Richard Allington PodCast on Response to Intervention
Posted by Beth DuBose on Sep 22, 2008
Podcast from past International Reading Association president, Dr. Richard Allington, provides insight into RTI.
If you’re looking for some insight into RtI, there’s an excellent podcast available at the International Reading Association’s website. The speaker is Dr. Richard Allington, a past president of the IRA and an author of numerous books.
Among the insights in this podcast:
RtI does not necessarily mean a three-tier model
Not all RtI curriculum is appropriate for all reading problems
I especially appreciated two points he made. First, in order for an RtI curriculum to be useful in solving the problem of a student being behind, it has to deliver more than a year of progress in one year. It doesn’t help (not much, at least) to take a student who is two years behind and learning 5 months worth of skills each year, and put that student in an intervention program that gets them to learn seven months worth of skills a year. Slowing the rate at which students fall behind is not the goal. The goal is for them to catch up. Second, students are rarely the problem. If a program doesn’t work, it’s probably because the program isn’t suited for that student.