response to intervention the role of the school psychologist in supporting rti

Response to Intervention

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The Role of the School Psychologist in Supporting RTI



The Role of the School Psychologist in Supporting RTI

1. Tech Assistance: How to Set an Intervention Goal for a Student on Off-Level Intervention

2. Discussion: What are the role(s) of the school psychologist in helping schools to prepare RTI information for the CSE?

3. Discussion: In what uniform manner should schools summarize RTI information for presentation at CSE?

4. Discussion: What support or information will the CSE look to the school psychologist for at eligibility meetings when considering RTI student information?



RTI Data Challenge: Setting Individual RTI Academic Goals Using Research Norms for Students Receiving ‘Off-Level’ Interventions

Source: Shapiro, E. S. (2008). Best practices in setting progress-monitoring monitoring goals for academic skill improvement. In A. Thomas & J. Grimes (Eds.), Best practices in school psychology V (pp. 141-157). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.



How to Set a Goal for an ‘Off-Level’ Intervention1. Comparing Student Performance to Benchmarks and

Flagging Extreme Discrepancies. The student is administered reading fluency probes equivalent to his or her current grade placement (during the Fall/Winter/Spring schoolwide screening) and the results are compared to peer norms. If the student falls significantly below the level of peers, he or she may need additional assessment to determine whether the student is to receive intervention and assessment ‘off grade level’.

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In January, Mrs. Chandler, a 4th-grade teacher, receives her classwide reading fluency screening results. She notes that a student who has recently transferred to her classroom, Randy, performed at 35 Words Read Correct (WRC) on the 1-minute AIMSweb Grade 4 fluency probes.

Mrs. Chandler consults AIMSweb reading-fluency research norms and finds that a reasonable minimum reading rate for students by winter of grade 4 (25th percentile) is 89 WRC.

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Example of Progress-Monitoring Off-Level: Randy


www.interventioncentral.org 6Source: AIMSweb® Growth Table Reading-Curriculum Based Measurement: Multi-Year Aggregate: 2006-2007 School Year

AIMSweb Norms: ‘Typical’ reader (25th percentile) in Gr 4 at mid-year (winter norms): 89 WRC

Target Student Randy: 35 WRC

Conclusion: Randy’s grade-level performance is in the ‘frustration’ range.

He requires a Survey-Level Assessment to find his optimal ‘instructional’ level.




2. Conducting a Survey Level Assessment (SLA). For students with large discrepancies when compared to benchmarks, the teacher conducts a SLA to determine the student’s optimal level for supplemental intervention and progress-monitoring.

• The teacher administers AIMSweb reading probes from successively earlier grade levels and compares the student’s performance to the benchmark norms for that grade level.

• The student’s ‘instructional’ level for intervention is the first grade level in which his reading-fluency rate falls at or above the 25th percentile according to the benchmark norms.

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How to Set a Goal for an ‘Off-Level’ Intervention



Because Randy’s reading fluency rate is so far below the grade-level norms (a gap of 54 WRC), his teacher decides to conduct a Survey Level Assessment to find the student’s optimal grade level placement for supplemental reading instruction.

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Source: AIMSweb® Growth Table Reading-Curriculum Based Measurement: Multi-Year Aggregate: 2006-2007 School Year

Survey Level Assessment. The teacher conducts a Survey Level Assessment with Randy, assessing him using CBM reading fluency probes from successively earlier grades until he performs at or above the 25th percentile according to the AIMSweb norms.

On Grade 3-level probes, Randy attains a median score of 48 WRC.

The AIMSweb winter norm (25th percentile) for a 3rd grade student is 69 WRC.

The student is still in the ‘frustration’ range and the Survey Level Assessment continues.

On Grade 2-level probes, Randy attains a median score of 64 WRC.

The AIMSweb winter norm (25th percentile) for a 2nd grade student is 53 WRC.

The student is now in the ‘instructional’ range and the Survey Level Assessment ends.




3. Selecting an ‘Off-Level’ Progress-Monitoring Goal. To set a progress-monitoring goal, the teacher looks up the benchmark WRC for the 50th percentile at the student’s off-level ‘instructional’ grade level previously determined through the Survey Level Assessment.

