Chapter 3: Quality Core Instruction: A Necessary First Step

“It shouldn’t go without saying that all students need access to quality instruction. Without high-quality initial instruction, significant numbers of students will require supplemental instruction and intensive intervention that are costly and time-consuming.” p. 29

How can we ensure that all students are receiving quality instruction? I think the feedback sheets that Marianne and Joe are going to use will help.

The first part of quality instruction is establishing a purpose. We expect teachers to post and go over Today You Will Learn but I don’t think this has been implemented with fidelity. I like how today we decided that TYWL needs to be in a complete sentence and use a skill/verb and concept/noun. This will make it more clear for students and teachers. The students need to know what they are learning and why.

Teacher modeling is a critical component of releasing responsibility to the students. Teachers must provide an example of what they are thinking when they “solve problems, read, write, or complete tasks.” Modeling is NOT a “detailed explanation, nor is it a time to question students; rather, it is an opportunity to demonstrate the ways that experts think.” p. 34 Teachers need to model how they comprehend, solve unknown words, and use text structures (grammar) and features (charts, figures, etc).

The next part of quality instruction is guided instruction-the “we do” of the lesson. Guided instruction should be based on the teacher’s check for understanding. “Guided instruction provides teachers with an opportunity to engage students in thinking without explicitly telling them what to think.” p. 39

Quality core instruction involves productive group work (you do together). Students must first be taught how to work together. “Students learn more and retain information longer when they work in productive groups.” p. 40. I think group work is essential but how to we ensure that it’s being used effectively? I know some teachers used Becky and Amanda’s different colored marker idea.

Next, students must work independently (you do alone). The independent work should be a review and reinforcement of what was previously taught. It should not be based on new. This step allows students to build confidence. Homework should be based on content that students have been exposed to for at least 3 to 5 days.

Chapter 4: Supplemental Interventions: A Second-Level Defense

Remember, 75-85% of students should make sufficient progress through core instruction alone. Tier 2 is supplemental intervention and approximately 10-15 percent of students at one time or another requires supplemental instruction in addition to the core instruction. This chapter focuses on Tier 2.

One takeaway point I think we all need to keep in mind is “providing every student with the same thing a every other student isn’t fair; providing each student with what he or she needs is fair.”

I like this analogy: “Supplemental instruction is much like the medication that doctors order. The prescription comes only after a careful analysis of the symptoms and the patient’s medical history. A treatment is prescribed, and the patient’s progress is monitored. The dosage and duration of the treatment are determined in advance, but that doesn’t preclude the doctor from running further tests if the medication does not seem to work.” p. 52-53. This is where continuous checks for understanding are vital. We need to monitor the effectiveness of the intervention.

Interventions should include:
*A feedback mechanism for student and teacher to continuously foster learning gains

*Peer interaction to further scaffold student understanding

*Explicit instruction that emphasizes skill building

*Contextualized instruction that emphasizes skill application

*A process for informing parents of gains so that they can celebrate success and offer praise and encouragement (p. 53)

The interventions need to be aligned with the quality core instruction and delivered by a highly qualified teacher. When implementing interventions, students should be working in small, similarly skilled groups and given. The interventions need to be in addition to quality core instruction-not take it’s place. Page 54 offers some times that supplemental intervention could be used.

One point I found that contradicts what we have to do is the tutoring. It should be aligned with the core instruction. In the tutoring that we offer, we are doing programs that are not related to what is being taught in class. I’m not sure how this is supposed to help the students.

Enhancing RTI
How to Ensure Success with Effective Classroom Instruction and Intervention
Douglas Fisher / Nancy Frey


Chapter 1 – Choose Your Adventure:
How RTI2 Affects the Educational Environment

“Teaching every child is hard work. With that hard work, though, comes a group of learners who are prepared to participate in society. This learning occurs in the classrooms or well-prepared teachers who are undaunted by student learning variations because they believe that each child is an individual and that individuals exhibit differences in growth due to many factors, including carefully selected instructional interventions.”

The focus of Chapter 1 is a comparison of the interventions and supports in three scenarios which include a traditional school, a RTI school, and an RTI2 school. In the traditional school earlier iterations of the prereferral process were often seen as a necessary formality that almost always led to special education testing. The RTI school the focus was to examine interventions that might prevent referral to testing. The difference in the RTI2 school is to enhance the RTI process and continually examine classroom instructional design. Consultation and collaboration with other professionals and families is essential.


Chapter 2 – Response to Intervention:
Defining and Refining the Process

RTI was designed as a way to encourage teachers to vary instruction and time to create a constant level of learning. A core assumption of RTI is that all students can reach high levels of achievement if the system is willing (and able) to vary the amount of time students have to learn and the type of instruction they receive. In the old view of learning instruction and time were the constant and outcomes/learning varied, but in the new view of learning instruction and time vary and outcomes/learning are the constant.

Tier 1 is the core instruction and 75-85 percent of students should make sufficient progress through core instruction alone. Tier 2 is supplemental intervention and approximately 10-15 percent of students at one time or another requires supplemental instruction in addition to the core instruction. Tier 3 is intensive intervention. Approximately 5-10 percent of students will require an intensified approach that includes more time, a lower teacher-student ratio (typically 1:1), individualized lessons that target weaknesses while leveraging student strengths, and a sophisticated cadre of assessment tools to monitor progress and diagnosis difficulties. It is imperative that teachers first consider individual students’ responses to quality core instruction before recommending supplemental and intensive interventions. They must also determine which students respond to the interventions and continue adapting instructional routines and time to achieve the desired results. RTI2 begins with a strong core instruction built on a gradual release of responsibility model (Fisher/Frey) with strong assessment to monitor progress, and improve instruction in all tiers. RTI2 emphasizes a collaborative approach to classroom support and anticipates that some students will periodically cycle through interventions.
-Marianne