RTI in Middle Schools: Going from Concept to Reality

Matthew Burns, Ph.D.

Prevalence of DisabilitiesDisability 1991 2001 % Change

LD 2,247,004 2,887,217 28.5

MR 553,262 612,978 10.8

EBD 400,211 473,663 18.4

Deaf-Blind 1,427 1,320 -7.5

OHI 58,749 291,850 396.8

Autism 5,415 78,749 1,354.3

Multi-Tiered Academic Interventions (Burns, Jimerson, & Deno, 2007)

Tier I: Universal screening and progress monitoring with quality core curriculum: All students,

Tier II: Standardized interventions with small groups in general education: 15% to 20% of students at any time

Tier III: Individualized interventions with in-depth problem analysis in general education : 5% of students at any time

RTI and Problem-SolvingM

easu

rem

ent P

reci

sion M

easurement Frequency

Problem-Analysis

TIER I

TIER I I

TIER III

Problem Solving• Tier I – Identify discrepancy between

expectation and performance for class or individual

• Tier II – Identify discrepancy for individual. Identify category of problem. Assign small group solution.

• Tier III – Identify discrepancy for individual. Identify causal variable. Implement individual intervention.

TIER I

Classwide problem?

Grade Levels

2

2

4

6

22

31

51

67

77

81

71

73

7

0 20 40 60 80 100

Grade 12

Grade 10

Grade 8

Grade 6

Grade 4

Grade 2

Kindergarten

Number of Empirical Journal Articles Including Grade Level in Their Sample

Other grades• Second through sixth grade

– Reading fluency at grade level

• Seventh grade +– Maze– NWEA

You’ve Got the Data – Now What?• Data Management Team

– Usually school psychologist and one other– Know data!

• PLC or Discipline Teams

• Get data to teachers within 2 to 3 days

• Lead data meeting

student names 15-Sep

A 11

B 16

C 12

D 29

E 23

F 34

G 14

H 13

I 13

J 30

K 31

L 13

M 10

N 37

O 31

P 9

Q 33

R 20

S 40

T 19

Median 19.5

http://www.fcrr.org/assessmentMiddleHighSchool.htm

student names 15-Sep

A 11

B 16

C 12

D 29

E 23

F 34

G 14

H 13

I 13

J 30

K 31

L 13

M 10

N 37

O 31

P 9

Q 33

R 20

S 40

T 19

Median 19.5

Literacy in MS/HS

http://www.fcrr.org/Interventions/pdf/Principals%20Guide-Secondary.pdf

Adolescent Literacy• Create a literacy plan

• Adopt coherent and rigorous standards

• Assess student needs

• Deliver interventions to struggling readers

• Help teachers learn literacy instruction

• Make a long term commitment Biancarosa, G. & Snow, C.E. (2004). Reading Next—A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy: A Report to Carnegie Corporation of New York. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.

Classwide Intervention

http://kc.vanderbilt.edu/pals/

student names 15-Sep 29-Sep

A 11 12

B 16 33

C 12 28

D 29 45

E 23 46

F 34 52

G 14 27

H 13 13

I 13 26

J 30 59

K 31 59

L 13 29

M 10 12

N 37 50

O 31 56

P 9 13

Q 33 54

R 20 46

S 40 62

T 19 47

Median 19.5 45.5

TIER II INTERVENTIONS

Category of the Deficit

Assess 4 NRP Areas• Phonemic Awareness

– NA at secondary setting

• Phonics– Word attack - WJ

• Fluency– Oral reading fluency or Test of Silent Contextual Reading

Fluency

• Vocabulary/Comprehension– MAP

Category of Problem MN HS• 9-12 with approximately 1600 students

• 69.2% pass reading

• 9th-10th grade

• 28% low on MAP (~225)

• 45% Low on TOSCRF (~100)– 64% low on phonics (~65)– 36% acceptable phonics (~36)

Florida Center for Reading Research

www.fcrr.org

• Click – For Teachers• Click – Interventions for Struggling Readers• Click – Supplemental and Intervention

Programs

http://www.fcrr.org/FCRRReports/CReportsCS.aspx?rep=supp

Interventions

• Phonics – Rewards

• Fluency – Read Naturally

• Vocabulary/Comprehension– Read On!– Reading Advantage– Thinking Readers

RAND Reading Research Group (2002)

• Described a critical state of reading comprehension skills among middle- and high-school students.

