The has released a on reading instruction and 鈥渞esponse to intervention,鈥� lending its stamp of approval to a process that has already been widely adopted by schools and districts.
A strong response-to-intervention, or RTI, program for early-childhood reading should include screening of all pupils, small-group instruction three to five a times a week for children who are struggling, and monitoring of those struggling students at least once a month to see how they are responding to the intensive lessons, according to the guide. It was published on the ies Web site on Feb. 18 through the .
But Russell Gersten, the chairman of the panel that developed the guide, cautioned there is still much that educators don鈥檛 know about response to intervention, even as RTI, a method of identifying and providing intensive instruction to struggling students, is growing in popularity.
Early-screening tools have the potential of capturing too many students initially, Mr. Gersten said. In addition, the effectiveness of the most intense level of instruction in RTI鈥攇enerally referred to as the third tier鈥攊s still not bolstered by the large-scale studies prized by some educational researchers.
鈥淭here鈥檚 no evidence of it being harmful, or wasteful, or anything like that,鈥� said Mr. Gersten, the executive director of , a nonprofit education research institute in Los Alamitos, Calif., as well as a professor emeritus in the college of education at the University of Oregon, in Eugene. However, it does mean there hasn鈥檛 been research that meets the standards adopted by the ies, he said.
At the same time, said Mr. Gersten, 鈥渢his multi-tiered system has the advantage of being efficient鈥� in providing instruction to students who need extra help. And overall, the guide offers practical advice for schools and could serve to advance the RTI process, he added.
鈥楪ood Balance鈥�
Kathleen A. Whitmire, the director of the , said the panel for the guide represented a good balance of researchers and practitioners. The guide authors also did a good job in describing certain pitfalls of implementation, and how they can be overcome, she said.
鈥淭he most motivated educators will still run up against challenges,鈥� said Ms. Whitmire, whose organization is a program of the New York City-based .
In most RTI instructional models, students generally are screened early in the school year to spot any potential educational deficits.
Students who are having difficulties are then given intensive instruction in a multi-tiered system of service delivery. The first tier is comprehensive instruction given to all students. The second tier is generally small-group instruction focused on problem areas, and the third tier is for students who need more individualized attention.
Teachers use frequent progress monitoring to evaluate a student鈥檚 response to the instruction, and the small numbers of students who do not respond well to any interventions are evaluated for possible referral to special education services.
The RTI model was given a boost in the 2004 reauthorization of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which says that it could be used as part of a process for diagnosing students with specific learning disabilities.
The practice guide, the product of a yearlong effort, is the first on response to intervention that has been released through the What Works Clearinghouse. The clearinghouse has been criticized in some quarters for adhering to rigorous standards that very few programs are able to meet. An independent panel, however, has said that the clearinghouse uses valid methods for assessing studies. (鈥溾�榃hat Works鈥� Process for Assessing Studies Called Valid,鈥� Dec. 3, 2008.)
The guide includes five recommendations for schools to follow in adopting an RTI program.
鈥楲ow鈥� Evidence Base
But some practices that are widely used are nonetheless noted as having a 鈥渓ow鈥� evidence base, meaning there are a lack of studies on the topic. For example, the guide鈥檚 recommendation to provide 鈥渋ntensive instruction, on a daily basis, that promotes the development of the various components of reading proficiency to students who show minimal progress after reasonable time in tier 2 small-group instruction鈥� is classified as having a low evidence base, even though that particular recommendation forms the foundation of the third tier in most RTI instructional models.
Although it seems like common sense to offer students who are not successful in small-group instruction one-on-one services, the results of such attempts are 鈥渁mbiguous,鈥� according to the guide鈥檚 authors. No studies could be found that showed a statistical impact on reading skills, they say.
Based on that finding, 鈥渢here is no reason to believe that a tier 3 program should consist primarily of one-on-one instruction鈥攖hough such instruction should be part of a student鈥檚 daily program,鈥� the guide says.
The practice guide does not recommend specific programs that can be used to provide the intensive instruction that some students may need. It does offer suggestions, though, for how school personnel can make good choices of different programs for their students.
