Response to Intervention Measuring the ‘Intervention Footprint’: Issues of Planning, Documentation, & Follow-Through Jim Wright

Response to Intervention 2 ‘Elbow Group’ Activity: Defining ‘Interventions’ In your group, define the term ‘intervention’. Come up with guidelines for judging when teacher activities should be considered ‘interventions’.

Response to Intervention 3 RTI Interventions: A Definition (Wright, 2007) “Interventions are specific strategies adopted to help students to make progress toward academic or behavioral goals.” Source: Wright, J. (2007). The RTI toolkit: A practical guide for schools. Port Chester, NY: National Professional Resources, Inc.

Response to Intervention Writing Quality ‘Problem Identification’ Statements

Response to Intervention 5 Writing Quality ‘Problem Identification’ Statements A frequent problem at RTI Team meetings is that teacher referral concerns are written in vague terms. If the referral concern is not written in explicit, observable, measurable terms, it will be very difficult to write clear goals for improvement or select appropriate interventions. Use this ‘test’ for evaluating the quality of a problem- identification (‘teacher-concern’) statement: Can a third party enter a classroom with the problem definition in hand and know when they see the behavior and when they don’t?

Response to Intervention 6 Writing Quality ‘Problem-Identification’ Statements: Template Format for Writing RTI Team Teacher Concerns Conditions when the behavior is observed or absent Description of behavior in concrete, measurable, observable terms During large-group instruction The student calls out comments that do not relate to the content being taught. When reading aloudThe student decodes at a rate much slower than classmates. When sent from the classroom with a pass to perform an errand or take a bathroom break The student often wanders the building instead of returning promptly to class.

Response to Intervention 7 Writing Quality ‘Teacher Referral Concern’ Statements: Examples Needs Work: The student is disruptive. Better: During independent seatwork, the student is out of her seat frequently and talking with other students. Needs Work: The student doesn’t do his math. Better: When math homework is assigned, the student turns in math homework only about 20 percent of the time. Assignments turned in are often not fully completed.

Response to Intervention 8 Judging the Intensity of Interventions: Tier I, II, or III?

Response to Intervention 9 Dimensions of Interventions: Treatment Strength “By strength of treatment, we refer to the a priori likelihood that the treatment could have its intended outcome. Strong treatments contain large amounts in pure form of those ingredients leading to change. Assessments of strength are made independently of knowedge of outcome of treatment in any given case.” p. 156 Source: Yeaton, W. H. & Sechrest, L. (1981). Critical dimensions in the choice and maintenance of successful treatments: Strength, integrity, and effectiveness. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 49,

Response to Intervention 10 Why Attempt to Judge the ‘Intensity’ of Interventions? Judging the intensity of interventions in advance ensures that intervention plans match the RTI Tier in which they are being used.

Response to Intervention 11 Avoiding the ‘Intervention Trap’ When planning Tier II (individualized) interventions, RTI Teams should take care to ensure that those plans are feasible and maintainable in general-education settings. If a Tier II intervention is so ambitious as to resemble a Special Education (Tier III) program, the team may find that the student responds well to the plan but would still lack information about whether the student requires more support than general education can offer. And the plan may not be maintainable!

Response to Intervention 12 Intervention Intensity Rating Form (pp )

Response to Intervention On a per-pupil basis, the cost to purchase or effort needed to create intervention materials Intervention materials not needed or do not entail significant expense or effort Intervention materials required but can be obtained at a modest cost or with reasonable effort Intervention materials per pupil are costly or require substantial effort to create 4. Amount of preparation required for each session of the intervention Little or no preparation is needed Some preparation is needed (up to 15 minutes per session) Substantial preparation is needed (more than 15 minutes per session) 9. Potential of the intervention to distract other students or disrupt their learning Intervention can be implemented with little or no distraction of other students or disruption to their learning Intervention is likely to result in mild distraction of other students or disruption to their learning Intervention is likely to result in significant distraction of other students or disruption to their learning Sample Intervention Intensity Rating Form Items

Response to Intervention 14 Intervention Intensity Rating Form Guidelines for Interpreting Results If 7 or more of your ratings on this 10-item form fall under any single Tier, it is likely that the intervention has a level of intensity matching that Tier as well. An intervention with 8 checks under the Tier II column, for example, should be considered a Tier II intervention. If you have a mixed pattern of ratings—with no single column containing 7 or more checks—count up the number of checks in each column. The intervention should be considered equivalent in intensity to the highest column that contains 3 or more checks. (Tier I is the lowest column. Tier III is the highest.) An intervention with more than 3 checks under the Tier III column, for example, would be considered a Tier III intervention.

