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Don’t leave home without your category! Screeners

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Once you’ve learned all about the RTI pyramid (which is already being phased out in favor of a new circular model) now you just have to figure out where all the students fit in that pyramid.

RTI is data driven. Scared? Don’t be – you get to choose what data you use (or rather the powers that be get to choose, so get out your persuasion skills).

First you need some sort of screener. Unless you are teaching is a rural necessary school, there are just too many students to constantly be evaluating.  Our school used MAP testing as a screener. At one time we did do oral reading fluency tests on ALL freshmen and sophomores. It was a major undertaking and required A LOT of staff members to get it done. I don’t recommend it for that reason and the fact that it mis-identifies students at the high school level.

The screener should be given three time a year. The first one, early in the school year, is the baseline for that student, that year. The screener given in the winter should show whether a student is progressing through out the school year. Really, it should not be used to evaluate how the teacher is teaching, but it probably will. I will say that we do not see significant improvement in students in the winter. Another school further along in RTI implementation said that their data usually showed a dip in winter. The spring screener is the one that should show the improvement if things are humming along.

Once the screener is in place, you can start the categorization process.

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