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Goal-Setting. To find the progress-monitoring goal for Randy, his teacher looks up the benchmark WRC for the 50th percentile at Grade 2 (his off-level ‘instructional’ grade level)—which is 79 WRC.

This becomes the progress-monitoring goal for the student.




4. Translating the Progress-Monitoring Goal into Weekly Increments.

The teacher’s final task before starting the progress-monitoring is to translate the student’s ultimate intervention goal into ‘ambitious but realistic’ weekly increments.

One useful method for determining weekly growth rates is to start with research-derived growth norms and to then use a ‘multiplier’ to make the expected rate of weekly growth more ambitious.

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4. Translating the Progress-Monitoring Goal into Weekly Increments. (Cont.)

• The teacher first looks up the average rate of weekly student growth supplied in the research norms. (NOTE: If available, a good rule of thumb is to use the growth norms for the 50th percentile at the ‘off-level’ grade at which the student is receiving intervention and being monitored.)

• The teacher then multiplies this grade norm for weekly growth by a figure between 1.5 and 2.0 (Shapiro, 2008). Because the original weekly growth rate represents a typical rate student improvement, using this multiplier to increase the target student’s weekly growth estimate is intended accelerate learning and close the gap separating that student from peers.

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Determining Weekly Rate of Improvement (ROI). Randy is to be monitored on intervention at grade 2. The teacher finds—according to AIMSweb norms—that a typical student in Grade 2 (at the 50th percentile) has a rate of improvement of 1.1 WRC per week.

She multiplies the 1.1 WRC figure by 1.8 (teacher judgment) to obtain a weekly growth goal for Randy of about 2.0 additional WRCs.

Randy’s ultimate goal is 79 WRC (the 50th percentile norm for grade 2).

During the Survey Level Assessment, Randy was found to read 64 WRC at the 2nd grade level.

There is a 15-WRC gap to be closed to get Randy to his goal.

At 2 additional WRC per week on intervention, Randy should close the gap within about 8 instructional weeks.



5. Advancing the Student to Higher Grade Levels for Intervention and Progress-Monitoring

The teacher monitors the student’s growth in reading fluency at least once per week (twice per week is ideal).

• When the student’s reading fluency exceeds the 50th percentile in Words Read Correct for his or her ‘off-level’ grade, the teacher reassesses the student’s reading fluency using AIMSweb materials at the next higher grade.

• If the student performs at or above the 25th percentile on probes from that next grade level, the teacher advances the student and begins to monitor at the higher grade level.

• The process repeats until the student eventually closes the gap with peers and is being monitored at grade of placement.

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Advancing the Student to Higher Grade Levels of Progress-Monitoring. His teacher, Ms. Chandler, notes that after 7 weeks of intervention, Randy is now reading 82 WRC—exceeding the 79 WRC for the 50th percentile of students in Grade 2 (winter norms).

Advancing the Student to Higher Grade Levels (Cont.). So Mrs. Chandler assesses Randy on AIMSweb reading fluency probes for Grade 3 and finds that he reads on average 72 WRC —exceeding the Grade 3 25th percentile cut-off of 69 WRC.

Therefore, Randy is advanced to Grade 3 progress-monitoring and his intervention materials are adjusted accordingly.



Activity: Changing Role of the School Psychologist Under RTI• Review the steps outlined

in this workshop for setting goals for students on off-level interventions.

• What is the role of a school psychologist in helping interventionists to follow this process?

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Setting Individual RTI Academic Goals Using Research Norms for Students Receiving ‘Off-Level’ Interventions

1. Comparing Student Performance to Benchmarks and Flagging Extreme Discrepancies

2. Conducting a Survey Level Assessment (SLA).

3. Selecting an ‘Off-Level’ Progress-Monitoring Goal.

4. Translating a Progress-Monitoring Goal into Weekly Increments.

5. Advancing the Student Who Makes Progress to Higher Grade Levels for Intervention and Progress-Monitoring.


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RTI Lab: Creating District Decision Rules for Analyzing RTI Data to Determine LD EligibilityJim Wrightwww.interventioncentral.org



