Last week, I attended a briefing sponsored by the What Works Clearinghouse on response to intervention and how it can be used for students struggling with math. (My article is not yet online; I will update this blog post with the link when it is available.) Here’s the article.
In my article, I made in clear that the WWC—a project of the Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the Education Department—doesn’t make recommendations for specific products. Instead, it developed eight recommendations that educators can use as a framework for developing their own RTI programs in math.
But other government-funded entities, like the National Center on Response to Intervention, are developing recommendations of specific products. The federally-funded center has evaluated both screening and progress monitoring tools. Not only that, but if you click on the name of a particular tool, you can learn the cost of each rated product, how much training the tool requires before use, what the tool is supposed to measure, and how it is used.
That’s just scratching the surface of what is available on this website. There’ll be a summer series on curriculum-based management, which is one way of monitoring student progress. There are archived webinars on other topics. There’s a calendar of events showing RTI events sponsored by major organizations like the Council for Exceptional Children and the National Association of Elementary School Principals.
And yet, the website’s discussion forums show just 12 lonely comments. Maybe it just hasn’t taken off yet, but the National Center for Response to Intervention, just like the RTI Action Network sponsored by several education organizations, is a resource that shouldn’t be overlooked.