RTI Strategies for Secondary Teachers

While planning lessons, many teachers wonder, “If I try this, will it work?” “Will I lose ground in teaching the concept?” “Will it help my students make the grade, pass the state tests, or get into college?”

Teachers want solutions, not theory. This book offers a bank of proven RTI strategies for Grades 6–12 that will elevate test scores and improve student achievement for all students, not just struggling learners. The author explains how RTI fits into secondary education and applies it to math, reading comprehension, writing, as well as more general areas such as with students who suffer from anxiety or don’t test well. For every strategy in the book, the author presents how it would be implemented through differentiation at Tier 1 and then offers ideas for implementation at Tiers 2 and 3.

She summarises Tiers One, Two, and Three in teacher-friendly language and includes:

• Easy-to-implement and practical interventions
• Sample lesson plans and visual models
• Examples of how to address budgeting, staffing, performance, and student culture constraints

The grouping strategies included in each lesson plan improve students’ social skills and, in concert with other circumstances, can reduce referrals to special education. RTI Strategies for Secondary Teachers will help teachers take their instruction up a notch in every classroom and reduce stress in the process.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

About the Author

1. Introduction: Why This Book This Way?
2. A Snapshot of the Response to Intervention Process
• The Three Tiers (Sometimes Four)
• Tier One
• Tier Two
• Tier Three
• How does RTI fit into a secondary education model?
• General Education Versus Special Education and Responsible Inclusion
• Assessment? Well, I Quiz Every Friday. . .
• Research-Based Strategies Incorporated in This Book
• All right! If I have to do this, what do I really have to do? And how?
• Lesson Plan Application to Response to Intervention Tiers
• Options for Determining Which Students Should Be in Which Groups
3. Vocabulary Intervention Strategies
• Use Vocabulary Mapping to Acquire New Vocabulary
• Signing as an Intervention Strategy
• Additional Vocabulary Interventions
• Additional Nonlinguistic Interventions
• Combining Verbal Linguistic and Nonlinguistic Strategies: Practice Strategies for Tiers One, Two, and Three:
4. Reading Comprehension Intervention Strategies
• Somebody-Wanted-But-So Summary Strategy
• Reading Comprehension Intervention: Reciprocal Teaching
• Picture Books: A Secondary Reading Intervention
• Figurative Language
• Higher-Order Comprehension
• Additional Interventions for Reading Comprehension
5. Writing Intervention Strategies
• Writing Paragraphs: Grouping and Organizing Information
• Use Clustering to Organize Writing
6. Math Intervention Strategies
• Model and Solve Equations Using Manipulatives
• Multiplication of Fractions Using Manipulatives
• Graphing Lesson Plan
• Math Vocabulary
• Declutter the Math
7. Cross-Curricular Interventions for Higher-Order Thinking and Recall
• Mind Mapping, Graphic Roadmaps, and Visual Organizers
• Strategy to Remember Sequences
• Additional Nonlinguistic Interventions: Graphic Notes
• Group and Classify Information to Enhance Long-Term Memory
• Analogies
• Additional Interventions for Increasing Recall and Recognition
• Identify Similarities and Differences
• Teaching Summarizing Skills: Delete-Substitute-Keep
8. Fitzell Acceleration Centers as an RTI Strategy
• Acceleration Centers: A Better Alternative
• Addressing the Challenges of Implementing Fitzell Acceleration Centers
• Acceleration Center Flowchart
• Acceleration Center Instructions
• Acceleration Center Components
• Keep Inventory
• Tips for Successful Acceleration Centers
9. Concluding Thoughts

Bibliography

Index