Educating Students with Reading Disabilities: Issues in Policy and Practice

R E 5210—375

Educating Students with Reading Disabilities: Issues in Policy and Practice

Appalachian State University

Fall 2010

Instructor, Dr. Devery Ward

RTI Position Paper

November 30, 2010

Candy Kee

Here we go again. The swinging educational circus ride has swung as far it can in one direction. It holds momentarily and begins to swing in the opposite direction, picking up speed as it travels.

All educators are buying into, teetering on the edge or just saying no on riding this ride to the recently introduced Response to Intervention Model in NC. For the purpose of this paper I will be reflecting on N.C.Problem Solving Model versus the Standard Protocol Model of RTI.

I really believe that the North Carolina educational pendulum is swinging backwards. I have believed this since I heard of RTI four years ago.

RTI suddenly exploded on the scene as a “buzz word”. We heard it but it was not explained. Administration began meeting on RTI and many were flown to Iowa for basic training.It sounded kind of like boot camp.

As meetings were held and people returned from training no one could answer the question. What is RTI? What does it do? Why are we training in RTI?

I explicitly remember all my Title I colleagues were being trained in RTI. I had to understand what it was. They told me it was to learn interventions for struggling readers. As a Title I teacher, I still did not understand why I was not being trained. I was after all a teacher of struggling readers. I longed to know about the interventions. Just go into the Florida Website they would say. You will learn there. I did this but the website was vague. I gave up in this and relocated to a new job which I was going to do anyway. The term RTI was still rolling down the track and looming bigger than ever on the horizon. In my new job, Exceptional Teacher grades 9-12, I remember the County Office people writing emails encouraging for us in highschool to use proper RTI interventions with our EC kids. I had no idea what they meant by RTI. This kind of communication continued for two years until, some training and explaining was offered. I must admit that I was very curious about Response to Intervention and began to read up on it for myself. I think RTI must be a huge horrific secret or, perhaps no one understands it well enough to explain it. Unfortunately this may be the case because depending on the person talking about RTI, the explanations vary.

Even though we are still in the ditches of RTI, N.C. is moving forward with its newest philosophy. Let’s use the problem solving model of RTI!! It will solve our educational problems! Let’s plug our students into this model and see who drops out of it due to improved performance and who stays in. Now I ask this question. Is this not what are were doing anyway? Are we not continually evaluating students to see who was on grade level and who isn’t?

In my Title I experience my colleagues, we gathered information on all students as the year started. We conducted an IRI, Star Testing, Word Recognition, Brigance, K-2 Assessment and researched EOG score history, and asked teacher opinion of all out students. We plugged this information into a criteria sheet based on the grade level and evaluated the results, giving points for delinquent areas. The students with the highest points in each grade level was our targeted population for pull out and intervention. I felt we had a very low failure rate and did not leave a child out. It worked well with consistently climbing reading scores. We had gathered history over the years on these children and knew their problems even as early as Kindergarten. If the children did not show improvement within six weeks, we began an even more intense intervention with more pullout reading and then reported to SSMT to discuss with a team of professionals. If the student still did not show improvement by midyear, the referral process began, however, we still intervened with extra instruction. All of our testing and interventions were documented. Some of our students placed in EC with the discrepancy model and some did not but they still received help through Title 1.

Now we have the N.C. model of RTI. The first two tiers are in the classroom. In Tier I, students are observed, EOG and benchmark data is kept. If problems occur or if a teacher feels there is a problem, the teacher refers the child for RTI and the parents are invited in for a conference. I suppose some kind of intervention is discussed and implemented in the classroom. This could even be a behavior plan. If this does not work in 9 weeks, Tier II classwork begins and is still up to the teacher to come up with interventions, implement and gather data. I am sure the data is gathered based on the quickest and easiest way possible. I can’t fault the teacher too much here. They really need help! Here comes Tier III next. I guess we have noted again a problem with the child in question. He/she is still not making progress. (Who knows what the interventions really were and how often implemented? The record is not always accurate!) In the third tier, the teacher consults with other professionals for ideas and interventions. (Thought this was our job anyway.) Are we not supposed to be supporting from Day 1?

The supporters suggest classroom interventions based on the child’s needs. I am not sure if at this point we really know the need since nothing is standardized. I am unsure if the child is pulled out at this point or if again, he is in the classroom. I really love this part. The supporting professionals suggest interventions that might work best for the teacher. Who will do the interventions? Where will the materials for the interventions come from? Who will make sure this is happening continually? Does the teacher pop an intervention out of an intervention treasure box? Another 9 weeks or so passes and guess what? We will probably see no progress unless this child has lots of self determination and his parents are camping out at school.

