Responsiveness to Instruction (RTI) is an initiative that seeks to ensure that all children have access to high quality instruction and that struggling learners - including those with learning disabilities - are identified, supported and served early and effectively. Through a multi-tiered approach RTI closely monitors student progress at each stage of intervention to determine the need for further research-based instruction and/or intervention in general education, in special education or both. RTI aims to:
- focus on instruction/intervention rather than on what is wrong with the student
- focus on the solution rather than the problem
- focus on addressing the needs of all students, not just those with labels
- focus on all educators being responsible for all children
RTI refers to a process that monitors how well students respond to changes in instruction. This process is a way of providing assistance to students before they fail. The goal is to quickly identify those in need of help, provide strategies and/or interventions that have shown to be effective with other students, then monitor their progress to determine the efficacy of the strategy and/or intervention. If an intervention is not working, then the intensity, frequency and/or duration of the intervention needs to change or a different intervention needs to be used and monitored for effectiveness.
RTI Resources: