When a district is considering implementing a Response to Intervention program, they need to understand what RTI will mean to their district, and the possibility of changes to current processes. A good RTI program should be developed to guide districts in proactive early intervention, constructing interventions that will yield results, reduce disproportionality and over identification, evaluate the instruction, and help all students. To do this, a Response to Intervention program is broken into multi-tiered instruction. There can be 2, 3, 4 or even 5 tiers in a district’s RTI plan, but we have found the majority of districts to use a 3 tier model, and this is the model we will look at today.

Yesterday we talked about universal screening, and how the scores can help indicate which students might need instructional interventions. The scores can also indicate to teachers which skills overall need extra attention within the classroom. Tier 1 encompasses whole group classroom instruction. Let us take a typical real life classroom situation. Ms. Jones teaches 3^rd grade, and currently her class is studying the multiplication tables. She realizes that as a whole, her class of 21 students is struggling with this skill. She decides to modify her lessons to include additional practice through whole class and partner games. From this additional and/or modified instruction, most of her students are progressing appropriately, but she still has 6 students that are struggling with this skill.

Ms. Jones has decided to move these 6 students into Tier 2 of her district’s RTI process. Tier 2 involves small group instruction that provides short-term targeted interventions. So while the rest of the class is working at their seats, she pulls these 6 students to provide more targeted practice on the multiplication tables. She might use flash cards with these students, and finds that 5 of the students in the small group are responding well to the small group instruction, but she still has 1 student that is still not grasping the skill.

Ms. Jones has now provided whole class instruction and intervention, as well as small group interventions to her students, but still has 1 student not making appropriate progress. She has decided to move this student to Tier 3, and refers the student to the intervention team. The intervention team is made up of a group of staff members at the school that can provide educated decisions on interventions for the student based on their need. The team will look at the previous interventions the teacher used, as well as the universal screening scores to determine an intervention and goal for the student. Once the team has created that personalized learning plan, the teacher will now start to provide that intense, individualized intervention and monitor the student’s progress. The team will meet back in a few weeks and decide to continue with the intervention, modify the intervention, or refer the student to another program such as special education.

This is one example of how a district might define the tiers within their RTI process. We have seen many different ways of developing these tiers, and your tiers should follow the needs of your district. Below you can an example of a three-tiered process.

Other Tiered Model examples:

Mississippi Three-Tier Model

Utah Three-Tier Model

Texas Three-Tier Model

National Center on RTI Tiered Instruction Examples