Dr. Virginia Buysse discusses the key features of the early childhood Response to Intervention (RTI) model (running time: 2 min. 09 sec.).
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Narrator:
This RTI national online forum is presented by the RTI action network a program of the National Center for Learning Disabilities. Funding is provided by the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation.
Interviewer:
Virginia, I’d like to try to cover the basics of RTI with you. We’re going to get into more specifics later on, but for now what are the key features of early childhood RTI model.
Virginia:
Well Doris, RTI is essentially a framework that can help practitioners link assessment to instruction. So if you take that basic definition there are a couple of key components.
Interviewer:
Ok.
Virginia:
The first is the assessment component and within RTI there is a particular type of assessment that is used and it’s called formative assessment. It’s called formative because the assessment relies on information that’s gathered on children’s behavior and skills and it’s used to inform instructional decisions.
The other component is the instructional component of course. And that consists of the sort of core instruction that all children receive. In the form of a core curriculum and intentional teaching. But layered on top of that are the tiered interventions and supports that some children need.
And a third component are the supports for making database decisions and so there are a couple ideas around that concept. One is that there needs to be a mechanism by which parents and teachers and specialists can collaborate and work together to solve problems. In addition they need some criteria for how to make decisions, so benchmarks about what are the key domains of learning for children at this age. So that they can understand what goals should be accomplished. Also some criteria for determining which children might need some additional supports based on assessments.
Interviewer:
Alright, thank you so much.