Response to Intervention (RTI), though still a fairly new concept, is becoming widely adopted in districts across the country. In collaboration with the Council of Administrators of Special Education (CASE), we recently performed a nationwide survey to determine the level of adoption and implementation of RTI within school districts. We found that over the past 12 months, adoption levels of RTI have increased from 44% to 60% of school districts surveyed, with the majority stating that they plan to fully implement by the 2009-2010 school year. 56% of districts also indicated that the RTI implementation is being lead by joint collaboration between the Special Education and General Education teams. It seems that without buy-in from all groups, RTI will not be successful, and it is great to see such a high percentage of districts using a collaborative effort to successfully implement their RTI program.

While doing research on RTI, I came across a great video for educators to view that can give them a real life scenario of how a three tier RTI method is being implemented successfully within Iron Springs Elementary School. You can view the video here. They are discussing a phonics intervention program that they use at their school, and how it is being used at each tier level. They also talk about the importance of collaboration among the teachers, reading specialists and special education to make their RTI program work. It is a great video to introduce new teachers or districts to the RTI process. The district in the video uses Tier III as strictly special education, but many districts are using Tier III as a combination of students receiving special education and students not in special education but receiving highly targeted, personalized interventions.

Download the Spectrum K12/CASE RTI Survey Results

View RTI video