Response to Intervention

Intended Outcomes

Proponents of RtI propose four valued qualities. First, RtI incorporates a predictive approach. RtI’s procedures can inoculate students against encountering academic and behavioral difficulties. This outcome is achieved by using screening measures in a predictive manner and identifying students who are predicted as at-risk for academic and behavioral difficulties. Those students predicted as at-risk are provided an intensive intervention that addresses their skill and ability deficits before they lag their peers.

The second-valued quality is that appropriate interventions are provided to students in a timely, data-based, and targeted manner. Rather than students failing, singling them out from their peers, and then developing interventions for them, the results of targeted assessments (i.e., screening and progress monitoring) can pinpoint specific skill deficits (e.g., phonemic awareness, morphological awareness, number sense, and number operations). Interventions in these specific deficits will support the students’ learning and achievement.

The third quality is that RtI invites a systems approach to understanding students’ learning, achievement, and behavior. Rather than positing that student difficulties are inherent to the student, the RtI framework emphasizes that classroom teachers and schools’ administrative decisions have a greater impact. That is, the decisions made regarding curricular materials, instructional practices, intended outcomes, and behavior management are not the students’ decisions. The students are responding to others’ decisions. Examining the [Page 1423]results of the universal screening and progress monitoring can help determine how well the school is achieving its intended outcomes.

The fourth quality is that RtI provides an alternative model to identifying students with specific learning disabilities. A generally accepted characteristic of specific learning disabilities is that students who one might expect to achieve do not respond to instruction and thus demonstrate an unexpected deficit in learning and performance. The RtI framework assesses a child’s learning rate and the level of performance relative to peers and rules out that poor instruction is the causal agent for not responding. The conclusion is that the difficulties are intrinsic to the student as opposed to an external factor (e.g., poor instruction).

Essential Components

The RtI framework includes four essential components: universal screening, progress monitoring, levels of prevention or intervention, and data-based decision making.

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