Every month in LD News, NCLD highlights the latest news, research and practices in Response to Intervention (RTI).  Previous RTI updates are listed below.

November
RTI Update:  Response to Intervention at the High School Level
This month, find out about a report from the National High School Center titled, Meeting the Needs of Significantly Struggling Learners in High School: A Look at Approaches to Tiered Instruction that looks at the implementation of RTI at the secondary level and its impact on the delivery of effective instruction and on student progress during the secondary school years.

October 2007
A Word with RTI Action Network Director, Dr. Kathleen Whitmire
The National Center for Learning Disabilities will be launching the RTI (Response to Intervention) Action Network and its corresponding Web site in spring 2008.  Kathleen A. Whitmire, Ph.D. has joined NCLD as the director of the RTI Action Network. Dr. Whitmire is passionate about RTI and for the legacy of student success it promises.  LD News sat down with Dr. Whitmire to hear first-hand about how she was drawn to both NCLD and the RTI Action Network.

September 2007
New module released by the IRIS Center, "RTI: Considerations for School Leaders"
The IRIS Center for Training Enhancements, a national center that provides "free, online, interactive training enhancements that translate research about the education of students with disabilities into practice" for university faculty to use with students, has posted the fifth online training module in its Response to Intervention (RTI) series, "Star Legacy Modules."

July/August 2007
NASP Endorses RTI in Position Statement on Specific Learning Disabilities
NASP's latest position statement on Specific Learning Disabilities clearly states the organization's endorsement of Response to Intervention as the instruction model that best relates to its mission of promoting policies and practices that are consistent with scientific research and that yield optimal student outcomes.  NASP asserts that the tiered Response to Intervention model effectively addresses the learning needs of all children (including those with SLD), by providing for quality instruction in the general education classroom while allowing for efficient and appropriate instructional interventions prior to special education instruction referral.

June 2007
Response to Intervention: Where Are We Now?
Teaching Exceptional Children Looks at Ten Years of RTI
To understand the current state of Response to Intervention, it is helpful to have an understanding of how it began.  This month's RTI Update highlights, "Responsiveness to Intervention: 1997 to 2007," an article from Renee Bradley, Louis Danielson and Jennifer Doolittle presenting historical facts about the origin and evolution of RTI over the past ten years and offering opinions about the genesis of this important education innovation.

May 2007
Project Forum Maps Next Steps for the Future of Education: RTI and EIS
Project Forum, an initiative of the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE), has released findings from its recent policy forum, "Response to Intervention (RTI) and Early Intervening Services (EIS) Recommendations."  The objective of Project Forum is to identify information necessary to improve the management, administration, delivery and effectiveness of education programs and services. The recommendations in this report are the result of an October 2006 meeting, the goal of which was to facilitate the creation of practitioner-generated policy recommendations that promote continued legislative support for Early Intervention Services; further advocacy for the inclusion of RTI-specific language into policy; as well as present recommendations for the adoption of RTI models into school systems nationwide.

April 2007
The Response to Intervention Revolution: NCLD Calls for RTI Action in House and Senate
On April 4, 2007, NCLD Executive Direcotr James Wendorf, along with NCLD Public Policy Director Laura Kaloi and NCLD Professional Advisory Board members Judy Elliot and Steve Kukic, gathered in Washington D.C. to conduct a briefing on the Response to Intervention (RTI) model to key Senate and House committee staff members. 

The goal of this meeting was two-fold: to ensure the staff members' understanding of the RTI model, and to present valuable insight as to why it is essential that the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation (scheduled for review and reauthorization during this year's Congressional session) include specific language reinforcing and supporting the comprehensive implementation of RTI nationwide.

March 2007
Commission on No Child Left Behind Publishes Report: No Provisions for Early Childhood Education, No Provisions for Formative Assessments
The Commission on No Child Left Behind (NCLB) presented 75 recommendations to Congress for use in the upcoming reauthorization of NCLB during this congressional session. While the Commission made several recommendations for the improvement of early childhood education and the addition of formative assessments, it did not include language identifying the three-tiered general education instruction model, Response to Intervention (RTI). 

February 2007
Response to Intervention Webcast Training Series
The California Department of Education offers free materials from their "Response to Intervention Training for California Educators" Webcast Training Series.  The series offered presentations and information on implementing a multi-tier Response to Intervention system (RTI) that is designed to align with No Child Left Behind legislation.

January 2007
Putting it all Together
Putting It All Together, the fourth in a series of modules on Response-to-Intervention from the IRIS Center for Faculty Enhancement, gives an overview of the components of RTI, and discusses how to combine the components in order to assist struggling readers and help to identify those with learning disabilites.

