The following was brought on by 2 separate roll-outs of RTI solutions by software companies in anticipation of PA establishing statewide RTI guidelines.

If you need a comprehensive description of RTI in PA then www.pattan.net is a good reference site. It breaks the system down into manageable pieces and also has the 42 page “brief” of RTI implementation guides for PA.

If you are a little ADHD like me then here’s the short version:

The discrepancy model has become a “wait to fail” model and has not proven effective at closing the achievement gap. Too many kids are being thrown into special ed classes due to reading or other scholastic issues. We need to fix this by identifying struggling students early (universal screening) and improve their achievement by using lessons matched to their instructional needs (flexible grouping and differentiated instruction).

RTI is usually administered in a 3 tiered model. Tier one is in the general education classroom, 80-85% of students fall under this category. Tier two is made up of students with marked difficulties who have not responded to tier 1. These students require an additional 30 minutes per day of small group instruction and more frequent progress monitoring. About 15-20% of students fall under this category. The final tier consists of intensive interventions provided in addition to core instruction with the goal of increasing an individual student’s rate of progress. This is the last step before special ed is prescribed.

Each tier holds fewer students and increases progressively in intensity. The team approach is crucial to the success of the program. Administrators need to be actively involved and monitor their educators to retain the fidelity of the program. This team also decides if a student is responding to the intervention and if they should be moved between tiers.

The bottom line: RTI is a fancy name for a common sense approach to education. Evaluate students to see where they are struggling in order to give them ability aligned lessons and prevent them from just being thrown into special ed.

This whole concept makes perfect sense in the education software industry. The foundation is already laid. Software makes it possible to quickly and accurately screen all students. Many programs can then prescribe the appropriate lessons or intervention needed. This addresses the most critical and problematic issue with RTI: That it be implemented by highly-trained professionals.

An electronic solution standardizes the process and frees educators to educate. It is still imperative that they monitor progress and contribute to the reporting, but the process becomes much less subjective. In addition software makes graphical reporting a quick and easy process to share with administrators or parents.

We have begun to work with two RTI software solutions. One through the American Education Corporation (amered.com) and the other through AutoSkill (autoskill.com). These two solutions share a degree of similarity but apply their solutions quite differently.

A+nywhere Learning System has introduced a system called Learning Link. It is an easy to use universal screener. It is administered via the web and for a small per student fee allows all students in a school or district to be benchmark tested. The test itself is short, 30-35 questions, however each question tests on a range of knowledge to determine not only comprehension but also some of the higher level thinking skills. The questions use flash animation and some require the student to manipulate the graphics to achieve the desired outcome. All results are quickly provided to the administrators. Math is Quantiled and reading results are Lexiled.

Learning Link is designed to compete with the Pierson, NWBA, MAP and Scantron type tests but takes it one step further: It prescribes the necessary lessons to fill in the knowledge gaps and bring the student back to skill level. This creates a “no brainer” situation for schools already using the A+ Learning System. Teachers apply the test and import the results to A+ to automatically create a detailed, individualized lesson plan for each student. Even if a school is not using A+, the simplicity of the testing process and cost make it an extremely strong contender as a universal screener.

AutoSkill has already earned the reputation as the leading remedial software provider on the market. Their Academy of Math and Academy of Reading programs have won numerous awards. Because of their foundation in these areas AutoSkill have added their own RTI solution. Unlike A+, AutoSkill focuses primarily on tiers 2 and 3 where they can apply their expertise in remediation.

The AutoSkill RTI module tests students reading fluency with 3 reading passages, and their comprehension with a cloze test. These oral fluency benchmark tests (ORF’s) have become the default method for many districts to determine the percentage of students are likely to meet, or not meet, established standards on state and/or local standardized achievement tests.

In the past however, the tests required the teacher to grade them on the spot. AutoSkill’s RTI module records the student so that they can be re-played as many times as necessary and so that they can be graded at the leisure of the teacher. These recordings are also powerful proof of a student’s gains after intervention.

AutoSkill has retained the expertise of Dr. James McCook, a respected RTI author and consultant for school systems across the nation. Because of this, the depth of their tracking, reporting and progress monitoring is extremely detailed. The module is a start to finish turn key solution for districts with high numbers of at risk students. Because of this, the RTI Package for the Academy of READING was Honored as 2009 Best in Tech by “Scholastic Administr@tor” and the 2009 SIIA CODiE Award for “Best k-12 Instructional Solution.”

It should be noted though that The Academy of READING is prerequisite for customers implementing the Response to Intervention and/or Oral Reading Fluency modules.

Like I said, there are some glaring differences between these two solutions. What you and your district consider RTI to be will be the differentiating factor. Many schools will be satisfied to choose a universal screening test and allow educators to build curriculum around the prescriptions. Other districts will find that they need to implement a full blown RTI solution because of the severity of their achievement gaps or reading deficiencies. Both companies offer solutions that will complement your RTI implementation when PA rolls it out to the rest of the state.

A quick history:  in 1971 PA set up 29 Intermediary Units (IU’s) to help educate the educators and integrate technology in the classroom.   Each IU has it’s own directors and paid staff to oversee it’s “territory.”  The main contacts between the schools and the IU’s are  tech savvy teachers, tech and IT directors called CFF Coaches (Classroom For the  Future).  It is a great concept and an asset to the schools.  The organizations also do training, act as a liason between the School Districts and the  PA Dept. of  Education.  There’s more at the main site if you’re interested, PAIU.

With that  back  story out  of  the way…

Last week Point Click Learn was invited to present the eInstruction products to IU #5 at their office in Edinboro.  There were about 20 CFF coaches there and it provided a great opportunity to build a rounded presentation of the package.

We had pre-assigned names to the CPS clickers and distributed them at the beginning of the presentation for a review of their “homework.”  We then transitioned into Examview and aligning lessons to state standards.  The last portion of the presentation was using Workspace and  showcasing the versatility of sandbox mode.  The difficulty in Workspace is to narrow down it’s huge potential to the features that  would be most often applied in the  classroom.

Although the eInstruction products are not as well know as some of the larger brands (yet), several of the  coaches were already familiar with them.  One of them pulled out this months Tech Learning and showed us this article, which we hadn’t seen yet.  And then, as we were presenting, a technology director from Warren gave us an impromptu reference.

Apparently, she purchased a mobi for one of her math teachers while  someone else was using her Airliner.  When they tried to return the Airliner she wouldn’t trade back.   There was more to the story but that’s the short version.

That’s a phenominal reference.  Although we believe that eInstruction has the best product line in the education market,  it’s always great to hear feedback from the educators in the field who are using it.  Any other pleased educators? Let us know.  And….if you’re in PA and would like a quick demo we’re happy to do that as well.