Understanding Tiers, Interventions and Supports Presentation Adopted from NESD

What do we do when students don’t learn?  Using the Response to Intervention framework will create an effective process for all teachers, administrators and support personnel to answer this question.

What is Pyramid Response to Intervention?  It is the practice of providing high-quality instruction and interventions that match student's needs as well as considering students’ learning rate over time and level of performance to make important educational decisions.

It is……  RTI is an approach that provides high quality, standards-based instruction/intervention that is matched to student’s academic, social- emotional, and behavioral needs.

 a continuum of intervention tiers with increasing levels of intensity and duration  involves educational decisions that are based on data derived from frequent monitoring of student performance and rate of learning. It is…..

Timely, Directive, Systematic, Flexible Support  Using this process allows students to receive timely interventions at the first indication that they need more time and support.  This process should be directive rather than invitational, so that the students get the extra help they need, consistently and without interruption until they are successful.

 Interventions are sequences to build upon each other:  from least to most restrictive  from least to most intensive  from what happens in every classroom for all children to what happens for individual students who need highly focused, targeted help.

It is not….  a program but rather a process for ensuring that all students learn.  another add on.

Three Tiers of Support Increasing intensity Fewer students A coherent and viable core curriculum that embeds ongoing monitoring for all students. TIER 1 Immediate and powerful targeted interventions systematically applied and monitored for any students not achieving. TIER 2 Intensive Interventions focused on closing the gap. TIER 3

Why use this model?  This model allows education to move toward a systematic, directive, and timely response to all children when they don’t learn adequately or extensively regardless of labels or subgroups.

Tier 1  Approximately 75-80% of the student population will have their educational needs met by Tier 1 interventions.

Tier 1  Tier 1 is simply good teaching!  Educators respond to learning styles, strengths and weaknesses of each of their students.  They offer a variety of supports to enable students to reach outcomes. This may be as easy as additional time to complete work or one on one mini lessons.  The most important step a school can take to improve its core program is differentiating instruction.  See

Tier 2  This level of the pyramid offers supplemental interventions implemented for students whose educational needs have not been met by the regular program.  Small group interventions.  10-15% of the student population will benefit from Tier 2 interventions.

Tier 3  This level of the pyramid is where intensive individual interventions are implemented for student’s whose educational needs have not (can not?) been met in Tier 1 or Tier 2.  5-10% of the student population will require these types of interventions.

Saskatchewan Ministry of Education

An Effective Response to Intervention Pyramid …  begins with establishing identification, placement and monitoring processes.  various school division roles (Teacher, Administrator, Counselor, Occupational Therapist, Educational Psychologist) are involved in these processes.