RTI and Phonics Instruction: Best Practices for In-class Interventions

Abstract

According to the International Reading Association (2010), now called the International Literacy Association, Response to Intervention (RTI) was developed upon the idea of prevention instead of failure. It is an inclusive, systematic, and multi-tiered approach in identifying students with language and literacy needs and supporting these students with differentiated assessment and instruction. Because RTI is a comprehensive, systematic approach, teachers and staff providing interventions require professional development and training. This capstone explores the RTI framework, its place in literacy instruction, and the two approaches to RTI assessments: the standard treatment protocol approach and the problem-solving approach. RTI begins with assessments to identify students who are at-rish for reading delays, as well as integrates it throughout the process in using assessment data to drive instructional decisions. This capstone also explores and current best practices teachers can implement in the classroom for RTI Tier 2 interventions, specifically in phonics. Phonics instruction has been the subject of much contention over the years, with differing views on how and when to teach it. Researchers debated over how explicit or implicit phonics instruction should be, or how much emphasis should be given to phonics versus meaning making. This capstone examines the discourse surrounding phonics instruction and provides instructional strategies in the context of small group, RTI instruction using a systematic, explicit approach.