One of the few times where I have learned about something in college and actually got to see something take place was when our SPED6780 class was discussing Response to Intervention (RTI). While I was student teaching at a local school, there were two students that were participating in Tier 2 of RTI. I had no idea what they were doing while they were taken out of the general classroom, but now I know that they were getting one on one instruction with reading literacy from a reading specialist. It all came to me as an "ah-ha" moment in our last class and it was exciting for me to understand the ins and outs of RTI.
What excites me most is that one of the two students was able to test out of Tier 2 and stay with the general classroom for the whole day. This was a first grade classroom where all subjects were taught by one teacher. I'm happy to see that RTI is a pro-active program that allows a student having difficulty with a subject such as language arts test their way out of it so that they will not be pushed into special education if it is not needed. I like the idea of early intervention as well so that these students will be identified as soon as possible so that they will not end up in fifth grade not knowing how to construct a sentence or read/write a paragraph. RTI is one of those programs that makes sense.
RTI is great. It does not embrace the "waiting to fail" motto of the old discrepancy model. What if we would have had this RTI model decades ago? Think about it; the premise of RTI is really very simple. A student is not progressing through typical instruction so he/she is introduced to an intervention to see if the student responds to it; instead of waiting for the student to fail and then refer him/her to special education.
ReplyDeleteI really liked Dr. Khan's demonstration, too. I am such a huge fan of RTI now. I feel like it's something that can be so easily implemented and will also have great benefits for students. It's nice to finally see something emerging that does work well and in the student's best interest.
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