, integrated general and special education services, PBSS, social skills training, school-based mental health services, and RtI processes.Project ACHIEVE was created by Dr. Howard M. Knoff.
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RTI: Implementation in Schools . This web page from SchwabLearning.org explains Response to Intervention in plain language using a question/answer format that is accessible to all school stakeholders, including parents.
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RTI: Latest News . Visit this page for excellent research articles investigating the technical aspects of RTI. The page is sponsored by the Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska at Omaha.
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RTI 'BONUS' SITE:Inclusion Resources to Expand Teacher Capacity.
Making school-based inclusion work is a juggling act. But tips that help teachers to fully include children with special needs in general-education classes can also be helpful in accommodating diverse learners of all types. To assist schools in better managing a wide range of learning styles and abilities, Project Participate (University of Colorado Health Sciences Center) has some really helpful handouts and forms.
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2. RTI: Use Teams to Problem-Solve
Schools that follow a structured problem-solving process to help at-risk learners are more likely to have positive outcomes under RTI. Many schools use a multi-disciplinary teams of educators to carry out the problem-solving model, because the combined expertise and knowledge of the group leads to better ideas and greater collaboration. Here are team problem-solving models from districts and state education departments around the country:
Intervention Assistance Teams (Pasadena, TX) . There are a variety of documents here for monitoring the Intervention Assistance Team (IAT) process. Examples include a form to go into the cumulative folder noting that the student was referred to the Intervention Team, an IAT progress report, and a sample letter notifying parents of the outcome of the IAT meeting.
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SBIT Home Page (Syracuse, NY) . The School-Based Intervention Team (SBIT) project was successfully piloted in Syracuse, NY, and has been adopted by a number of other districts around the country. This page contains all of the team meeting forms and other helpful problem-solving resources.
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SBIT Model (Albemarle County Schools, VA) . Starting with Syracuse SBIT model, the folks at Albemarle County (VA) Schools have added notable innovations, including creating forms and guidelines that explicitly tie the team process to Section 504 and Special Education referrals.
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Student Assistance Teams (New Mexico Public Education Department) . Schools who want a comprehensive model for team problem-solving should investigate these SAT materials. There is a great illustration of the 3-Tier intervention model (with the SAT located in Tier II). Another strength of this manual is the section containing intervention ideas. And the forms are well-formatted and easy to use.
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Student Support Teams (D.C. Public Schools) . Sponsored by the District of Columbia State Improvement Grant, this site contains resources for running a Student Support Team (SST). The site includes an attractively formatted, comprehensive training manual and an archive of all forms needed for the SST process.
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3. RTI: Select the Right Intervention
The key objective in RTI is to select an instructional or behavior-management strategy that matches a student’s specific needs. Students with serious academic skill deficits, for example, require very different intervention strategies than those who lack motivation or are simply too disorganized to turn in assignments. Student intervention strategies should be scientifically based and feasible to carry out with the resources available to the teaching staff.
Cognitive Strategy Instruction . This website presents a series of interventions in which students are taught thinking strategies that they can use to perform better in reading, mathematics, writing, studying, and other areas. The site was created by Dr. Bob Reid and Torri Lienemann at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
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Discipline Help . Sponsored by The Master Teacher, Discipline Help describes itself as "a reference for handling over 117 misbehaviors at school and home." Student problem behaviors are categorized by profile (e.g., "The Fighter", "The Disrupter"). Each behavior description has explanations for why the behavior might be occuring and ideas for how the teacher or parent can effectively respond.
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Dr. Mac's Amazing Site . 'Dr. Mac's Amazing Behavior Management Advice Site' serves up research-based behavior management strategies with a healthy dose of humor. But don't be fooled. The site's creator, Dr. Tom McIntyre, knows what he is talking about! He is a professor of special education at Hunter College of the City University of New York and a former public-school teacher.
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Ideas to Boost Basic Academic Skills . This site, ‘Scientifically Based Research’, contains interventions that target reading, math, and writing. The strategies were written by Dr. Amanda VanDerHeyden of the University of Southern California at Santa Barbara and Dr. Joe Witt of Louisiana State University.
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Intervention Central . Find lots of academic and behavioral strategies to choose from at Intervention Central. Browse through this site's many classroom management and instructional ideas that are drawn from current research on effective interventions
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Least Restrictive Behavioral Interventions . The Utah State Office of Education has put online its series of 'Least Restrictive Behavioral Interventions'. The page contains a very useful collection of 'preliminary strategies' that represent good classroom management and can reduce the likelihood that misbehavior will occur. If students do misbehave, the site also provides two collections of intervention ideas: 'Positive Intervention Strategies' and 'Mildly Intrusive Contingent Procedures'. The expectation is that educators will first try positive interventions and only use the more intrusive techniques if misbehaviors are chronic or more serious.