RTI Data & LD Determination: Agenda…

1. Learning Disabilities in the Age of RTI: Introduction

2. Analyzing Student Academic Risk: Performance Level and Rate of Improvement

3. Evaluating a Student’s ‘Non-Responder’ Status: A Comprehensive Checklist

4. Developing Your District’s Decision Rules for Using RTI Data to Determine ‘Non-Response’ Status: First Steps



“ ”The process by which public schools identify students as learning disabled often appears to be confusing, unfair, and logically inconsistent. In fact, G. Reid Lyon of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development has suggested that the field of learning disabilities is a sociological sponge whose purpose has been and is to clean up the spills of general education. (Gresham, 2001)

Source: Gresham, F. M.. (2001). Responsiveness to intervention: An alternative approach to the identification of learning disabilities. Paper presented at the Learning Disabilities Summit, Washington DC.



RTI & Special Education Eligibility



Special Education Eligibility & RTI: Establishing Confidence at Every Link

• Special Education Eligibility Teams review the CUMULATIVE RTI information collected in general education (‘intervention audit’).

• If that Team lacks confidence in any one of the links in the RTI chain, it will be difficult to identify the student as an RTI ‘non-responder’

• The school psychologist can help schools to identify each link in the RTI chain and to know how to measure the quality of that link.

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RTI Assumption: Struggling Students Are ‘Typical’ Until Proven Otherwise…

RTI logic assumes that:– A student who begins to struggle in general education is typical,

and that– It is general education’s responsibility to find the instructional

strategies that will unlock the student’s learning potential

Only when the student shows through well-documented interventions that he or she has ‘failed to respond to intervention’ does RTI begin to investigate the possibility that the student may have a learning disability or other special education condition.



Target Student

Discrepancy 1: Skill Gap (Current Performance Level)

Avg Classroom Academic Performance Level

‘Dual-Discrepancy’: RTI Model of Learning Disability (Fuchs 2003)

Discrepancy 2:Gap in Rate of Learning (‘Slope of Improvement’)



Current NYS Definition of ‘Learning Disabled’

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RTI Information: What It Does and Doesn’t Do• The primary purpose for the special education eligibility

team to evaluate general-education RTI information is to rule out instructional explanations for the struggling student’s academic concerns.

• RTI information does not in and of itself provide detailed information to allow schools to draw conclusions about a student’s possible neurological differences that make up the construct ‘learning disabilities’.

• Therefore, RTI information allows for a rule-out (the learning problem resides within the student, not the classroom) but does not in and of itself provide positive evidence of a learning disability.

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Using RTI Information to Identify the ‘Non-Responding’ Student: Goodbye, Gate

• As a special education eligibility team adopts a process for evaluating a student’s RTI information as a ‘non-responder’ to intervention as part of an evaluation for learning disabilities, the team will discover that there is no longer a single ‘actuarial number’ or gate to determine ‘risk’ of LD in the manner of a test score discrepancy analysis.

• Therefore, the special education eligibility team must have confidence in the quality of the intervention and assessment programs available to the struggling student in the general education setting.

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RTI Lab: Writing a Tier 2/3 Intervention Summary Report: GuidelinesJim Wrightwww.interventioncentral.org



Team Activity: Review a Sample Intervention Summary Report

At your table:

• Review the sample Intervention Summary Report for Brian Haskell, a 5th grade student (pp. 23-24).

• What key points does the report contain that may support or prevent your effort to determine if the student is a ‘non-responder’ to intervention?

• How useful does your team find this Intervention Summary Report format to be?



Tier 2/3 Intervention Summary Report: Sample Introductory Paragraph



Writing a Tier 2/3 Intervention Summary Report…Introductory Paragraph. This opening section presents

essential background information about the RTI case, including:

• Current grade level of the student• Information about how the student was identified for

supplemental RTI intervention (e.g., student performance on fall/winter/spring academic screening placing them in the ‘at risk’ range)

• [If the student received an ‘off-level’ supplemental intervention] information about the grade level selected for the intervention and progress-monitoring

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Tier 2/3 Intervention Summary Report: Sample Intervention Summary Paragraph/Section



Sample Reading Fluency Norms

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Source: Tindal, G., Hasbrouck, J., & Jones, C. (2005).Oral reading fluency: 90 years of measurement [Technical report #33]. Eugene, OR: University of Oregon.



