Assessing a student's level and rate of improvement on an academic skill is a contemporary approach to the identification of specific learning disabilities. This approach, broadly categorized as responsiveness to intervention, however, does not obviate educators from scrutinizing the psychometric qualities of the data used to make important…

The purpose of this study is to ascertain the essential elements of Response to Intervention programs among 150 high performing Title I schools with high rates of poverty as measured by free/reduced lunch participation rates. Response to Intervention (RTI) is a nationally-known instructional model used to assist students who are struggling to…

The purpose of this study is to further enhance the existing reliability and validity evidence related to the School Implementation Scale (SIS) and its use for evaluating the implementation of different integrated academic and behavior tiered Response-To-Intervention (RTI) models. Previous methodology conducted for validation of the instrument has…

Piecewise growth models (PGMs) were used to estimate and model changes in the preliteracy skill development of kindergartners in a moderately sized school district in the Pacific Northwest. PGMs were applied to interrupted time-series (ITS) data that arose within the context of a response-to-intervention (RtI) instructional framework. During the…

Low reading skills constitute a serious achievement problem. Although there are remedial support in schools, between 2% and 6% of the student population continues to show persistent reading difficulties despite intensive intervention. The research problem in this study addressed the lack of effective reading interventions for students who were in…

Few empirical investigations have evaluated learning disabilities (LD) identification methods based on a pattern of cognitive strengths and weaknesses (PSW). This study investigated the reliability of LD classification decisions of the concordance/discordance method (C/DM) across different psychoeducational assessment batteries. C/DM criteria were…

Models of irregular word reading that take into account both child- and word-level predictors have not been evaluated in typically developing children and children with reading difficulty (RD). The purpose of the present study was to model individual differences in irregular word reading ability among 5th grade children (N = 170), oversampled for…

The early identification of students at-risk for future reading difficulty has become a focal point for K-12 stakeholders seeking to actively prevent the emergence of student reading deficits. Early and active intervention efforts for struggling readers have taken on greater urgency given the accountability pressures that stem from the No Child…

In this study, we tested the outcomes of access to a response to intervention (RtI) model in kindergarten or in first grade on end-of-Grade-2 reading achievement and placement in special education. Across five schools, 214 students who began having access to Tier 2 intervention in kindergarten or first grade were compared in Grades 1 and 2 with…

The quantitative study seeks to analyze if School-wide Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (SWPBIS) model reduces the likelihood that minority students will receive more individualized supports due to behavior problems. In theory, the SWPBIS model should reflect a 3-tier system with tier 1 representing approximately 80%, tier 2 representing…

Research Findings: Multitiered instructional frameworks are becoming a recommended approach for enhancing prevention and intervention efforts targeting early literacy and language skills. However, few studies to date have studied the feasibility of tiered oral language interventions before kindergarten; therefore, this pilot study explored the…

In this study, we tested the outcomes of access to a Response to Intervention (RtI) model in kindergarten or in first grade on end-of-Grade-2 reading achievement and placement in special education. Across five schools, 214 students who began having access to Tier 2 intervention in kindergarten or first grade were compared in Grades 1 and 2 with…

The purpose of this study is to investigate teachers' perceptions of the functionality and effectiveness of the response to intervention model. Using a response to intervention (RTI) framework has become a priority for school district as they move to meet federal legislative mandates. Through this study teachers in the southwestern part of the…

The Full Service Schools (FSS) reform model is an inter-agency collaboration between the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS), Choices, Inc., Insights Education Group and the DC Department of Mental Health. This comprehensive school reform model is based in the Response to Intervention paradigm and is designed to mitigate student academic…

Improving student performance for high-need student populations by improving the use of data in decision-making for early reading intervention programs in northwest Florida is the focus of this research to practice effort. The study is conceptually based on using a relational-feedback intervention (RFI) database model in early learning…