Maybe you’re one of those uber lucky teachers who works in a school that gives you a full suite of practice materials and assessments for every skill level. If you exist, enjoy your good fortune and know that we’re all insanely jealous of you.

For the rest of us, we often have to come up with math RTI materials on our own. You can read all about my journey to create the materials I needed for my students.

Based on solid research and what I’ve learned the hard way, here are the three main types of materials that you need for math RTI.

Beginning of the Year and End of the Year RTI Math Assessments

This is where it all begins. The starting point of any RTI is an initial screening. This screening gives you a benchmark of the students’ skills as a class. It uncovers students with weak points and gaps in their knowledge. Every child should receive this test. You’d be surprised how even the strongest student may have a gap somewhere that could haunt him later in his math career. Once you have that data, you can begin appropriate interventions.

The partner of the initial screening is the end of year screening. Again, every student should take this assessment. You’ll have a clear picture of your students’ progress over the past year. The information you glean will help your students’  teachers the following year. It will also help you discover the strong and weak points of your own interventions.

How do you choose your pre/post year assessments? You need a test that:

• Is on grade level

• Aligns with state standards

• Clearly defines the skill that each question targets

Without those qualities, the test results are meaningless.

Our Math Screeners

Our Math benchmark screeners include everything you need to benchmark testing throughout the year. CLICK HERE to grab your screeners, available for grades K-8.

With this resource you get the following benchmark assessments:

1. Beginning of the year screener: At the start of the year the biggest question on every teacher’s mind is “what curriculum did my new students retain from last year?” Our beginning of the screener is unique because it assesses the key math skills from the previous year (it’s a prerequisite test!). No more giving your students a screener at the start of the year full of new curriculum you haven’t covered (because chances are nearly everyone will fail!), this screener shows student mastery of the previous year’s content!

2. Middle of the year screener: This screener covers the numbers and operations in base ten standards and some algebraic thinking standards for the grade level purchased. This will show you exactly what your students have retained from the current year’s instruction.

3. End of year screener: This screener covers all of the curriculum for the grade level purchased. This will provide you with data on student performance for the entire year.

4. Test breakdown sheet: for outlining each question and the standard that it reviews. This sheet also outlines if the question is procedural or conceptual based. (provided for each screener)

5. Item analysis sheet: for you to record how each student performed on the test. Use this for finding trends in your data. (provided for each screener)

6. Answer keys (provided for each screener)

We have screeners for Common Core, TEKS, and BEST! They are available for grades K-8.

Math RTI Practice Pages

You completed your beginning of the year assessment and identified which children need help. You know which skills they lack. Now what? Now come the interventions, of course. You’ll be giving individual students or small groups extra instruction and practice.

For the intervention to work, the practice needs to be:

• Laser focused on a specific skill

• Repeated and reinforced many times

• Possible for the student to complete independently.

This means that for every student and for every skill, a teacher needs multiple practice pages and worksheets.

Once again, to have what I needed for my students I had to create it myself. You can check out a FREE SAMPLER of my math intervention packs in my TpT store

Math RTI Mini-Assessments and Quick Checks

This is the third and most crucial category of RTI materials.

Throughout the year, you need monitor your students’ progress and the efficacy of your interventions. The gold standard in progress monitoring is CBM or curriculum-based measurement. This means monitoring and directly assessing specific academic skills and tracking that progress.

How do you do that? You need mini pre and post-intervention assessments that isolate and highlight specific skills. These quick checks take little time, do them a few times a week.

It’s the only way to know that your interventions are working. Additionally, with continuous progress monitoring, the data will show you when its time to move on to the next step or modify instruction. It’s the only way to gather the data you need to communicate with parents and administration. (More on that in Part 3!)

Guess what? To find appropriate checks for my students I had to make them myself. They are all included in my comprehensive Math Intervention Packs.

Our assessments do more than highlight specific skills; they also indicate whether you are testing procedural understanding or conceptual understanding. Click here to learn more. Knowing the difference is crucial to providing the targeted assistance your students need.

We’ve taken an in-depth look at RTI materials, but there’s still one piece missing from the picture: detailed data tracking. Stay tuned for Part 3 of this series. We’ll cover the hows and whys of data tracking by learning proven tips and best practices. You’ll see how to use your data to get top results for your students and collaborate with your administration and parents.

You’ll be prepared for whatever the school year brings.

The post The Materials You Need For the RTI Process – Part 2 appeared first on Tanya Yero Teaching.

If only it had turned around and seen the open door on the other side of the room.

As teachers, we’re all that poor fly sometimes. We have the best intentions to help our students succeed. When a method isn’t working, we’ll try harder, putting in more time and resources to solve the problem. Sometimes, though, we need to try smarter instead of trying harder.

