Is RTI Special Education? : An Article Review

Hazelkorn, M., Bucholz, J. L., Goodman, J. I., Duffy, M., & Brady, M. P. (2011). Response to Intervention: General or Special Education? Who Is Responsible?. Educational Forum, 75(1), 17-25. doi:10.1080/00131725.2010.528552

The uncertainty of the definition/identification of children which high incidence disabilities has led to the dramatic increase of students identified as having learning disabilities and higher percentages of minorities in special education than those found in the general population. RTI is a way to prevent academic failure and identify students with learning disabilities. RTI is based on 3 core concepts: First, application of scientific, research-based interventions in the general education classroom; Second, measurement of student response to these interventions; Third, the use of the RTI data to inform instruction. Progress monitoring is used in RTI to pinpoint student who may need intervention. RTI has gone beyond reading problems and now covers core academics, behavior, and communication. The idea of RTI is to provide services to students before they have experienced multiple years of failure and are in need of special education services. RTI is broken down into 3 tiers and the academic interventions change and become more intensive at each tier. Decisions about movement between tiers, frequency/timing of interventions, and how screening for secondary interventions should occur are left to the schools. Researchers studied several articles concerning RTI and out of 128 articles, 110 (86%) described RTI as an assessment or eligibility tool. After the passage of the IDEA 2004 there has been a need to reduce the numbers of children being identified as learning disabled because of reading problems. Because of this, RTI has become the preferred method for identifying, evaluating and instructing students with learning disabilities.

·         RTI is a way to prevent academic failure and identify students with learning disabilities.

·         RTI is based on 3 core concepts:

1.       Application of scientific, research-based interventions in the general education classroom

2.       Measurement of student response to these interventions

3.       The use of the RTI data to inform instruction.

·         Progress monitoring- used to pinpoint students who may need intervention.

·         RTI now also covers: core academics, behavior, and communication

·         RTI is broken down into 3 tiers and the academic interventions change and become more intensive at each tier.

I found this article to not live up to the title it was given; however, still be very informative. I learned from this article more of why RTI is used and more about the concepts on which it is based. I learned that RTI does not only cover reading recovery now but other academics, behavior and communication.  I was unsure of how students moved between tiers and how long interventions were before reading this article.