Here is what I thought the "tiered system" of "Response to  
Intervention" entailed:

1.  The classroom teacher notices the student is struggling in the  
classroom.
2.  More specialized classroom help is provided as the first  
intervention.
3. If the student continues to struggle in spite of the classroom  
intervention, he/she is referred to more intense, small group  
instruction.
4.  If the student still fails to "respond to the intervention", they   
are referred to one-on-one, very specialized, intense, instruction.

My question:  Is this "fourth tier" struggling student not feeling  
like he/she is failing???!!   It seems to me that they now have to  
"fail" three times to get the right help!

For heaven's sake..... why not give every child the direct explicit  
instruction in the structure of the language..... starting with the  
alphabetic principle, moving to syllables, words, phrases, sentences,  
paragraphs, and discourse.... that is needed to successfully read and  
comprehend text in the first place!


Maureen Carro, MS, ET
Academic Learning Solutions
Alamo, CA
mcarro at lmi.net



On Nov 3, 2009, at 2:17 AM, HKerr at aol.com wrote:


> The RTI initiative was originally, I believe, aimed precisely at  

> adopting a different approach than the deficit one. The idea was  

> originally, according to articles by people like Jack Fletcher,  

> specifically to enable the whole environment to be considered and  

> for us to move away from the assumption that 'failure' must mean  

> deficit; that we must always seek to find a fault in the student,  

> even his neurology. Recent literature seems to show that RTI has  

> been subverted and is now being deployed as a measure which is used  

> to 'identify, a 'deficit' in exactly the way the discredited  

> discrepancy criterion was in the bad old days. For discrepancy read  

> RTI, in other words, which had not been the point originally, as I  

> understood it.

>

> Hugo

>

> at: http://www.hugokerr.info

>

> "We're here to help each other get through this thing - whatever it  

> might be." (Kurt Vonnegut)

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