An examination of student reading outcomes following tier II exit decisions

The current study examined reading skills at two distal time-points for 6828 students who received support from a tier II reading intervention program in the 2015 and 2016 school years. The first follow-up assessment occurred at the end of the year in which intervention was provided and the second assessment occurred at the beginning of the next year. Multilevel models were fit to the data to predict the log odds that a student would meet spring and fall reading benchmarks depending on a variety of student- and school-level predictors. Of most interest was the probability of future success as a function of whether students met intervention exit criteria, defined as consistent grade-level performance on a progress monitoring measure. Meeting intervention exit criteria was a statistically and practically significant predictor of scoring above the spring and fall benchmark the following school year. Yet despite improved outcomes relative to students not exited from the intervention, many students who met exit criteria due to grade-level performance failed to meet spring and fall benchmarks. The proportion of students meeting state-defined proficiency criteria, duration of intervention, and proportion of students receiving free or reduced lunch at the school-level did not influence the association between meeting exit criteria and scoring above benchmark at either screening period. Results suggest that future research is needed to evaluate and guide "downward movement" in an RtI model (i.e., ensuring gains made during tier II intervention are maintained after that support is removed).