In Part 1 we went over general RTI info and procedures. In Part 2 we took an in-depth look at the materials you need for each stage of the math RTI process. Now, in Part 3, we’re going to discuss the all important data tracking.

“I became a teacher because I love meetings with parents and administrators.”

So said no teacher, ever.

I don’t know about you, but I became a teacher to interact with my students. But don’t forget that outside of the little world of your classroom are parents and administrators who rightfully want updates on your students’ progress.

Parents’ Perspective on RTI Data Tracking

It’s especially important to understand the parents’ perspective when you have students doing RTI. A parent may be unsettled to learn that their child needs intervention. Some schools require a written intervention plan. Even if your school doesn’t require it, every teacher should make it a standard part of the process. RTI (or anything else) will be far more successful when the parents are fully on board.

Parents also want to know whether the interventions are working. Fortunately, RTI is, at its core, a data driven process. This is especially true in math, where it’s easy to isolate specific skills. You can show proof of your students’ progress or lack of progress. When you come to RTI meetings be prepared with samples and lots of data. Remember that your recommendations and reports will mean nothing if you can’t back it up!

There are two ways to prepare for an RTI meeting. Option 1 is to panic the day before. Then spend hours going through weeks of assessments and practice pages. Finally, try to pull together relevant, organized, meaningful data.

Option 2 is to consistently and carefully record your children’s data before and after each intervention. The night before the RTI meeting, calmly pull the student’s file and look over the data. Then go out to dinner with your spouse.

Does Option 2 seem to good too be true? Not at all. Let’s talk about types of documentation to have in your math RTI students’ files at all times.

Math RTI Data Tracking

Here are 4 types of math RTI data tracking:

1.) Graphs showing a student’s progress –

We’re math teachers so we know all about graphs! Make it a bar graph, a line graph or a scatter plot. It doesn’t matter as long as your students’ data gets recorded for every assessment, quick check, pre-test, and post-test. You’ll want a different graph for each skill that you work on with your student.

2.) Graphs comparing the student with the class –

This is important information for you, parents and administration. When you administer class-wide assessments, chart your RTI student on a bar graph compared to the class average. As the year progresses, this will clearly indicate if your student is keeping up or falling farther behind.

For both types of graphs, do yourself a favor and record the data in real time after each assessment. You’ll save yourself hours later. When I couldn’t find ready-made templates to document my students’ progress, I created them myself. You can check out my data tracking templates in the FREE SAMPLER of my math intervention packs.

3.) Work samples –

Save your student’s independent work. Make a copy of a practice page or worksheet and file it away. Keep an anonymous copy of another student’s work to have as a “control.”

4.) Test scores –

When you start a file for an RTI student, look at last year’s records. You can pull and copy test scores, including standardized testing. The more data you can provide, the better!

As hard as it may seem to keep up with all the data tracking, it will be much harder to start from scratch before a meeting!

Best Practices, Materials, and Data Tracking – Pulling it All Together for Math RTI

Why do we do RTI? We do it because it works. But it only works if we do it right:

1. Use the three tier RTI structure to ensure that each student gets the level of intervention he needs.
2. Administer pre and post-year assessments to your entire class.
3. The right materials are crucial! Choose practice pages that focus on a single skill.
4. Research proves that CBM is most effective for progress monitoring. Use frequent mini-assessments and quick checks for each skill.
5. Track data as you go to create a robust file for each math RTI student.

Lots of research has been done on RTI. Originally, most of it focused on reading interventions. Over time there’s been more research on math RTI, too, giving us proven methods and tested interventions. With the right materials and procedures, you’ll find that math was made for RTI.

Check out our math intervention resources in our TpT store so you can get started with intervention in your classroom!

The post The Importance of Data Tracking During The RTI Process – Part 3 appeared first on Tanya Yero Teaching.

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.