What other considerations should Mr. Brewster and the other school professionals be aware of when implementing RTI?
Page 10: Communicating with Students, School Personnel, and Parents
To implement RTI, teachers and school leaders must effectively communicate with students, with each other, and with parents. This is especially true when universal screening identifies potentially struggling readers in Tier 1 and when Tier 2 or Tier 3 intervention is being considered.
Communicating with Students
Teachers need to communicate at a developmentally appropriate level with students about instruction, interventions, and assessments (i.e., universal screening, progress monitoring) that will be carried out throughout the RTI process. Following are some ideas for communicating with students:
- Use language that communicates the flexibility and the inclusiveness of the RTI process, rather than talking to the students about placing them in an intervention (e.g., Tier 2).
- Allow students to graph their own progress monitoring data, and meet with students individually on a regular basis to discuss their progress.
- Meet with students individually to discuss the instruction that they are receiving.
Melissa Brock describes her school’s process for communicating with students about their performance by using progress monitoring data (time: 0:35).
Melissa Brock
Literacy coach
Kirkpatrick Elementary Enhanced Option School Nashville, TN
Transcript: Melissa Brock
In terms of progress monitoring and communicating that with the students, if a student has shown a whole lot progress then we’ll sit down with them and reflect on their scores and ask them why they think they’ve made this progress—what are the things that they’ve been doing that helped them to make this progress? The reverse would be if a student was not making progress, we would sit down with them and reflect on why they are not making this progress. What do we need to do to help them to get them where they need to be? Do they need extra practice? Are they participating fully in the lesson?
Communicating with School Personnel
Communication among school personnel is crucial to the successful implementation of the RTI approach. This communication can occur in a variety of ways, including regularly scheduled grade-level team meetings to discuss students’ educational needs and regularly scheduled meetings between the general education teacher and the school personnel providing supplemental intervention. For example, at Rosa Parks, Mr. Brewster meets briefly once a week with Ms. Washington and separately with Ms. Jacobs, the professionals providing Tier 2 and Tier 3 intervention, to discuss his students’ instructional needs and progress. Regardless of the school’s preferred method of communication concerning students’ educational needs and progress, teachers must collaborate with the Tier 2 and Tier 3 intervention providers to:
- Align the intervention with the core curriculum used in Tier 1
- Review a student’s progress by examining progress monitoring data
- Make decisions about a student’s instructional needs
- Make tier placement decisions based on the progress monitoring data
Keep in Mind
The general education teacher should share responsibility for the instructional planning and the decision-making process for all of his or her students. Although someone else may provide Tier 2 and Tier 3 intervention, the general education teacher still maintains primary responsibility for his or her students’ instruction.
Communicating with Parents
The Rosa Parks staff understands the importance of communicating with parents and of gaining their support in the education of their children. As the teachers at Rosa Parks implement the RTI approach, parents also need to understand the process and its impact on the instructional decisions made about their children. More specifically, they need to be informed about:
- Core instruction
- Interventions
- Universal screening and progress monitoring
Ideally, the school should establish communication with the parents at the beginning of the school year to explain the RTI process and to inform them of the universal screening. Once the screenings have been completed, the teacher should inform all parents of their child’s performance on the universal screening. If a student is identified as potentially struggling in reading, the teacher should indicate to the parents that their child’s progress will be monitored.
This understanding and involvement is especially important when a student is identified as having some additional need that will be met through an intervention (e.g., Tier 2). When meeting with parents, a teacher should focus on specific student needs and interpret student’s universal screening and progress monitoring data for them. Because these data are integral to current and future instruction, they:
- Provide a point of reference for the discussion between the teacher and parents
- Present a more objective picture of the student’s performance
For example, Mr. Brewster has kept Laney’s parents informed about her progress since her universal screening. As soon as he determines that Laney may benefit from the additional support provided in Tier 2, he notifies her parents about the proposed instructional change and requests a conference.
Date: November 1
School: Rosa Parks Elementary School
RE: Laney Kasper
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Kasper:
At the beginning of the school year, each student in the second grade at Rosa Parks Elementary was given a short reading test to determine his or her reading ability. As you know, Laney’s scores indicated that she might be struggling in reading. As we discussed, her progress in reading has been monitored once a week for the past eight weeks. Although she is receiving 90 minutes of reading instruction each day, Laney still has not shown enough improvement. The second-grade team and the reading coach feel that Laney would benefit from an additional 30 minutes of daily reading instruction provided by the reading specialist. I would like to schedule a meeting to discuss the suggested instruction, intervention, and assessments. We would like to begin the extra instruction next week. Please check the times you are available to meet. If you are unavailable to meet at any of these times, please contact me at 555-3443 to schedule a more convenient time.
