RTii

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB 2001) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA 2004) support the involvement of allstudents in the general education curriculum and the use of research based interventions to improve student achievement. Additionally, IDEA 2004 permits school districts to use a process to intervene early with struggling students and to determine if a child responds to scientific, research-based intervention as a part of the evaluation procedures for students with learning disabilities. This instructional and diagnostic method is known as Response to Instruction and Intervention (RtII).

RTII is an integrated approach to service delivery that encompasses general, remedial and special education through a multi-tiered service delivery model. It utilizes a problem-solving framework to identify and address academic and behavioral difficulties for all students using scientific, research-based instruction. Essentially, RTII is the practice of: (a) providing high quality instruction. Intervention matched to all students’ needs and (b) using learning rate over time and level of performance to make important educational decisions to guide instruction (National Association of State Directors of Special education, 2005). RTII practices are proactive, incorporating both prevention and intervention for all levels from early childhood to high school.

RtII is an early intervening strategy. The overarching goal is to improve student achievement using research based interventions matched to the instructional need and level of the student. In Pennsylvania, RtII carries dual meaning. First, it is a comprehensive, multi-tiered, standards aligned strategy to enable early identification and intervention for students at academic or behavioral risk. Second, RtII is an alternative to the aptitude-achievement discrepancy model for the identification of students with learning disabilities. This strategy allows educators to identify and address academic and behavioral difficulties priorto student failure. Monitoring student response to a series of increasingly intense interventions assists in guiding instruction to prevent academic failure and provides data that may guide eligibility decisions for learning disabilities.
 * //RtII in Pennsylvania //**

RtII is consistent with Pennsylvania’s __Standards Aligned Systems (SAS)__and the continuous school improvement process. It is not a stand-alone strategy; rather RtII is one strategy within a comprehensive school improvement effort.

In the standards aligned system, all students are provided with standards aligned concepts and competencies, data-driven instruction and the additional support needed to achieve strong academic results. Data drives the system to identify the needs of students based on the deliberate organization and review of data, root cause analysis to get at the source of the problem, and the design of evidence based solutions to improve the performance of all students. The provision of high quality standards-aligned instruction in the general education core curriculum is at the heart of RtII. In addition to this standards-aligned instruction, students receive interventions matched to their instructional need through the strategic analysis and use of student data.