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Positive Approaches to Challenging Behavior in Pre-School Children . This website provides excellent ideas for managing difficult behaviors in young children. Developed by the University of Minnesota Early Childhood Behavior Project, the site has specific intervention ideas, as well as guidelines for linking behavioral functions to intervention strategies and for using ‘environmental arrangement’ to encourage appropriate, positive behaviors in pre-schoolers and children in the early primary grades.
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Reading Interventions for K-1 . Created by the Florida Center for Reading Research, this site contains short, research-based student reading activities suitable for grades K-1. The activities cover phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
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Reading Strategies: A-Z . Visit the site 'Reading Rockets' to discover many articles with intervention and instructional ideas to help struggling readers. Reading Rockets is supported by WETA, the Washington, D.C. public television and radio station and is funded by a major grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs.
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When educators measure student progress frequently during an intervention, they can know within a few short weeks whether that intervention is successful. Methods appropriate for RTI progress-monitoring must be valid and reliable, of course, but should also be sensitive to short-term student gains. Learn more about progress-monitoring by visiting these on-line sites:
Behavior Report Cards: Create On-Line . Daily Behavior Report Cards (DBRCs) are an excellent method for collecting ongoing teacher ratings of students' behavior, work habits, and work completion. This site--The Behavior Reporter--allows you to create customized DBRCs in daily or weekly format, as well as ready-to-use progress-monitoring charts.
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CBM: Comprehensive Resource Listing . Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) is the gold standard for measuring academic progress through RTI. This page, 'CBM Warehouse', has 'a world of CBM resources under one roof.' Here you will find directions and training materials for administering CBM in reading, math, and writing--as well as collections of CBM monitoring probes, links to other CBM websites, and more.
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CBM: DIBELS Home Page . The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) are a widely used set of standardized, individual measures of pre-reading and early reading skills. This site allows you to download all of the DIBELS testing materials for free, and find instructions on administering and scoring the measures.
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CBM: Math Worksheet Generator . The Math Worksheet Generator is an on-line application that allows you to create an endless series of Curriculum-Based Measurement math computation worksheets for the basic math operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
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Data-Based Behavioral Decision Making Tools . Look under the heading "Data-Based Decision Making" on this page for a wealth of tools for assessing student behaviors through event recording, momentary, partial- and whole-interval time-sampling, assessment of permanent [work] products, and more. These resources were developed by Special Connections, a project funded through the federal Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and coordinated through the University of Kansas.
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National Center on Student Progress Monitoring . The National Center on Student Progress Monitoring is dedicated to the implementation of scientifically-based student progress monitoring for grades K-5. The Center works to provide technical assistance to states and districts and disseminate information about student progress monitoring practices proven to work in different academic content areas. The National Center on Student Progress Monitoring is a technical assistance and dissemination center funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs.
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5. RTI: Graph Data for Visual Analysis
Charts and graphs are essential RTI tools for transforming progress-monitoring data into visual displays. These displays show clearly whether an intervention plan is actually working. Time-series graphs in particular are widely used, as a positive trend-line demonstrates when the student is responding well to intervention.
Excel Graphs Made Easy . Download several Excel spreadsheets that have been pre-formatted to allow you to enter data and to create time-series graphs for common academic measures (CBM, DIBELS) and behavioral measures (time on task, frequency, BOSS). These spreadsheets were designed by Dr. Jim McDougal and student colleagues Karrie Clark and Jacklyn Wilson from SUNY College at Oswego.
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Generate Time-Series Graphs On-Line . Enter your student data into the on-line application ChartDog to create time-series graphs that you can print and share with teachers, parents, administrators, and students. ChartDog allows you to mark phase changes that indicate changes to interventions, to plot trendlines, to save your data for future updates, and more.
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Paper Charts . Do you prefer to chart your data by hand? You can find a large collection of blank time-series charts at CBM Warehouse that you can download and print immediately.
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The circus images used in the design of this page are
provided courtesy of http://www.ilicon.com . You can view them on this page.
Purchase
Your Copy of the RTI
Toolkit! Jim
Wright's book provides practical guidelines for bringing RTI to yourr
school. Click
here for ordering information! 
Random
Intervention Idea from 
Presenter Notes
1. RTI: Understand the Model 
RTI 'BONUS' SITE: 
2. RTI: Use Teams to Problem-Solve 
3. RTI: Select the Right Intervention 
4. RTI: Monitor Student Progress 
5. RTI: Graph Data for Visual Analysis