Response-to-intervention (RTI) is an evidenced-based framework for improving all students’ academic, behavioral, and social needs. The RTI process begins with high-quality instruction and screening for all students in the general education classroom. Then, students who are at risk for academic or behavioral difficulties are identified and provided with increasingly intensive research-based interventions (Shepherd & Linn, 2014). Progress monitoring data is used to make decisions about the effectiveness of intervention implementation and necessary adjustments. Finally, RTI Tier 3 provides the most intensive level of individualized support for students who continue to struggle despite Tier 1 and Tier 2 interventions.
There are three tiers of response-to-intervention: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Each tier is designed to provide increasingly intensive levels of support to students who struggle academically or behaviorally. The primary tier consists of high-quality instruction and classroom management designed to meet the needs of all students in the general education setting. When students are struggling in school despite this, they may be moved to the second tier. The secondary tier consists of more targeted interventions that are implemented by special education teachers or other trained personnel (McCrary et al., 2017). These interventions are usually more intense and individualized than what is provided in the primary tier. If students do not improve with these interventions, they may be moved to the tertiary tier. The role of tertiary tier response-to-intervention (RTI3) is to provide increased support to students experiencing difficulty in general education settings. This may include, but is not limited to, providing more intensive instruction and/or interventions, longer intervention periods, or smaller group sizes (Silva et al., 2017). Tertiary tier RTI3 services are typically delivered in a special education setting or pull-out program.
References
McCrary, D., Brown, D. L., Dyer-Sennette, J., & Morton, T. (2017). Response to Intervention and Authentic Assessment.Dimensions of Early Childhood, 45(1), 30-38.
Shepherd, T. L., & Linn, D. (2014). Behavior and classroom management in the multicultural classroom: Proactive, active, and reactive strategies. Sage Publications.
Silva, M. R., Collier-Meek, M. A., Codding, R. S., Kleinert, W. L., & Feinberg, A. (2021). Data collection and analysis in response-to-intervention: A survey of school psychologists. Contemporary School Psychology, 25(4), 554-571. Web.