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Explore by Role: SPED

• Should students receiving special education services also be placed in Tier 2 or 3 RTI groups?

  Students who are eligible for services from a special education teacher are receiving instructional support under an Individualized Education Plan (IEP). While it may be challenging to schedule it, the ideal approach is that students will receive intervention in a Tier 2 or 3 group in addition to their IEP minutes. Instruction that is effective for Tier 2 and 3 small groups should be explicit, systematic, sequential, and involve the use of multisensory techniques.  
  
  To read an example of students who gained 2 years growth in 1 year, download this case study about a school in Iowa.
  
  

• Which types of assessments are best suited for identifying skill deficits for placement into groups for instruction?

  An effective approach is to employ a medical model to identify student deficits and place students in groups according to missing skills.  The medical model can be used when there are two phases of assessment; the first step is to assess with a curriculum-based assessment such as DIBELS or AIMSWeb to identify the area of need  followed by a phonological awareness or phonics diagnostic assessment to pinpoint the specific missing skills.
  
  Download this document to see an example of the specificity of a phonics diagnostic assessment.
  
  

• What are the characteristics of effective intervention instruction in literacy?

  Small-group intervention instruction is different from whole class instruction.  Download this document to see a list of the 6 most important characteristics of intervention instruction that is effective.