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RTI . . . Where Can I Get One?:
Online, Interactive Training Materials from the IRIS Center

By Naomi Tyler, Deb Smith, and Jason Miller

“RTI . . . Where can I get one?” This statement, made by numerous teachers just a few short years ago, neatly illustrates most educators’ initial level of awareness and understanding about response to intervention (RTI) and the early intervening process permitted through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA 2004). When IDEA 2004 regulations were approved in 2006, states and districts were allowed to use an alternate process to identify students with learning disabilities—one that involved monitoring a student’s academic response (or lack thereof) to increasingly intensive levels (or tiers) of intervention.

This process, now often simply referred to as RTI, can be conceptualized and implemented in a variety of ways, with varying numbers of tiers. Regardless, the process includes several key components:

• Intervening early to prevent continuing and compounding academic failure.
• High-quality instruction in the general education classroom.
• Universal screening to identify struggling learners.
• Multiple tiers of increasingly intensive and individualized support.
• Progress monitoring of skills to ascertain whether adequate progress is being made.
• Direct classroom assessments included as part of the special education identification process.

Nowadays, three years after the regulations were approved, most educators have heard of the RTI process but seek additional information about how to implement its components.

RTI Resources Available from the IRIS Center

The IRIS Center for Training Enhancements is a national center that aims to provide high-quality resources for college and university faculty and professional development providers about students with disabilities (OSEP Project #H325F060003). It is located at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and Claremont Graduate College in Claremont, Calif.

The IRIS Center partnered with the Tennessee Department of Education’s State Improvement Grant to develop resources about RTI. This partnership supported the collaboration among leading researchers and practitioners and resulted in the development of a series of free, online, interactive training modules about RTI for use by teachers, school leaders, college faculty, and other education professionals. These resources are available through the IRIS Center’s Web site.

The IRIS Center’s RTI series comprises six modules:

• RTI (Part 1): An Overview  outlines the differences between the IQ-achievement discrepancy model and the response-to-intervention (RTI) approach and offers a brief overview of each tier in the RTI model.
  RTI (Part 2): Assessment explores in detail the assessment procedures integral to RTI, specifically universal screening and progress monitoring. It also outlines how to use progress-monitoring data to determine whether a student is meeting the established performance criteria or whether more intensive intervention is needed.
• RTI (Part 3): Reading Instruction illustrates different research-based reading strategies that may be used with the RTI model to improve reading skills.
• RTI (Part 4): Putting It All Together synthesizes the information in RTI Parts 1, 2, and 3 to provide teachers and other school personnel with a more comprehensive illustration of how to successfully implement the approach.
• RTI (Part 5): A Closer Look at Tier 3 describes which students will receive Tier 3 intervention (special education services in many RTI models), components of Tier 3 reading interventions, and students’ response to this individualized intervention.
• RTI (Part 6): Considerations for School Leaders provides information about ways to build support for RTI, factors that should be addressed during the implementation of RTI, and methods of collecting data and evaluating the effectiveness of the approach.

Two supplemental modules about classroom assessment focus specifically on progress monitoring:

• Classroom Assessment (Part 1): An Introduction to Monitoring Academic Achievement in the Classroom discusses how progress monitoring can affect the academic outcomes of students and demonstrates how to implement curriculum-based measurement (CBM) with a classroom of students.
• Classroom Assessment (Part 2): Evaluating Reading Progress explores in detail progress monitoring with specific attention to reading skills. It outlines how to use progress-monitoring data to determine whether a student is meeting the established performance criteria or whether more intensive intervention is needed.

The IRIS Center provides other resources that can be used to supplement these interactive learning modules. Two case study units—“RTI: Data-Based Decision Making” and “RTI: Progress Monitoring”—provide realistic scenarios in three levels of difficulty: gathering information (Level A); analyzing information (Level B); and synthesizing information (Level C). Each case study unit includes background information on the students, a scenario, and possible strategies that could be utilized.
The IRIS Center Web site also contains RTI Information Briefs, materials made available from other federally funded centers (e.g., the National Center on Response to Intervention) on topics such as parental involvement and assessment.

How IRIS Modules Are Presented

All IRIS Center modules utilize the STAR (Software Technology for Action and Reflection) Legacy model. This easy-to-use cycle is composed of five parts that have been repeatedly recognized in educational research as important components of learning.

• Challenge – Modules are organized around engaging case-based scenarios that use short video clips to introduce the topic. Each Challenge ends with a set of questions to stimulate further discussion.
• Initial Thoughts – Learners generate their own ideas to the Challenge questions in order to explore what they currently know about the topic.
• Perspectives and Resources – Students access resources relevant to the Challenge. These may include text, expert interviews, movies, and interactive activities. For example, in the RTI series, learners can listen to a student read a short passage and practice scoring a reading probe, watch a video in which a teacher uses word cards and a word web to develop vocabulary skills, and listen to experts such as Lynn Fuchs, Doug Fuchs, and Sharon Vaughn.
• Assessment – Learners apply what they know, with the opportunity to return to the Perspectives and Resources section if needed.
• Wrap Up – The cycle concludes with a summary and an opportunity for the learner to review his or her final thoughts (which are the same questions asked in the Initial Thoughts section of the module).

In addition to RTI resources, the IRIS Center provides instructional units on a broad array of topics, including accommodations, differentiating instruction, classroom and behavior management, assessment, and school improvement. All of these materials are available at no cost to users at http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu.

The authors are members of the IRIS Center staff. Tyler is Co-Principal Investigator and Miller is an information specialist at the Vanderbilt University location; Smith is Co-Principal Investigator at the Claremont Graduate University location.

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