• Described six effective strategies– Monitoring comprehension was #1– Others were using graphic organizers,

generating and answering questions, examining story structure and summarizing

Tier II• Effective – at least moderate ES• Costs – Low as possible, cost/ES, cost effective (comes with

a lot), dedicated teacher time • Delivery

– Group/individual (two to six considering efficiency) – Total students (20%)– Who - teacher supervision with some peer and or adult tutoring– Pull out – in addition to, some pull out component, 3 to 5 X/week,

approximately 30 minutes (kinder – 20min tops). No less than 8 weeks.

• Grades of kids – earlier better, certainly K-2.• Measure – fluency measure of reading at least monthly• Materials

– Ease – much easier if compiled, but not prerequisite– Availability – standardized (manual)

Secondary Setting

• 50 minute courses– Smaller courses (up to 12 or so)– Content area (e.g., Social Studies)

• 90 minute blocks– Within course– 30 minutes of strategies

Tier II in HSSocial Studies RTI Class Social Studies Class

Social Studies Teacher

Social Studies Teacher

Interventionist

Tier II in HS – 1st 30 MinutesSocial Studies RTI Class

Social Studies Teacher

Interventionist

Tier II in HS – 2nd 30 minutesSocial Studies RTI Class

Social Studies Teacher

Interventionist

Outcomes

Outcomes

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

average growth 04-05 typical growth average growth 05-06 typical growth

RIT

poin

ts

9th Graders – Windram et al., 2007

Service Delivery• Courses

– Content course– Remedial course– 30 minute homeroom– Study hall

• Comprehension strategies and fluency

• Co-taught – Content specialist and interventionist

• AM and AR

Evaluate the Intervention

Growth Standards for Maze

• Modest = .15

• Realistic = .25

• Ambitious = .35

Tier III

Reading Comprehension

• Occurs when the reader develops mental representations of the text and uses them to interpret the text (Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995).

• Critically low among middle- and high-school students (RAND Reading Research Group, 2002).

Comprehension is affected by1 & 2) Background knowledge and

vocabulary

3) Correct inferences about reading

4) Word reading skill

5) Strategy use

(Cromley & Azevedo, 2007)

Previewing (Graves et al., 1983)1. Provide each student the text

2. Provide a synopsis

3. Ask questions about the topic

4. Describe major story elements: setting, characters, point of view (narration), and description of the plot.

5. Present the names and descriptions of main characters

About 15 minutes

Preteach Keyword (Burns et al., 2004)• Keywords - “central to understanding the

meaning of the reading passage” (Rousseau & Yung Tam, 1991, p. 201)

• Preteach with Incremental Rehearsal (Tucker, 1989)

About 7 minutes

Incremental Rehearsal

• Developed by Dr. James Tucker (1989)

• Folding in technique

• Rehearses one new item at a time

• Uses instructional level and high repetition

Mean Number of Word Retained

Correlation between retentionand receptive vocabulary

1 day 2 days 3 days 7 days 30 days

TA .32 .27 .32 .23 .08

DS .22 .25 .17 .16 .20

IR -.16 -.13 .06 .04 -.07

These results are “astounding” (Daly & McCurdy, 2002; p. 457).

Results

Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Statistic

Number of Comprehension

Questions Correct2.95 1.61 4.42 2.39 4.89 1.94 F = 8.52*

Questions correct for each

Minute of Instructional TimeNA NA .32 .17 .83 .46 t = 5.02*

Baseline Preview Keyword

p < .025

SC MS• 87% of kids below the 10th %ile made MAP

reading gains– 77% made gains of more than 5 RIT points– The average gain was 12.1 RIT points!

•  80% of the students in the 11-25th %ile made MAP reading gains. – 53% made gains of 5 RIT points or more – Average gain was 8.32 RIT points!

• 6th grade +4.5, 7th grade +5.9, 8th grade +6.5

burns258@umn.edu