RTI Lesson Planning & Instructional Decision-Making

In RTI Lesson Planning & Instructional Decision Making, author Mary Little offers elementary school teachers a treasure trove of valuable information, insight, and strategies to help them better plan and implement evidence-based interventions to help struggling learners.

This detailed guidebook is appropriate both for teachers who are experienced with the day-to-day application of Response To Intervention (RTI), as well as those who are unaccustomed to using the RTI framework in the classroom. Because RTI involves a team approach and requires a supportive schoolwide culture, all school staff and stakeholders will benefit from this practical, accessible, and comprehensive resource.

Dr. Little draws upon her vast experience as a classroom teacher and principal, as well as the knowledge and expertise she has cultivated as an academic and noted expert in the field, to provide an easy-to-follow set of guidelines for effective lesson planning.

Using the acronym OPTIONS, the author identifies critical lesson components to be considered during lesson planning:

• Outcomes; objectives
• Prior knowledge, prerequisite skills, pre-test skills
• Teaching within tiers; techniques; technology
• Intensify instruction/intervention
• Ongoing progress monitoring (including formative assessment)
• Needs of individuals and group
• Summarize, share, strategize (using data to make decisions and evaluate progress)

The acronym PAIR is used to define the process of team-based problem solving and instructional design:

1. Problem identification: Determine the problem/concern that needs to be addressed
2. Analysis: Analyze the problem using multiple sources of student data
3. Intervention: Agree upon a defined, achievable goal and develop a plan for reaching that goal that involves specific interventions that can be implemented with a high degree of fidelity
4. Response to the intervention: Use student data to evaluate the student’s response to the intervention(s), make adjustments as needed

RTI Lesson Planning & Instructional Decision Making goes in-depth to explore how teachers can best reach and teach all students within a framework of Response To Intervention and using the philosophies and tenets of Differentiated Instruction (DI) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Sample ready-to-use instructional interventions are provided, as is a listing of dozens of additional topic-specific online, print and video resources. The convenient spiral binding makes it easy to photocopy the many planning, decision-making and data collection forms, reflection prompts, and instructive flow charts and graphics included in the book.