The main federal special education law鈥檚 promotion of a practice that can identify children with learning disabilities and give them early help has brought new attention to the method.
Known as 鈥渞esponse to intervention,鈥� or RTI, the method aims to catch specific learning disabilities before the students fall far behind their classmates. In the best cases, teachers can ease the disabilities and make formal special education services unnecessary.
The educational practice is specifically mentioned in the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which covers some 6.8 million children.
President Gerald R. Ford signed the original version of the IDEA into law 30 years ago this week, instituting a landmark federal mandate that states provide children with disabilities a 鈥渇ree, appropriate public education.鈥�
The IDEA鈥檚 reference to RTI, and the Department of Education鈥檚 promotion of the practice in its proposed rules for the 2004 law, have made it a focus of the special education community. The National Association of State Directors of Special Education devoted a session to the method at its annual meeting in Minneapolis last month, and the group has published a 60-page booklet on it. A Web site that is an RTI clearinghouse, created by a special education administrator for the 5,900-student Baldwinsville, N.Y., school district, receives more than 200,000 page views monthly. RTI proponents are giving lectures around the country on the practice.
鈥淏eing part of the statutory language obviously elevates this thing called RTI to a high, visible level,鈥� said Michael Armstrong, the president of NASDSE and the director of the Ohio Department of Education鈥檚 office for exceptional children. 鈥淚t opens it up to conversation on both sides.鈥�
Some may look at RTI and say it鈥檚 the 鈥渓atest fix of the day,鈥� Mr. Armstrong said. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 bigger than that.鈥�
The law does not require the method鈥檚 use, but says states may not prohibit school districts from using the model to evaluate students for learning disabilities. By far, the largest percent of students getting special education services have 鈥渟pecific learning disabilities鈥濃�攁bout 49 percent, according to a 2003 report from the Education Department that examined demographics of students in special education.
In a response-to-intervention teaching model, all students鈥攖hose potentially with learning disabilities and those without鈥攁re given a variety of 鈥渋nterventions,鈥� or lessons, on subjects that are causing them difficulty. The interventions often are not more complicated than or different from the methods teachers might use for any struggling student.
Monitoring Progress
Jim Wright, a special education administrator, has created a Web site, , where teachers can get hints and help on intervention techniques. Some examples of research-based interventions he lists to help struggling readers:
Assisted reading practice: The student reads aloud while an accomplished reader follows along silently. If the student makes a mistake, the helping reader corrects it.
Word-attack hierarchy: The instructor prompts the student to apply a hierarchy of word-attack skills whenever the student misreads a word. The instructor gives these cues in descending order, from general (鈥渢ry another way鈥�) to specific (鈥渂reak the word into parts and pronounce each one鈥�). If the student correctly identifies the word after any cue, the instructor stops delivering cues and tells the student to continue reading.
Listening-practice preview: The student follows along silently as an accomplished reader reads a passage aloud. Then the student reads the passage aloud, receiving corrective feedback as needed.
Student self-comprehension check: Students periodically check their understanding of sentences, paragraphs, and pages of text as they read silently. When they run into problems with vocabulary or comprehension, they use a checklist to apply simple strategies to solve them. For example: At the end of each sentence, they ask, 鈥淒id I understand this sentence?鈥� If they do, they say 鈥淐lick!鈥� and keep reading. If they don鈥檛 , they say 鈥淐lunk!鈥� and refer to the strategy sheet to correct the problem. As students learn the technique, the teacher can introduce an unobtrusive nonverbal signal.
SOURCE: Jim Wright,
However, teachers must monitor student progress with frequent short assessments, as often as twice a week. If a student makes sufficient gains, the teacher can move on to the next lesson. But if the child fails to respond to an intervention, different ones are tried before the school and parents decide that special education is necessary.
RTI differs dramatically from the most widely used method of identifying children for learning disabilities, which involves giving a student an IQ test and determining whether there is a severe discrepancy between the child鈥檚 abilities as measured by the test and his or her achievement in the classroom. Critics of that method, referred to as the discrepancy model, say that it causes schools to wait too long to offer intensive help to students with problems.
The 2004 reauthorization of the IDEA says that states may not require school districts to use the discrepancy model.
Districts sometimes end up caught between a true response-to-intervention approach and the discrepancy model, which is described by some as a 鈥渨ait to fail鈥� approach, said George Batsche, a professor of school psychology at the University of South Florida in Tampa. A frequent lecturer on RTI, he gave a presentation to the state directors鈥� group.