FAQ on Response to Intervention
In an interview with Ednews.org, Peggy McCardle, Ph.D., Chief of The Child Development & Behavior Branch of the Center for Research for Mothers & Children at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, provides insight into some probing questions regarding the model designed to help students who struggle with learning. To read the interview, click here.

December 2006
NCLD Participates in "New Roles Publication" on Response to Intervention
In order to create a common language to discuss Response to Intervention (RTI), 13 organizations, including the National Center for Learning Disabilities, have joined together to release New Roles in Response to Intervention: Creating Success for Schools and Children. The participating organizations hope that by collecting their statements on RTI together, competition between organizations will decrease, and focus will turn, rather, to what's in the best interest of the child.

RTI identifies students who are struggling with learning before it becomes a problem. Struggling students are given increasingly intensive lessons and monitored continuously, and students who do not respond at the most intensive levels will be referred for possible placement in a special education setting. The National Education Association, the Learning Disabilities Association of America, and the International Reading Association are among the organizations involved in the collection, offering new ideas and research on RTI as well as raising questions to assure that, as a new method, it is studied carefully.

November 2006
RTI Model in Action
On October 25, 2006, Cindy H. Goldsworthy and Joe McFarland from the Derry Township School District in Hershey, PA hosted a webinar discussing how their district implemented its progress monitoring tool.  Within their district, all teachers and students kindergarten through fifth grade participate in progress monitoring, and beginning this year students in grades six through eight who are performing below benchmark will also participate in the program. The webinar focused on how this district has succeeded in training teachers, communicating with families, using data to make instructional decisions, and improving student achievement by implementing its progress monitoring model. To access a recording of the Webinar, click here.

October 2006
The Center for Educational Networking Develops two-part RTI Series
The Center for Educational Networking has developed a two-part series on RTI, the first of which is now online. Based on the book Response to Intervention: Policy Considerations and Implementation, from the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, this document discusses the definition, principles, essential components, foundations in research and policy, and support for RTI on the national front.  To visit this Web site, click here.

September 2006
RTI and UDL May Provide Benefits When Combined in the Classroom
Response-to-Instruction (RTI) is a process that helps to identify students at-risk for school failure, monitors responsiveness to instruction, and determines different courses of action in order to identify learning disabilities and respond accordingly as early as possible.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a new approach to curriculum that resists the impulse to categorize students as "typical," and encourages the recognition of each student's individuality, weaknesses, and strengths. UDL remodels curriculum design by bringing flexibility and accommodation to diverse students’ needs to the forefront. Modeled upon research in neuroscience, the UDL approach is based upon three fundamental networks of learning " recognition of information to be learned, application of strategies to process information, and engagement with the learning task.

Both RTI and UDL are ways to help students with disabilities participate and succeed in the general education curriculum, and help decipher whether it is the struggling student or the program itself that is falling behind. By combining these processes into the general education curriculum, it is hoped that a new curriculum can be formed that anticipates students' difficulties and eliminates the need for intervention.

A new paper from The Access Center provides an introduction to these strategies and explores the possibility of their intersection in the classroom.

To download a pdf of "Response-to-Instruction and Universal Design for Learning: How Might They Intersect in the General Education Classroom? (14 pages)," click here.

August 2006
National Center for Student Progress releases review of Progress Monitoring Tools
Progress monitoring is a scientifically based practice that is used to assess students' academic performance and evaluate the effectiveness of instruction. Progress monitoring can be implemented with individual students or an entire class. The National Center for Student Progress Monitoring has published a review of progress monitoring tools that rates each tool against a set of psychometric and content-specific standards.
 
Michael Shaughnessy of Eastern New Mexico University conducted an interview with Gary Germann about Response to Intervention and the AIMSweb Progress Monitoring System. Read about how greater numbers of school systems are moving toward computer based data management systems.
 
A series of studies has also been released by the National Center for Educational Accountability< that delineates the practices of nearly 200 high-performing schools. The studies used three years of performance data to identify top schools in 20 participating states, and, through the use of consistent protocols, researchers found strong similarities in the methods that the schools utilize to improve student achievement.  The studies include data from elementary through high schools, as well as interviews with district leaders, principals, and teachers from high- and average-performing schools.  For more information, click here.

July 2006
NCLD's Parent's Guide to Response-to-Intervention
Download NCLD's Parent's Guide to Response-to-Intervention (RTI) to learn about this approach to providing services and interventions to students who struggle with learning.

The goal of this meeting was two-fold: to ensure the staff members' understanding of the RTI model, and to present valuable insight as to why it is essential that the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation (scheduled for review and reauthorization during this year's Congressional session) include specific language reinforcing and supporting the comprehensive implementation of RTI nationwide.