That, in a nutshell, is what RTI is all about. For years teachers saw students struggling, but didn’t have an effective system for evaluating and assisting those students.

RTI is that elusive system. It’s a roadmap for assessing students’ skills and then using the data to choose the proper interventions.

What is RTI?

RTI stands for Response to Intervention. Throughout the process, the students are evaluated based on how they respond to the teacher’s interventions. The term became widespread starting in 2004 when IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Act) was reauthorized. The goal was two-fold:

• Make sure that students weren’t diagnosed with learning disabilities before having a fair chance with appropriate teaching best practices.
• Identify and address weak students before they fell so far behind that they needed special ed services.

Is RTI effective? According to famous researcher John Hattie, the answer is a resounding yes! Hattie’s research concluded that when teachers implement RTI properly students can advance by 2 to 3 grade levels in just one year!

Three RTI Tiered System

The RTI Model has three tiers of instruction:
1. Tier 1 is the strong, core teaching that every student should receive. In this tier, students are assessed two or three times a year to find weaknesses. Within this tier, a teacher will provide differentiated instruction to groups of students with particular gaps. If that strategy doesn’t work within 8 weeks or so, Tier 2 is introduced.

2. Tier 2 is specialized instruction that students receive in small groups a few times a week. Extra help is provided during enrichment activities or electives. That way, they don’t miss out on core instruction. We assess students in Tier 2 approximately every other week to track their progress. By the end of a grading period, a student should either be ready to go back to Tier 1 or moved into Tier 3.

3. Tier 3 is the highest level of intervention. Students receive data based individualized instruction targeted to their weaknesses. These children may be assessed weekly or even daily to make sure that they’re meeting their goals. If a student doesn’t show improvement the next step is an educational evaluation to facilitate movement into the special education framework.

These tiers should be fluid. Sometimes process needs to give way to common sense or parent/teacher intuition. A parent or teacher can ask for a special ed eval for a student at any time.

The Benefits of RTI

Why have educators jumped on the RTI bandwagon? Because it works!

Teachers who use RTI see multiple benefits:

• Early intervention means that fewer students enter the special education system. This saves the precious special education resources for the kids who truly need them.

• Students who need help can still receive their core instruction in the general education classroom.

• A child can get help before they fall so far behind that they need to attend summer school or repeat a grade.

• If a child is referred for special education services, there’s already lots of documentation about the child’s needs.

Pages and pages of research are available on all aspects of RTI. (If you like data, statistics and meta-analyses, check out rtinetwork.org.) Teachers can use RTI to improve outcomes in reading, math, behavior and more.

How to Implement RTI for Math Instruction

So far, we’ve been talking about RTI theory and concepts.

Now it’s time to get down in the trenches. In Parts 2 and 3 of this series, we’ll be looking at hands-on, practical tips for math-focused RTI.

The success of RTI is directly tied to the quality of the screenings and assessments you use. That’s why Part 2 will be packed with practical information on the materials you need for the RTI process. Look out for tips on how to find the best teacher-tested assessments to monitor and track your students.

Part 3 will focus on another crucial part of RTI: data tracking. We’ll cover the hows and whys. You’ll learn proven tips and best practices. You’ll see how to use your data to get top results for your students and collaborate with your administration and parents.

Stay tuned for more. Sign up for my newsletter or follow me on Pinterest to make sure you don’t miss out on the rest of this series.

The post What Every Teacher Needs to Know About RTI in the Math Classroom – Part 1 appeared first on Tanya Yero Teaching.

It is important to get a copy of the protocol for intervention on your campus. It varies from district to district; school to school. Know what to expect as you proceed thru the steps. Intervention is hard enough without major surprises. Ask how long each stage of intervention lasts. Intervention is meant to be short term. It doesn’t last for the whole year. Get specifics as to how to transition a child from tier to tier.

Save samples of all resources you used for each student’s intervention. Keep a record for yourself and turn in paperwork to guidance counselors and/or administration. Don’t turn in anything without first making a copy for yourself. Important paperwork sometimes goes missing and it’s important to have documentation for future meetings.

3.) Use some sort of assessment tool – Intervention is the process of closely monitoring the learning rate and level of understanding of individual students. Administer a weekly assessment to collect performance data. You’ll be asked to provide graphs and charts illustrating how the child performed during the intervention process. Keep the assessments short (5 or less questions) and aligned to specific standards.

Intervention is a vital part of student development. Use these tips to help you navigate thru the intervention process more effectively.

WANT A FREE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR BENCHMARK MATH TEST?
COLLECT DATA ON YOUR STUDENTS THE FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL!

The post The Building Blocks to Student Success: 3 Tips for the Intervention Process appeared first on Tanya Yero Teaching.