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Traveling Down the RTI Path
with Lewis and Clark
By Jerry Stemach and Carol Seibert
What the Experts Say
Joseph Torgesen, Ph.D
Director, Florida Center for Reading Research
A group led by Florida State University professor of psychology Joseph K. Torgesen assigned severely disabled readers in grades 3–5 to one of two remediation programs: 16 months in special education and 67.5 hours of individualized instruction over an eight-week period. The children showed little change in the 16 months of special education but made major improvements after a stronger intervention and maintained their gains for two years afterward.
RtI: What is it and who is it for?
Traditionally, schools have followed a “wait to fail” model before identifying struggling learners and placing them into special education. In this model, students are allowed to “fail” in first and second grades with the unhappy result that they fall far behind, and no amount of special education can catch them up completely.
RtI—Response to Intervention—identifies struggling learners at the beginning of their school experience and provides them with graduating levels of intensive, research-based tutoring. The model is so successful that study after study show a decline in the number of identified students who must live out the rest of their school days under the marquee of “Learning Disabilities.”
RtI and Older Learners
Response to Intervention is well and good for our six, seven, and eight year olds lucky enough to attend a school where RtI has been systematically embraced.
But what about our students aged nine and above who find themselves far and farther behind their peers? Has RtI any lessons to teach us in helping these older, struggling learners? Absolutely!
RtI in the Universally Designed Classroom
As special educators go into classrooms to support struggling learners (and their teachers), they are in a powerful position to scaffold and support any and all curriculum content. In so doing, they collaborate with teachers to design an environment filled with learning materials that are age-appropriate and suitable for all.
In some instances, the curriculum topic dovetails nicely with ready-made, research-based supplemental materials available from traditional publishers. This month we feature sample lessons from Start-to-Finish® Core Content books about Lewis and Clark and their encounters with Native Americans who, by the way, provided important intervention strategies to the Corps of Discovery, as the expedition came to be known. Without Native American tutoring, Lewis and Clark might never have found their way across the continent. Their “response” to this “intervention” resulted in a successful journey!
Intervention Tools for Every Learner
The Core Content book Traveling Off the Map is written at a 4-5 grade equivalency. Two multiple choice quizzes assess general knowledge and key vocabulary related to the Lewis and Clark expedition. RtI includes an assessment component at the outset to identify students who will likely need more support in order to progress. We will show you when to use the vocabulary quiz as a pre-test, and the general knowledge quiz as a post-test to inform your instruction and intervention at all Tiers.
In addition, everyone in the class can benefit from watching The Lewis and Clark Story, a short video from Don Johnston’s INCITE! series. These videos build background knowledge and a context for learning. Again, everyone in Tier 1 loves a good movie and relates to it on some level.
For Learners Who Need More
At “Tier 2” (small group) and “Tier 3” (customized interventions for a particular learner), there are more options. We will show you how students can read Core Content or any other classroom text using Read:OutLoud®; how they can respond to text in writing with the support of Draft:Builder®, Co:Writer® and Write:OutLoud®; and how all these interventions can be seamlessly presented in SOLO®.
Part II will give specific examples for all three Tiers of the RtI model, with a link to free resources you can download and use right away!
