Here is a link to my RTI article entitled: Response to Intervention: Guidelines for Parents and Practitioners by James B. Hale

Response to Intervention or RTI is a a set of practical guidelines used in the US designed to help educators identify children with academic troubles and guide them through an intervention process that provides the students with the additional supports necessary for academic success. The philosophical foundation of this new model is the belief that if a child receives high quality instruction and educators regularly assess their improvement, all children can succeed in school. RTI includes 3, or sometimes 4 tiers of instruction each of which progressively provides more intensive and more individualistic instruction to the student if they do not respond to the previous tier. The first tier doesn't seem to be too different from regular good teaching. The teacher must provide solid, scientifically based instruction to the entire class while monitoring the possibly troubled student(s) for the progress along typical curricular benchmarks.

If they do not seem to be responding or progressing normally, they will then be moved on to tier 2 which uses the Problem Solving Model (problem identification, problem analysis, intervention development/implementation, intervention evaluation/modification) to identify the particular learning or behavior problem the student is having and then Tailor an intervention program (as well as measurement to judge the success of the program) to the individual. If the child still does not show progress, they will then likely be moved to tier 3.

In tier 3, the child will have been identified with a specific learning disability, given an IEP (individualized education plan) and will likely be moved into a special education classroom to receive specialized services. The intensity of the instruction and the classroom, or one-on-one nature of it depends upon the individual's educational needs.

My initial reaction to the idea of RTI is pretty good. I think that it really does focus a teachers attention on troubled students early on and ensures that no student will ever be totally lost or left out in a higher level class because the limited skills and comprehension that they have in the subject area were never confronted. The bad side of it all is that it just seems like it is another responsibility that falls on the teachers shoulders along with a thousand other things a teacher has to think/worry about daily. To ask teachers to provide individualized education for growing number of students during a time of financial cut backs and growing class sizes is not only a bit ironic, it could seem a bit daunting. I want every child to succeed in my classroom, but the amount of time and energy I will have to put into my lessons and my individualized instruction are not being fairly compensated for the additional responsibilities put on me...