Response to Intervention 15 Evaluating ‘Intervention Follow-Through’ (Treatment Integrity)

Response to Intervention 16 Treatment Integrity Activity In your ‘elbow groups’, discuss the following question: How does your school measure the quality of intervention follow-through in classrooms?

Response to Intervention 17 What Consultant Factors Can Increase Teacher ‘Intervention Follow-Through’ (DiGennaro et al., 2007) Study contrasted two conditions of teacher support: for behavioral concerns (with four special education teachers participating): –Condition 1: Goal Setting and Student Performance Feedback: Teachers set goals for student improvement and received daily written and graphed feedback about student performance. –Condition 2: Teacher Performance Feedback and Direct Rehearsal With Meeting Cancellation: Teachers received daily feedback about their own performance in implementing the intervention, as well as student performance feedback. If teachers did not implement the intervention with 100 % integrity, they met with the consultant to ‘practice’ the missed steps. If they carried out the intervention with full integrity, they were able to skip the consultant meeting. Source: DiGennaro, F. D., Martens, B. K., & Kleinmann, A. E. (2007). A comparison of performance feedback procedures on teachers’ treatment implementation integrity and students’ inappropriate behavior in special education classrooms. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 40,

Response to Intervention 18 What Consultant Factors Can Increase Teacher ‘Intervention Follow-Through’ (Cont.) (DiGennaro et al., 2007) Study outcome: –Teachers had the highest rates of intervention integrity under Condition 2: Teacher Performance Feedback and Direct Rehearsal With Meeting Cancellation. –However, two of four participating teachers rated elements of Teacher Performance Feedback and Direct Rehearsal With Meeting Cancellation condition as unacceptable. The study concluded that “allowing teachers to practice a skill and then avoid meeting with a consultant once skill acquisition in the natural setting is observed appears to be an effective means to promote treatment integrity.” p. 458 Source: DiGennaro, F. D., Martens, B. K., & Kleinmann, A. E. (2007). A comparison of performance feedback procedures on teachers’ treatment implementation integrity and students’ inappropriate behavior in special education classrooms. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 40,

Response to Intervention 19 Why Monitor Intervention Follow-Through? If the RTI Team does not monitor the quality of the intervention follow-through, it will not know how to explain a student’s failure to ‘respond to intervention’. Do qualities within the student explain the lack of academic or behavioral progress? Did problems with implementing the intervention prevent the student from making progress?

Response to Intervention 20 What Are Potential Barriers to Assessing Intervention Follow-Through? Direct observation of interventions is the ‘gold standard’ for evaluating the quality of their implementation. However: Teachers being observed may feel that they are being evaluated for global job performance Non-administrative staff may be uncomfortable observing a fellow educator to evaluate intervention follow-through It can be difficult for staff to find time to observe and evaluate interventions as they are being carried out

Response to Intervention 21 Intervention Script Builder: pp

Response to Intervention 22 Teacher Intervention Evaluation Log: p.112

Response to Intervention 23 END

Response to Intervention ‘Big Ideas’ About Student Learning & Behavior

Response to Intervention 25 Big Ideas: Student Social & Academic Behaviors Are Strongly Influenced by the Instructional Setting (Lentz & Shapiro, 1986) Students with learning problems do not exist in isolation. Rather, their instructional environment plays an enormously important role in these students’ eventual success or failure Source: Lentz, F. E. & Shapiro, E. S. (1986). Functional assessment of the academic environment. School Psychology Review, 15,