Writing a Tier 2/3 Intervention Summary Report…Intervention Summary Paragraphs. This section

provides summary information about each intervention plan or ‘trial’. A separate paragraph or section is written for each intervention plan/trial. Every intervention summary should include:

• Name and brief description of the instructional program(s) or practices that makes up the intervention.

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Writing a Tier 2/3 Intervention Summary Report…Intervention Summary Paragraphs (Cont.). • Details about intervention delivery, such as:

– Start and end dates of the intervention– Total number of instructional weeks of the

intervention plan– Number of sessions per week– Length of each intervention session– Intervention group size

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Writing a Tier 2/3 Intervention Summary Report…Intervention Summary Paragraphs (Cont.). • Details about the student ‘s progress, such as:

– Student baseline at the start of the intervention. TIP: When a student is starting an intervention plan and was previously monitored on an earlier, recent intervention plan, baseline can easily be computed for the new intervention by selecting the median value from the last three progress-monitoring data points collected during the previous intervention.

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– Weekly ‘accelerated’ goal for student improvement. This ‘accelerated’ goal can be calculated by taking a research-based estimate of typical weekly student progress at a grade level and multiplying that typical growth rate by a figure between 1.5 and 2.0 (Shapiro, 2008).

– Cumulative performance goal at the end of the intervention. This end-goal is computed by multiplying the weekly accelerated goal by the number of weeks that the intervention will take place. That product is then added to the student’s baseline performance to compute the cumulative goal.

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– Typical weekly growth rates in the academic skill and grade level in which the student is receiving a supplemental intervention. These ‘typical’ weekly growth rates are usually derived from research norms.

– Comparison of actual student performance to goals and norms. The student’s actual weekly growth rate is compared to both the accelerated weekly goal and the typical peer rate of weekly progress. Additionally, the student’s actual cumulative progress during the intervention is compared to the original cumulative goal to determine if the intervention was successful.

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Writing a Tier 2/3 Intervention Summary Report…Intervention Summary Paragraphs (Cont.). • Information about intervention integrity. The total possible

number of intervention sessions available to the student is computed as the number of sessions per week multiplied by the number of weeks of the intervention. The number of intervention sessions actually attended by the student is also presented. The actual sessions that the student participated in is divided by the total number of possible sessions; this decimal is then multiplied by 100 to yield a percentage of ‘intervention integrity’. ‘Intervention integrity’ figures should exceed 80 percent.

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Writing a Tier 2/3 Intervention Summary Report…Intervention Summary Paragraphs (Cont.). • Number of data points collected to monitor student progress

during the intervention. For Tier 2 interventions, monitoring information should be collected at least every two weeks. Tier 3 interventions should be monitored at least weekly.

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Tier 2/3 Intervention Summary Report: Sample Intervention Series Analysis Section



Writing a Tier 2/3 Intervention Summary Report…Intervention Series Analysis: This concluding section

summarizes the findings of the several intervention trials and reaches a conclusion about whether the student was adequately responsive to general-education Tier 2/3 interventions. The section includes:

• An analysis of whether the student hit the accelerated goal(s) for each of the interventions discussed.

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Writing a Tier 2/3 Intervention Summary Report…Intervention Series Analysis (Cont.):• An analysis of whether, during each intervention, the

student exceeded, met, or fell below the typical peer growth norms at the grade level of the supplemental intervention. This information will be useful in determining whether a student has a significant discrepancy in academic growth compared to typical peer growth norms.

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Writing a Tier 2/3 Intervention Summary Report…Intervention Series Analysis (Cont.):• Summary of the student’s performance at his or her current

grade placement on recent schoolwide academic screenings. Ideally, the student’s screening results are presented with corresponding percentile rankings. Students who continue to perform below the 10th percentile on school screenings at their grade of record despite several intensive RTI interventions demonstrate that the interventions have failed to generalize to significant improvements in classroom academic skills. Students meeting this profile can be considered to have a severe discrepancy in academic skills.

