Help for kids in General Ed - good explanation of "issues" with RTI
Sunday, January 1, 2012 at 06:07PM This article offers an explanation of RTI (Response to Intervention). For those of you who have kids who have been "invited" to participate in before or after school small group instruction, it's probably a program associated with RTI. Such programs are meant to help those kids who just need extra instruction in a small group setting. The theory is that if the extra help is enough, the child does not need to be tested for a learning disability. This article http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/speced/2011/12/when_districts_first_started_a.html provides some information about the difficulties associated with RTI.
What the doesn't mention is the importance of the timing for individual students. If the child is provided with RTI in 1st grade, there is adequate time to determine the effectiveness of the small group instruction. However, past 2nd grade, significant struggles need research-based, intensive intervention that cannot generally be proviced by general education staff before of after school and testing is necessary to determine how best to proceed.