K-12 Educators: Why is "RTI" called "RTI"?

[FlightlessDuck]

From what I understand, RTI is a process/framework where teachers provide instruction and assessment to address the needs of students at risk of failing in school, right?

So.... Student A has some risk factor.

Teachers/administration come up with a way to intervene on behalf of Student A by providing specific support for that student, right? That's the intervention.

So, what does the "Response" in RTI mean? Is it Student A's response to the intervention that was implemented due to the student's risk factors?

Otherwise, the buzz-acronym "Response to Intervention" doesn't make any sense to me.

 

[Mickey'snewestfan]

RTI's comes out of thinkin about how to reduce the number of kids who end up in the special ed referral process. While we know that some kids benefit from and need the protections and specialization of the special ed process, but we also know from looking at the numbers, that there are other kids who end up referred to special ed when the problem isn't really a disability, it's crappy instruction, or disrupted education, or environmental factors. When these kids end up in the special ed system it benefits no one. It doesn't benefit the kids, because they rarely catch up or leave the system, and it's a cumbersome, expensive process.

So, the theory is, that before you refer a child for special ed, you provide them with intensive intervention that research based and has been shown to be effective at accelerating the progress of kids without disabilities, and then you measure the "response" to that intervention, that is, you measure kid's progress using specific progress monitoring tools, related to your hypothesis.

For example, if you have a child who is struggling with reading, and looking at the child's performance you hypothesize that fluency is what's holding them back. So you implement an intervention that targets fluency, and then you measure their fluency weekly or biweekly using running records. At the end of six weeks, you should have evidence that they "responded" or not, based on whether their reading rate increased.