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Writing a Tier 2/3 Intervention Summary Report…Intervention Series Analysis (Cont.):• Conclusion about the student’s ‘response status’. Based

on the student’s response to intervention across the full intervention history, the report reaches a conclusion about whether the student meets criteria as a ‘non-responder’ to intervention.

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Team Activity: How Can You Create Intervention Summary Reports in Your District?

At your table:

• Review the outline, example, and recommendations provided at today’s workshop for writing an Intervention Summary Report.

• Discuss how the school psychologist might support RCSD in developing a format for high-quality Intervention Summary Reports for use by the CSE and others.



Evaluating a Student’s ‘Non-Responder’ Status: An RTI

Checklist pp. 17-22



Evaluating a Student’s ‘Non-Responder’ Status: An RTI Checklist

Interventions: Evidence-Based & Implemented With Integrity• Tier 1: High-Quality Core Instruction• Tier 1: Classroom Intervention• Tier 2 & 3 Interventions: Minimum Number & Length• Tier 2 & 3 Interventions: Essential Elements• Tier 1, 2, & 3 Interventions: Intervention Integrity

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Evaluating a Student’s ‘Non-Responder’ Status: Activity

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At your table: Review these ‘RTI Non-Responder’ elements. • Tier 1: High-Quality Core Instruction• Tier 1: Classroom Intervention• Tier 2 & 3 Interventions: Minimum Number &

Length• Tier 2 & 3 Interventions: Essential Elements• Tier 1, 2, & 3 Interventions: Intervention Integrity

Select the element that you see as your school or district’s greatest challenge. Brainstorm ideas to positively address that challenge.




Academic Screenings: General Outcome Measures and Skill-Based Measures

• Selection of Academic Screening Measures• Local Norms Collected via Gradewide Academic

Screenings at Least 3 Times Per Year

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Dual Discrepancy Cut-Offs: Academic Skill Level and Student Rate of Improvement

• Cut-point Established to Define ‘Severely Discrepant’ Academic Performance

• Cut-Off Criterion Selected to Define Discrepant Slope

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Data Collection• Use of Both ‘Off-Level’ and Enrolled Grade-Level

Benchmarks & Progress-Monitoring Measures to Assess Student Skills and Growth

• Student Baseline Calculated• Student Goal Calculated• Regular Progress-Monitoring Conducted

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Application of RTI Decision Rules to a Particular Student Case • Despite the Tier 2/3 Interventions Attempted, the

Student’s Skills Continue to Fall Below the Boundary of ‘Severely Discrepant’ Academic Performance

• Despite the Tier 2/3 Interventions Attempted, the Student’s Rate of Improvement (Slope) Continues to Be Discrepant

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Special Education Eligibility Team & RTI Information: Recommendations

• Create guidelines for general education to use to determine whether a student is a ‘non-responder’ under RTI. NOTE: Such guidelines are for the sole use of general education and should not be interpreted as RTI ‘special education eligibility criteria’.

• Create a checklist for schools to collect, collate, and ‘package’ RTI information for presentation to the Special Education Eligibility Team.

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Special Education Eligibility Team & RTI Information: Recommendations (Cont.)

• RTI information should be reviewed prior to the initial LD eligibility meeting. If there is questionable information, the Special Education Eligibility Team should contact the school to clarify questions.

• At the actual eligibility meeting, any concerns or questions about the RTI information should be framed in neutral terms and tied to the dual discrepancy RTI LD model. Whenever possible, schools should not feel ‘blamed’ for shortcomings of RTI information and should feel that the identification process is transparent.

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Special Education Eligibility Team & RTI Information: Recommendations (Cont.)

It should be an expectation that at eligibility meetings:• The Special Education Eligibility Team can ask for

clarification of any building RTI information presented• The Team is able to articulate how it interprets information

and why it reaches its decision.

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Evaluating a Student’s ‘Non-Responder’ Status: Activity

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At your table: Discuss the role of the school psychologist in help schools to use the document Evaluating a Student’s ‘Non-Responder’ Status: An RTI Checklist to:

• increase compliance at every link in the ‘RTI chain’• develop specific decision rules for determining

whether a student referred for a possible Learning Disability is a ‘non-responder’ to intervention

Be prepared to share the main points of your discussion with the large group.

response to intervention the role of the school psychologist in supporting rti

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