We are half way through the year now. We are going to call this kid Johnny since his name is well known by now. Johnny is honestly on the same reading level with the same problems. All the interventions recorded in Johnny’s intervention since the beginning may have happened or maybe not. In my opinion we have wasted 18 weeks of Johnny’s educational life.

Let’s all go home for Christmas vacation and worry about Johnny when we come back. (I can imagine this.)

Upon returning, we are still in Tier III. I think it is quite comical that Tier I is described as informal, Tier II is described as concerns and now we have worked ourselves all the way up to Tier III to get some real help. Remember this is the “problem solving model” of RTI.

Now the interventions are data driven and we use instruments and monitor progress! What in the world were we doing before? (Throwing it in the teacher’s frustrated lap.) We also have home based intervention in this model!! Wonder who conducts these interventions? We know the success of the student will soar now since we mandated intense data driven interventions including work at home and with monitoring!!

Now if the child should happen to improve, we can leave him in the Tier III or boot him out . If no progress is shown we can decide to go to the Tier IV. In Tier IV we see that teachers have even more access to their colleagues and everyone is committed to the success of the child! Of course if Johnny reaches Tier lV, he is possibly going into testing for EC if his parents will comply. I am assuming that no one tried so hard in the first 27 weeks to help him because now we are all committed! Just think of the progress Johnny might have made if we jumped in his wagon at the beginning, just as we did in our Title I program.

The above generalized opinion of the N.C. RTI Problem Solving Model. Is it a scam, a power of philosophy, a thirsty quest for money or really thought to help? Where oh where are our educator specialist and administrators?I think that the N.C. model is vague, confusing, full of opportunity for error, too subjective and slow moving.

The RTI Standard Protocol Model is a bit more solid in its process, I suppose. It’s just that the mere mention of RTI leaves a bitter taste in my mouth now. I had never ever heard of a different model availability until this class. Why the secrecy? We need to be educated with what’s going on in our state and schools.

The Standard Protocol of RTI can be implemented across the county and states with much more consistency. I like the fact that all children are screened together at the beginning of the year on a standardized measurement. This is Tier 1. The “at risk” should pop out in this screen immediately. I realize again that over identification might take place but I am a believer in that. In this model, children performing below the 50th percentile are targeted. Intervention begins immediately within the classroom for these kids and testing is usually monthly and is standardized across the curriculum and grade levels. Building a consistent data bank of scores within a school, county or state can give us ruler to measure with so we can know if a child is really struggling or not. We don’t wait around until Tier 111 either to get some real help. I failed to mention earlier that the N.C. model can have up to 4 or 5 tiers based on someone’s opinion I guess. The Standard model is much quicker with less tiers.

Although the “problem solving model” can be touted for early intervention, the standard model can as well and moves quickly into disability identification whereas the N.C. model may never diagnose a disability. Researched based interventions are used for these children after a diagnosis of the problem in the standard model. The interventions are a supplemental to the regular classroom instruction. A trained professional, not necessarily the teacher, provides instructions to a small group of “at risk” students in the classroom. This intervention can be as short as 20 minutes or as long as 40 minutes and is in addition to regular instruction in the classroom. Progress is consistently monitored as often as 2 times a month. This is Tier 11. After 8 to 12 weeks of consistent researched intervention is provided and the student is not progressing, the student is quickly moved into Tier 111 where he or she will receive pull out instruction and possibly one-on-one with a highly qualified professional. If these students are still not responding to intervention, qualify for EC or (right now go to further comprehensive testing), in order to specify the disability and to place. This method of RTI is sure, consistent and quick with early intervention and disability diagnosis. I cannot understand why N.C., if trying to be progressive in education, did not choose this model. Perhaps saving money is an issue but at what real cost? The upcoming year is going to provide so many more challenges for our educational system with budget cuts, larger classroom sizes, mainstreaming and the cutting in support areas. Perhaps our N.C. model will create early identification that the child is struggling and some intervention but I still believe children will need EC and a disability diagnosis in order to prevail in our world. I can also see now that the discrepancy model has left many needy children out of the program that could have benefited from EC services. The Standard Protocol model is definitely my personal choice to identify, provide intense help for children and to place them in EC with a disability diagnosis where necessary. We shall see in the years ahead the educational path that we in N. C. will take. I hope it will be a better one than we have restarted on……