What Is RTI? What does it mean for me?

According to the Delaware Department of Education, RTI is:

Effective Educational Practices for All
• “RTI is the practice of providing high-quality instruction and intervention matched to student need, monitoring progress frequently to make decisions about change in instruction or goals and applying child response data to important educational decisions. RTI should be applied to decisions in general, remedial and special education, creating a well-integrated system of instruction/intervention guided by child outcome data.” (NASDSE, 2005)


High quality instruction: Using district recommended curriculum, teaching grade-level GLE, adapting to student needs, differentiating instruction, mobile-flexible groupings of students.

Intervention matched to student need: Student is assessed and instruction is matched.

Monitoring progress: Students are given assessments using a tool such as DIBELS or GATES

Applying child response data to important educational decisions: Teams meet to make decisions regarding interventions, strategies, and classroom groupings.

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When looking at providing services to students we must think about the following:

• We can effectively teach all children in the least restrictive environment (usually the regular education classroom)
• Early intervention is key to success.
• Use research-based, scientifically validated core instruction with fidelity. You should be teaching your district curriculum on a daily basis.
• Use assessment data for multiple purposes (screening, progress monitoring, and diagnosing, grouping)
• Use a problem solving method to make decisions within a multi-tiered model of service delivery
• Use research-based, scientifically validated interventions matched to student need with continuous progress monitoring
• Use data to make all decisions
• Use data to analyze groupings of students, regroup students, determine strengths, and areas needed for growth.
• Use data to help guide teaching for whole group learning.

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What does RTI mean for me?

• All students in elementary will be sceened in reading three times a year.
• At risk students will be screened within the first two weeks in elementary (initial screening) and these students will be progress monitored throughout the year. (For additional information on screenings, please see TIERS tabs)
• After each screening, if 20% or more of students in a classroom are not meeting the benchmark, a school based team will review the data and provide additional support and assistance to the classroom teacher.
• Administration needs to make informed decisions when placing students in classrooms. Previous assessment data needs to factored into placement decisions.

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What is Delaware’s Interpretation of Response to Intervention (RTI)?

1. Tier I implementation of a differentiated curriculum with different instructional methods. You should be differentiating your instruction for ALL the students in your classroom with both whole group and small group instruction.
2. Tiers II has increasingly intense scientific, research-based interventions. Classroom Teacher’s small group, reading specialists, paraprofessional support, inclusion teacher, special education teacher.
3. Tier III has increasingly intense scientific, research-based interventions. Classroom Teacher’s small group, reading specialists, paraprofessional support, inclusion teacher, special education teacher.
4. Instructional intensity addressed through duration, frequency and time of interventions, group size, and matched instructor expertise to student need. As TIERS increase time and level of intervention increases.