RTI MODEL INTERVENTION

RTI Model Intervention

RTI Model Intervention

Reading disability or developmental dyslexia refers to unexplained poor performance in reading. When the concept of reading disabilities was formalized in the 1960's, the common assumption made when children were unable to learn to read was that they were impaired intellectually. Later, it was recognized that an inability to learn to read could exist despite the absence of general intellectual impairment (Kirk, 1962). As a result, the traditional operational definition of reading disability in the United States was rooted in a comparison of performance in reading and performance on a measure of cognitive ability. In addition to requiring that the observed poor performance in reading could not be explained as a result of a general intellectual impairment, other potential explanations that needed to be ruled out included lack of an opportunity to learn and impaired sensory capacities in areas required for reading, especially vision (Lyon, Shaywitz, & Shaywitz, 2003).

The need to distinguish among low-achievers in reading is rooted in the acknowledgement that there are multiple causes of poor reading skills, including low general cognitive ability, minimal opportunities to learn how to read at home (or perhaps also at school), sensory impairments, or possibly the existence of some specific neurological impairment. Presumably the identification of specific causes would then lead to specific treatments for poor reading. The traditional approach in looking for children with specific neurological impairments in reading has been to use adequate overall intellectual function as a proxy to rule out these other causes of low reading achievement.

However, the traditional approach to identification has been challenged over the years on a number of grounds. The most recent challenge has come from proponents of an approach to identification of individuals with reading disability on the basis of their failure to respond to provision of effective instruction and intervention. In the present article, we (a) review concerns that have been raised about the traditional approach to identification, (b) review approaches to identification based on response to instruction and intervention, (c) present results from a large-scale, longitudinal study comparing the predictive validity of measures of achievement status, growth in achievement, and their combination for predicting future reading achievement, and (d) consider implications of the results for evaluating the potential of response to intervention models for addressing limitations associated with traditional models.

The most common approach for determining whether a child is eligible for special education services in the United States due to the presence of a specific learning disability in reading has required evidence of a discrepancy between IQ and reading performance. This IQ-achievement discrepancy approach has come under attack for three major reasons (Wagner, in press). These include viewing the approach as a “wait to fail” model, having concerns about the reliability of IQ-achievement discrepancy scores, and questioning the validity and educational relevance of the distinction between poor readers who are IQ-discrepant and poor readers who are not ([Fletcher et al., 2007], [Fletcher et al., 1992], [Fletcher et al., 2003], [Francis et ...