Response to Intervention 26 Big Ideas: Learn Unit (Heward, 1996) The three essential elements of effective student learning include: 1.Academic Opportunity to Respond. The student is presented with a meaningful opportunity to respond to an academic task. A question posed by the teacher, a math word problem, and a spelling item on an educational computer ‘Word Gobbler’ game could all be considered academic opportunities to respond. 2.Active Student Response. The student answers the item, solves the problem presented, or completes the academic task. Answering the teacher’s question, computing the answer to a math word problem (and showing all work), and typing in the correct spelling of an item when playing an educational computer game are all examples of active student responding. 3.Performance Feedback. The student receives timely feedback about whether his or her response is correct—often with praise and encouragement. A teacher exclaiming ‘Right! Good job!’ when a student gives an response in class, a student using an answer key to check her answer to a math word problem, and a computer message that says ‘Congratulations! You get 2 points for correctly spelling this word!” are all examples of performance feedback. Source: Heward, W.L. (1996). Three low-tech strategies for increasing the frequency of active student response during group instruction. In R. Gardner, D. M.S ainato, J. O. Cooper, T. E. Heron, W. L. Heward, J. W. Eshleman,& T. A. Grossi (Eds.), Behavior analysis in education: Focus on measurably superior instruction (pp ). Pacific Grove, CA:Brooks/Cole.

Response to Intervention 27 Big Ideas: The Four Stages of Learning Can Be Summed Up in the ‘Instructional Hierarchy’ (Haring et al., 1978) Student learning can be thought of as a multi-stage process. The universal stages of learning include: Acquisition: The student is just acquiring the skill. Fluency: The student can perform the skill but must make that skill ‘automatic’. Generalization: The student must perform the skill across situations or settings. Adaptation: The student confronts novel task demands that require that the student adapt a current skill to meet new requirements. Source: Haring, N.G., Lovitt, T.C., Eaton, M.D., & Hansen, C.L. (1978). The fourth R: Research in the classroom. Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Co.

Response to Intervention 28 Big Ideas: Similar Behaviors May Stem from Very Different ‘Root’ Causes (Kratochwill, Elliott, & Carrington Rotto, 1990) Behavior is not random but follows purposeful patterns. Students who present with the same apparent ‘surface’ behaviors may have very different ‘drivers’ (underlying reasons) that explain why those behaviors occur. A student’s problem behaviors must be carefully identified and analyzed to determine the drivers that support them. Source: Kratochwill, T. R., Elliott, S. N., & Carrington Rotto, P. (1990). Best practices in behavioral consultation. In A. Thomas and J. Grimes (Eds.). Best practices in school psychology-II (pp. 147=169). Silver Spring, MD: National Association of School Psychologists..

Response to Intervention 29 Common ‘Root Causes’ or ‘Drivers’ for Behaviors Include… Social attention (adult or peer) Escape or avoidance Access to tangibles or rewards or privileges (‘pay-offs’) [Inattention or impulsivity]

Response to Intervention 30 “Showed disrespect towards me when she yelled inappropriately regarding an instruction sheet. I then asked her to leave the room. She also showed disrespect when I called her twice earlier in the class to see her report card grade.” Teacher Referral Example…

Response to Intervention 31 “I gave out a test. After a few minutes, he crunched it and threw it on the floor. If he were not prepared, he could have talked to me and I would have allowed him to take it on a different date, as I usually do.” Teacher Referral Example…

Response to Intervention 32 Big Ideas: Be Proactive in Behavior Management (Martens & Meller, 1990) Teachers who intervene before a student misbehaves or when the misbehavior has not yet escalated have a greater likelihood of keeping the student on task and engaged in learning. Source: Martens, B.K., & Meller, P.J. (1990). The application of behavioral principles to educational settings. In T.B. Gutkin & C.R.Reynolds (Eds.), The handbook of school psychology (2nd ed.) (pp ). New York: John Wiley & Sons. ABC Timeline A CB

Response to Intervention 33 ABC Timeline

Response to Intervention 34 “C. and T. were horsing around in the classroom. In the process, they knocked down an overhead projector and crushed it.” Teacher Referral Example…

Response to Intervention 35 Individuals are always performing SOME type of behavior: watching the instructor, sleeping, talking to a neighbor, completing a worksheet (‘ behavior stream’ ). When students are fully engaged in academic behaviors, they are less likely to get off-task and display problem behaviors. Academic tasks that are clearly understood, elicit student interest, provide a high rate of student success, and include teacher encouragement and feedback are most likely to effectively ‘capture’ the student’s ‘behavior stream’. Big Ideas: Behavior is a Continuous ‘Stream’ (Schoenfeld & Farmer, 1970) Source: Schoenfeld, W. N., & Farmer, J. (1970). Reinforcement schedules and the ‘‘behavior stream.’’ In W. N. Schoenfeld (Ed.), The theory of reinforcement schedules (pp. 215–245). New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Response to Intervention 36 Savvy Teacher’s Guide: Reading Interventions That Work (Wright, 2000)