Too often, a few interventions are tried with students, but no one measures closely to see if the strategies are working, and time is lost, Mr. Batsche said.
鈥淓verybody has the same amount of time in school,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 extend the time at the end of their academic career, so every minute counts.鈥�
Making Distinctions
RTI also represents a shift from early federal special education policy, which was focused primarily on trying to get children who had special needs into classrooms from which they long had been excluded.
鈥淚t was a public-policy priority to find those kids and get them into school,鈥� said W. David Tilly III, the coordinator of assessment services for the Heartland Area Educational Association in Johnston, Iowa, which provides support services to 55 school districts in the state.
The downside, Mr. Tilly said, is that too many students may be identified with learning disabilities when they may have other needs.
Also, most experts agree that students in special education are at risk of being excluded from the general education curriculum. Some provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act address that issue by requiring districts to break out separately the test scores of children with disabilities to see if they are making adequate yearly progress toward state proficiency standards.
Supporters of response to intervention embrace it as a way of distinguishing children who have genuine learning disabilities from children who might be low achievers for some other reason. And, it doesn鈥檛 have to differ dramatically from what teachers have done in the past, they say.
鈥淓very school does bits and pieces of this thing. The goal is to do it in a more systematic, or more systemic way,鈥� said Diane Morrison, the director of support services for the Northern Suburban Special Education District, a cooperative association of 19 suburban Chicago districts, referring to RTI.
Improved technology makes some of the data-collection efforts required for RTI much easier now than they may have been in the past, but 鈥渋t takes a lot of effort,鈥� Ms. Morrison said. 鈥淏ut if [the RTI method] is good and it鈥檚 worth it, you鈥檝e got to do it.鈥�
Ms. Morrison has been working with Illinois schools for more than 10 years to implement the RTI method, and she said it鈥檚 spreading from elementary schools to middle schools and high schools. Response to intervention can also be used to address behavior problems, not just academic ones, she said.
With RTI, 鈥測ou鈥檙e making decisions from the very beginning,鈥� she said. 鈥淵ou do interventions and you鈥檙e monitoring [students], not to get them into special education, but for improvement.鈥�
Advocates鈥� Concerns
Opinions about the method among advocates for children with disabilities are mixed. Ms. Morrison said that some advocates are worried that the method draws scarce resources away from children with special needs.
Justine Maloney, the Washington representative for the Pittsburgh-based Learning Disabilities Association of America, said that she鈥檚 concerned RTI focuses mainly on young elementary school children who have problems reading. The spectrum of learning disabilities extends beyond young children, and beyond reading, she said.
Ms. Maloney also notes that the process is time-consuming for teachers who already may be overloaded, or not well trained in how to evaluate children.
鈥淚 can remember with the severe-discrepancy model, the [IDEA] said that before you refer the kids [to special education], you鈥檙e supposed to try all these interventions. But it was easy to dump kids,鈥� Ms. Maloney said, even though according to the special education law, no one method is supposed to be the sole criterion for determining if a child has a disability.
So, RTI should not be seen as a quick fix, she said. 鈥淲e do like easy answers, but it鈥檚 a very mixed bag.鈥�
Ricki Sabia, the associate director of the New York City-based National Down Syndrome Society鈥檚 National Policy Center, sees a clear benefit in RTI for the children she works with. Too often, children with mental retardation may have additional learning disabilities that go unaddressed, because all of the problems are lumped into the same category, she said.
But a child with a cognitive disability can still have dyslexia, she gave as an example. Under response to intervention, teachers would have to try different approaches before saying mental retardation is the only problem, she said.
鈥淭he IQ-discrepancy test is not going to help our kids鈥� get diagnosed with learning disabilities, said Ms. Sabia. 鈥淚t鈥檚 good to see some other way of evaluating our kids.鈥�
In Ohio, Mr. Armstrong, the special education director, said that his state鈥檚 educators are taking advantage of the interest in RTI to educate themselves. Some schools are using RTI practices, but in others the method died out after a school leader who championed it left the building, he said.
However, the concept is not entirely new, he said.
鈥淲e鈥檙e looking to understand RTI in its truest form, and how we can begin to build a culture,鈥� Mr. Armstrong said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about restacking the information that we already have.鈥�
