Do we have enough tools to provide Response to Intervention?

Do we have enough tools to provide Response to Intervention?

While the idea of "response to intervention" is excellent for helping students work on their own specific problems, it is also not the best answer for older children.  Within tier one the expectation is that all students are being taught with prevention in mine.  Although, it tends to move the other way since we don't have the tools, the research based methods, to implement in small groups especially at the upper grades.

I teach elementary students, but I imagine it is extraordinarily harder to teach a middle/high school student difficult content when they can't comprehend the text. In regard to this, adolescents need to be taught using response to intervention in mind; teachers need to overcome resistance to incorporate responsive literacy practices into their daily lessons (Brozo, 2009, p.280.)  Although this may be hard due to scheduling purposes, starting with the question "what could go wrong, or what misconceptions might they have?" will help guide the instruction to meet all of the students needs.  For students moving up the tiers, we need to make sure the intervention is meeting their needs at that time and that we are still motivating them to do what's expected.  Since there isn't much research on what intervention methods work at upper skill levels, perhaps we should start collecting data on what we see words and what doesn't.

"In other words, RTI at the secondary level is only as good as its preventative supports.  If content teachers fail to offer responsive literacy instruction to benefit every student and differentiated assistance for those in need of extra help, then the preventative potential of RTI is lost (Brozo, 2009, p.280.)  The bottom line is that we need to do our best to meet the students where they are at and scaffold our instruction to bring them to the understanding of the content.


Inspired by the following article:

Brozo, W. (2009). Response to Intervention or Responsive Instruction? Challenges and Possibilities of Response       to Intervention for Adolescent Literacy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 277-281.