Response to Intervention 37 Big Ideas in Beginning Reading “Phonemic Awareness: The ability to hear and manipulate sounds in words. Alphabetic Principle: The ability to associate sounds with letters and use these sounds to form words. Fluency with Text: The effortless, automatic ability to read words in connected text. Vocabulary: The ability to understand (receptive) and use (expressive) words to acquire and convey meaning. Comprehension: The complex cognitive process involving the intentional interaction between reader and text to convey meaning.” Source: Big ideas in beginning reading. University of Oregon. Retrieved September 23, 2007, from

Response to Intervention 38 Building Reading Fluency

Response to Intervention 39 NRP Conclusions Regarding Importance of Oral Reading Fluency: “An extensive review of the literature indicates that classroom practices that encourage repeated oral reading with feedback and guidance leads to meaningful improvements in reading expertise for students—for good readers as well as those who are experiencing difficulties.”-p. 3-3

Response to Intervention 40 Assisted Reading Practice Listening Passage Preview (‘Listening While Reading’) Paired Reading Repeated Reading Interventions for… Increasing Reading Fluency

Response to Intervention 41 Paired Reading (p.17) The student reads aloud in tandem with an accomplished reader. At a student signal, the helping reader stops reading, while the student continues on. When the student commits a reading error, the helping reader resumes reading in tandem.

Response to Intervention 42

Response to Intervention 43 Building Reading Comprehension

Response to Intervention 44 ‘Click or Clunk’ Self-Check (p.25) Students periodically check their understanding of sentences, paragraphs, and pages of text as they read. When students encounter problems with vocabulary or comprehension, they use a checklist to apply simple strategies to solve those reading difficulties.

Response to Intervention 45 ‘Click or Clunk’ Check Sheet

Response to Intervention 46 ‘… The combination of lack of practice, deficient decoding skills, and difficult materials results in unrewarding early reading experiences that lead to less involvement in reading related activities. Lack of exposure and practice on the part of the less skilled readers delays the development of automaticity and speed at the word-metacognition level. Slow, capacity-draining word-recognition processes require cognitive resources that should be allocated to higher- level process of text integration and comprehension.’ - Stanovich, K., (1986) ‘…The combination of lack of practice, deficient decoding skills, and difficult materials results in unrewarding early reading experiences that lead to less involvement in reading related activities. Lack of exposure and practice on the part of the less skilled readers delays the development of automaticity and speed at the word-metacognition level. Slow, capacity-draining word-recognition processes require cognitive resources that should be allocated to higher- level process of text integration and comprehension.’ - Stanovich, K., (1986) ‘…The combination of lack of practice, deficient decoding skills, and difficult materials results in unrewarding early reading experiences that lead to less involvement in reading related activities. Lack of exposure and practice on the part of the less skilled readers delays the development of automaticity and speed at the word-metacognition level. Slow, capacity-draining word-recognition processes require cognitive resources that should be allocated to higher-level process of text integration and comprehension.’ - Stanovich, K., (1986) ‘…The combination of lack of practice, deficient decoding skills, and difficult materials results in unrewarding early reading experiences that lead to less involvement in reading related activities. Lack of exposure and practice on the part of the less skilled readers delays the development of automaticity and speed at the word-metacognition level. Slow, capacity-draining word-recognition processes require cognitive resources that should be allocated to higher-level process of text integration and comprehension.’ - Stanovich, K., (1986) ‘Click or Clunk?’ Example ‘…The combination of lack of practice, deficient decoding skills, and difficult materials results in unrewarding early reading experiences that lead to less involvement in reading related activities. Lack of exposure and practice on the part of the less skilled readers delays the development of automaticity and speed at the word-metacognition level. Slow, capacity-draining word-recognition processes require cognitive resources that should be allocated to higher-level process of text integration and comprehension.’ - Stanovich, K., (1986) ‘…The combination of lack of practice, deficient decoding skills, and difficult materials results in unrewarding early reading experiences that lead to less involvement in reading related activities. Lack of exposure and practice on the part of the less skilled readers delays the development of automaticity and speed at the word-metacognition level. Slow, capacity-draining word-recognition processes require cognitive resources that should be allocated to higher-level process of text integration and comprehension.’ - Stanovich, K., (1986)

