RTI Misconception: Tier 1 Instruction Won't Close Big Gaps from Previous Years

In the RTI model, there's this idea that tier one instruction should be able to meet the needs of 80 to 85% of students, but that's not always true.

And let's think about why that might be.

your instruction that you deliver at your grade level for your standards tier one yes should be able to meet the needs of 80 to 85 percent of your students but if your students have gaps that's not going to be the case because your tier one instruction is not going to address those gaps if you are teaching seventh grade math and you have students who have big gaps in their earlier math learning then that tier one instruction is not going to cover the content of those gaps.

And what we have to understand about the distribution of students is that it's not even, right?

Like you don't randomly have the average number of students who need tier two or tier three instruction in your class, right?

Those students are not evenly distributed.

That's just the nature of school enrollment.

So in some classes, you are going to have a majority of students who need tier two or tier three instruction.

And I don't know exactly how we got here, but a lot of teachers are apparently being told if you would just do a better job of tier one, then your students would have their needs met by that tier one.

And the fact that you have more than 15 or 20% of your students whose needs are not being met by tier one, it means there's something wrong with your tier one.

People say that, but I don't think that's true.

I think that is the result of kids coming in with gaps in content that you don't teach at all in your grade level.

And here's what we have to understand about any kind of support that the grade level teacher can provide.

You are probably not going to have time in the day to go back as a seventh grade teacher and teach first grade content or second grade content.

But if that's where your kids gaps are, they need intervention.

So I think when we talk about response to intervention in a way that never mentions the interventionist, it's just like, as a teacher, you got to figure that out.

You got to fix your tier one instruction.

Your tier one instruction can be perfect.

And as long as your kids have gaps in earlier content, that tier one instruction can never meet their needs because they need that tier two or tier three intervention.

And that is going to be in earlier content.

It's like asking the roofer, hey, while you're up there, can you fix the foundation of my house?

Your roofer is going to look at you like, I do like the shingles and the nails and the tar paper you're talking about different materials a different skill set and a different point in time so like I'm sorry no I can't fix your foundation it's different than asking someone hey while you're painting the second story of my house can you touch up a few spots on the first story of course that's a much easier ask but we have to not confuse them right it is completely reasonable to say hey, your tier one instruction should be able to meet the needs of 80% of your students when it comes to the content that you are teaching.

It is not reasonable to say, hey, can you go back and teach the last seven years of content in addition to what you're currently teaching?

My take is that has to be a separate job.

So I think at the secondary level, intervention has to be a dedicated class period.

It can't be something that you just kind of like sprinkle in like a roofer trying to fix a foundation.

Like that just does not work.

Let me know what you think.