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Accelerating chronically unresponsive children to tier 3 instruction: what level of data is necessary to ensure
Donald L Compton1, Jennifer K Gilbert, Joseph R Jenkins
1Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37203, USA. Donald.l.compton@vanderbilt.edu
Insights
Response-to-intervention (RTI) aims to prevent reading disabilities by identifying at-risk students early. This study found that some students unresponsive to Tier 1 instruction can be directly identified for Tier 3 intervention, avoiding prolonged failure.
Area of Science:
- Educational Psychology
- Special Education
- Learning Disabilities
Background:
- Response-to-intervention (RTI) models aim to replace the 'wait-to-fail' approach in disability identification.
- However, some students experience prolonged failure within RTI frameworks, progressing through multiple tiers before receiving intensive support.
- This necessitates improved methods for identifying students who will not respond to initial interventions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To accurately predict which at-risk children will be unresponsive to Tier 1 and Tier 2 interventions.
- To enable direct progression from Tier 1 to Tier 3 for non-responsive students, minimizing 'wait-to-fail' periods.
- To optimize the identification process for reading disabilities (RD) within a multi-tier RTI framework.
Main Methods:
- An efficacy study involved 129 first-grade students identified as unresponsive to classroom reading instruction (Tier 1).
- Non-responders (n=33) were randomly assigned to 14 weeks of small-group intervention (Tier 2).
- Logistic regression models predicted responder/non-responder status using universal screening, Tier 1, norm-referenced, and Tier 2 response data.
Main Results:
- Tier 2 response data were not required to accurately classify students as responders or non-responders to Tier 2 instruction.
- Students eligible for Tier 3 intervention could be identified using only Tier 1 data.
- This suggests a streamlined approach to identifying students needing the most intensive support.
Conclusions:
- Early identification of non-responders to Tier 1 instruction is possible, allowing direct access to Tier 3 intervention.
- This approach can prevent prolonged academic failure for students with reading disabilities.
- Utilizing Tier 1 data alone can effectively identify students for intensive intervention, improving RTI efficiency.
Abstract:
Response-to-intervention (RTI) approaches to disability identification are meant to put an end to the so-called wait-to-fail requirement associated with IQ discrepancy. However, in an unfortunate irony, there is a group of children who wait to fail in RTI frameworks. That is, they must fail both general classroom instruction (Tier 1) and small-group intervention (Tier 2) before becoming eligible for the most intensive intervention (Tier 3). The purpose of this article was to determine how to predict accurately which at-risk children will be unresponsive to Tiers 1 and 2, thereby allowing unresponsive children to move directly from Tier 1 to Tier 3. As part of an efficacy study of a multitier RTI approach to prevention and identification of reading disabilities (RD), 129 first-grade children who were unresponsive to classroom reading instruction were randomly assigned to 14 weeks of small-group, Tier 2 intervention. Nonresponders to this instruction (n = 33) were identified using local norms on first-grade word identification fluency growth linked to a distal outcome of RD at the end of second grade. Logistic regression models were used to predict membership in responder and nonresponder groups. Predictors were entered as blocks of data from least to most difficult to obtain: universal screening data, Tier 1 response data, norm referenced tests, and Tier 2 response data. Tier 2 response data were not necessary to classify students as responders and nonresponders to Tier 2 instruction, suggesting that some children can be accurately identified as eligible for Tier 3 intervention using only Tier 1 data, thereby avoiding prolonged periods of failure to instruction.