Response to Intervention Writing Interventions That Really Work Jim Wright

Response to Intervention 48 Written Expression: A Spectrum of Skills GrammarSyntaxSpellingPunctuationContent‘Style’

Response to Intervention 49 Interventionist TIP : Don’t Forget That… Writing Interventions Are Embedded in a Larger Web of Potential Academic Intervention Strategies Writing HomeworkNote-Taking Reading Comprehension Reading Fluency Time Management Test Taking

Response to Intervention 50 "If all the grammarians in the world were placed end to end, it would be a good thing." – Oscar Wilde

Response to Intervention 51 "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug." – Mark Twain

Response to Intervention 52 "Your manuscript is both good and original. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good." – Samuel Johnson

Response to Intervention 53 Use Selective Proofreading With Highlighting of Errors To prevent struggling writers from becoming overwhelmed by teacher proofreading corrections, select only 1 or 2 proofreading areas when correcting a writing assignment. 1.Create a student ‘writing skills checklist’ that inventories key writing competencies (e.g., grammar/syntax, spelling, vocabulary, etc.). 2.For each writing assignment, announce to students that you will grade the assignment for overall content but will make proofreading corrections on only 1-2 areas chosen from the writing skills checklist. (Select different proofreading targets for each assignment matched to common writing weaknesses in your classroom.)

Response to Intervention 54 Use Selective Proofreading With Highlighting of Errors: Cont. 3.To prevent cluttering the student’s paper with potentially discouraging teacher comments and editing marks: a. underline problems in the student’ text with a highlighter and b.number the highlighted errors sequentially at the left margin of the student paper. c.write teacher comments on a separate feedback sheet to explain the writing errors. Identify each comment with the matching error-number from the left margin of the student’s worksheet. TIP: Have students use this method when proofreading their own text.

Response to Intervention Rewrite this run-on sentence as two separate sentences. 2 2Not clear. Rewrite. Consider starting the sentence with ‘The concept of …’ Spelling; Run-on and incomplete sentences Mrs. Richman Tommy RidgewayDec 1, 2006 Selective Proofreading With Highlighting of Errors

Response to Intervention Foundations of Math Skills & RTI Interventions Jim Wright

Response to Intervention 57 Math Intervention: Tier I or II: Elementary & Secondary: Self-Administered Arithmetic Combination Drills With Performance Self-Monitoring & Incentives 1.The student is given a math computation worksheet of a specific problem type, along with an answer key [Academic Opportunity to Respond]. 2.The student consults his or her performance chart and notes previous performance. The student is encouraged to try to ‘beat’ his or her most recent score. 3.The student is given a pre-selected amount of time (e.g., 5 minutes) to complete as many problems as possible. The student sets a timer and works on the computation sheet until the timer rings. [Active Student Responding] 4.The student checks his or her work, giving credit for each correct digit (digit of correct value appearing in the correct place-position in the answer). [Performance Feedback] 5.The student records the day’s score of TOTAL number of correct digits on his or her personal performance chart. 6.The student receives praise or a reward if he or she exceeds the most recently posted number of correct digits. Application of ‘Learn Unit’ framework from : Heward, W.L. (1996). Three low-tech strategies for increasing the frequency of active student response during group instruction. In R. Gardner, D. M.S ainato, J. O. Cooper, T. E. Heron, W. L. Heward, J. W. Eshleman,& T. A. Grossi (Eds.), Behavior analysis in education: Focus on measurably superior instruction (pp ). Pacific Grove, CA:Brooks/Cole.

Response to Intervention 58 Self-Administered Arithmetic Combination Drills: Examples of Student Worksheet and Answer Key Worksheets created using Math Worksheet Generator. Available online at:

Response to Intervention 59 Self-Administered Arithmetic Combination Drills… No Reward Reward Given No Reward Reward Given