Sincerely,
Mr. Brewster
| _ Tuesday morning 7:00 am – 8:00 am _ Tuesday afternoon 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm _ Wednesday morning 7:00 am – 8:00 am _ Wednesday midday 11:30 am – 1:00 pm _ Wednesday afternoon 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm _ Thursday morning 7:00 am – 8:00 am _ Thursday afternoon 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm _ Friday morning 7:00 am – 8:00 am _ Friday midday 11:30 am – 12:30 pm |
| _________________________________________ Parent’s Signature |
___________ Date |
During this meeting, he will describe Laney’s instructional needs and discuss the instruction, interventions, and assessments she will receive. Click on the movie below to see how Mr. Brewster conducts the parent meeting (time: 2:42).
Transcript: Mr. Brewster Conducts the Parent Meeting
Narrator: Mr. Brewster is meeting with Laney’s parents to discuss additional reading support, or Tier 2 intervention, for Laney. Since the universal screening, he has been updating them about her progress on a regular basis. Listen as Mr. Brewster reviews the universal screening process and uses Laney’s progress monitoring data and graph to describe Laney’s reading performance to her parents.
Mr. Brewster: Thank ya’ll for coming in. I want to discuss Laney’s progress in reading. At the beginning of the school year, I gave each student a brief reading test. Laney’s score indicated that she was struggling with reading. As you know, I’ve been giving Laney extra support in reading, and I monitored her progress for the past eight weeks.
Narrator: Mr. Brewster shows Laney’s parents a graph of her scores. She read about six words correctly in one minute on the first test and is now reading nine words correctly in one minute. Mr. Brewster points out that by this time of year, second-grade students are usually reading more than 20 words correctly in one minute.
Mr. Brewster: So, based on these results, I think Laney would benefit from even more reading support. This support will be provided by Ms. Washington, the reading specialist.
Mom: Well, could you tell us what kind of extra help you’ve given her?
Mr. Brewster: Yeah, I’ve tried a number of things. I divided the class into small groups; this allows me to give Laney more individualized help. In addition, so that the students have more time to practice, I scheduled a time when each student works with a partner to improve reading skills. While Laney has made some progress with these types of instruction, she still has a long way to go to reach the grade-level goal.
Dad: Since it’s only November, should we wait a little longer?
Mr. Brewster: Well, I’m worried if we wait any longer, Laney will fall further behind her classmates. This is an opportunity for Laney to spend more time working on her reading skills and, possibly, to get them back on grade level. The students really enjoy working with Ms. Washington, and last year she had a lot of success with the students who were struggling with reading.
Dad: Well, it sounds like it’s worth trying, but how long will it take before you know if it’s working?
Mr. Brewster: The support will last for 10 weeks, and we’ll monitor Laney’s progress once each week. That means that we’ll continue to keep track of her performance on her graph, and we’ll be able to see if she makes adequate progress in reading with this additional support.
Mom: Okay, that sounds good. Let’s give it a try.
Narrator: During the remainder of the meeting, Mr. Brewster explains in detail how the Tier 2 intervention will be implemented. He informs the parents that Laney will miss part of science and part of social studies, and he explains how he will make adjustments to compensate for the time she misses. Mr. Brewster assures them that he will continue to update them about Laney’s progress on a regular basis.
Keep in Mind
Due process procedures, as defined by special education law, need to be considered when determining the appropriate time to notify parents of changes to their child’s instruction.
Listen as Doug and Lynn Fuchs discuss when to inform parents about the RTI process (time: 0:30).
Doug Fuchs, PhD and Lynn Fuchs, PhD
Nicholas Hobbs Co-Chairs of Special Education and Human Development
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
Transcript: Doug and Lynn Fuchs, PhD
Doug Fuchs: We recommend that parents be involved at the point when kids are identified as at-risk so that they know that their children’s progress is going to be monitored—they’re not yet identified, they’re not suspect of having a disability, but that they be notified from the get-go.
Lynn Fuchs: Like Doug said, you’d want to tell them when they’re being monitored each week to make sure that their progress is good. If they’re going to enter Tier 2 tutoring, I think parents need to be informed about that.
