Since the introduction of response-to-intervention as a process for identifying specific learning disabilities and the widespread adoption of multi-tiered systems of support as a framework for instructional delivery, the role of the special educator has become blurred. Specifically, special educators have struggled to identify their role across…

Writing is an essential skill and outcome for academic and professional success, but the call for evidence-based practices and instructional differentiation to support all student-writers' needs has yet to be sufficiently addressed. The Common Core State Standards' Initiative resurfaced a focus on writing instruction and brought attention to…

Response to Intervention (RTI) is a complex initiative which requires the ongoing support and communication of multiple stakeholders (e.g., teachers, administrators, support staff). The purpose of this paper is to examine RTI and direct application of the framework with public school practitioners. The paper is separated into several sections.…

The authors examined three instructional approaches for improving teachers' curriculum-based measurement (CBM) graph comprehension, each differing in the extent to which reading the data, interpreting the data, and linking the data to instruction were emphasized. Participants were 164 elementary school teachers who were randomly assigned to one of…

Students with learning disabilities often struggle with math fact fluency and require specialized interventions to recall basic facts. Deficits in math fact fluency can result in later difficulties when learning higher-level mathematical computation, concepts, and problem solving. The response-to-intervention (RTI) and…

Implementation of Response to Intervention (RTI) has been developed with the goal of increasing the efficiency and efficacy of the identification process for students at risk of/with learning disabilities. While this goal is well-intentioned, the implementation of RTI has faced challenges at the district level. Understanding the current…

When visual impairments (VI) and learning disabilities (LD) coexist, it is common for one (i.e., typically LD) to go unidentified. Some school districts may be reluctant to identify students with both VI and LD, potentially causing students to miss out on much-needed services. Child study teams can find support to address this dual diagnosis using…

The purpose of this study was to examine the changes in initial eligibilities of elementary students across Tennessee since the implementation response to intervention (RtI), as well as understand the perceptions of elementary school psychologists related to those changes in identification and eligibility. RtI is a Tennessee mandated initiative,…

Despite the successful implementation of the Response to Intervention (RtI) framework in many elementary schools, there is little evidence of successful implementation in high school settings. Several themes emerged from the interviews of nine secondary principals, including a lack of knowledge and training for successful implementation, the…

The "Response to Intervention Guidance for New York State School Districts" (2010) document indicates Response to Intervention (RTI) is a mandated general education process intended to provide early interventions to struggling at-risk students. The multi-level RTI framework is structured to include targeted evidence-based interventions…

Response to Intervention (RTI) is defined by the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE) as the practice of providing high-quality instruction and intervention matched to student needs and using learning rate over time and level of performance to make important educational decisions (2007). Both IDEA 2004 and the…

For 30 years, researchers have investigated oral reading fluency as a measure of growth in reading proficiency. Yet, little research has been done with these measures in the context of progress monitoring in Tier 2 systems. First, we document teachers' progress-monitoring decisions on type of passage (on-grade or off-grade) and how often to…

It seems that assessment has almost always been a controversial issue when discussing students with learning disabilities. This chapter will first define learning disabilities with a discussion on the current federal definition, what a severe discrepancy is, the dimensions of a psychological processing disorder, and response to intervention. Then…

The authors examined the extent to which classroom teachers in naturalistic settings used a Goal-Setting Tool to set instructional goals for struggling students, the kinds of goals they set, their progress monitoring practices with and without goals, and the extent to which students gain more when a goal-setting tool is used. The goal-setting tool…

Although increasingly implemented in elementary and secondary education settings, research provides limited insight into practitioners' knowledge of Response-to-Intervention (RTI) at the secondary level. This paper presents descriptive findings from an exploratory survey of teachers that assessed the relationship between the grade level of…