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What Is Response to Intervention?

Mary McMahon
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Updated: May 17, 2024
Views: 2,771
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Response to intervention (RTI) is an approach to student performance that involves identifying students in need of assistance, providing help, and monitoring the response to determine if adjustments to the assistance program are necessary. Observation and monitoring provide a more scientific approach to student interventions that can help students with a variety of issues that may impact their performance in school. This can include undiagnosed learning disorders or disability-related issues that make classroom participation more difficult without officially being considered learning disorders.

The first step in the implementation of response to intervention is universal screening of all students. Rather than the cutoff approach used with some special education programs where students need to be diagnosed with a specific condition to receive help, response to intervention frameworks recognize that students may not fit into neat categories. This allows educators to catch students with problems as early as possible, rather than waiting to see which students struggle, and then intervening.

After screening, some students who need help may be identified. Educators, psychologists, and parents can work together to develop an intervention plan tailored to the needs of the student, based on the outcome of the screening. For example, a child might need some tutoring to stay on track with reading targets, or could require more time to complete tests. These interventions are enacted, and educators follow up to see how well the student responds.

In the event the student does well, the interventions can continue, with periodic checkups to determine if the needs of the student have changed. If the student continues to struggle or develops new problems, the response to intervention metric requires educators to return to the drawing board to discuss new options. They can adjust the intervention plan, request more screening, and explore other methods of meeting the student's needs. These could include more intensive interventions if the student does not respond to a more conservative initial approach, which can help schools allocate resources more effectively.

This method is less disruptive than some approaches because it customizes interventions for students. It assumes that a school can meet the educational needs of all pupils, as long as it has the right tools to support them. Students who need extra assistance can receive it discreetly to avoid attracting attention, and schools can identify budding problems before they become serious. The response to intervention method can help with timely assistance to prevent long term problems like being trapped behind peers due to low reading comprehension.

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Mary McMahon
By Mary McMahon

Ever since she began contributing to the site several years ago, Mary has embraced the exciting challenge of being a WiseGeek researcher and writer. Mary has a liberal arts degree from Goddard College and spends her free time reading, cooking, and exploring the great outdoors.

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Discussion Comments
By Tomislav — On Aug 18, 2011

@alfredo - I am not sure if all models are the same, but in NC our response to intervention model has 4 tiers.

Here is a little description of each tier:

In tier one - parent and teacher meet informally to discuss any issues about student's academic process.

During tier two - Any concerns that were decided upon or discussed during parent and teacher conference are now discussed (again informally) with other academic professionals and a plan is formed to address the issues.

Now on to tier three - This is where consultation of the formal type of nature is introduced, and a new plan is implemented via this consultation.

The final tier - tier four - Additional resources and services are now introduced in this final step if the student concerns have yet to be resolved. For example special education like you described in your comment is considered.

So am not sure if other states follow these same tiers but I bet it is likely that it is some variation of the discussions and interventions that take place to help the student.

By aLFredo — On Aug 17, 2011

I love response to intervention in theory (I have only learned about it in school but have not seen it being used with my own eyes).

One of the things my class learned about was that response to intervention can prevent some students from receiving a disability label by responding to their difficulties with the interventions as opposed to the traditional model of testing, giving a disability label to those who qualify, and then responding to the disability via providing special education services.

I remember there are different response to intervention tiers, do all RTI models use the tier model or are there different models?

Mary McMahon
Mary McMahon

Ever since she began contributing to the site several years ago, Mary has embraced the exciting challenge of being a...

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