Developing and Implementing a Tier 1 Reading Program Within an RTI Framework: A University–School Partnership

RTI and Reading

RTI provides a valuable framework for the implementation of reading programs. The foundation of RTI is to provide evidence-based core instruction to all students. Not only does this emphasis facilitate reading development for the majority of students (Vellutino, 2003), it also provides an opportunity to consider what is likely to be effective reading instruction for a given school population. As Fuchs and Fuchs (2017) assert, “All RTI systems should reflect a balance between what is effective and what is doable, and the balancing of the two should occur at the local level” (p. 266).

Universal screening and progress-monitoring data at Tier 1 provide information on the effectiveness of core reading instruction programmatically in addition to supporting early identification of reading difficulties and data-based decisions regarding reading intervention (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2011). Early identification and provision of appropriate support through the advancing tiers in the RTI system is associated with significant improvements in reading achievement (Fletcher & Vaughn, 2009). For students who do not respond to intervention and are identified with an SLD in reading, prior instruction and interventions can guide the development of individualized educational programming (Gartland & Strosnider, 2020).

RTI in Practice

Despite the way RTI is commonly conceptualized and intended to function, recent research and commentary indicate that its effectiveness as an intervention framework and evaluation model for SLD may be falling short in practice (Berkeley et al., 2020; Fuchs & Fuchs, 2017; Gersten et al., 2017). State guidance and school-level implementation practices vary widely, often leading to the use of programs and systems that are not effective or sustainable (Berkeley et al., 2020; Savitz et al., 2018). The inclusion of students who are culturally and linguistically diverse within the RTI framework seems to add another layer of challenge that schools are unprepared to address (Cavendish et al., 2016; Gomez-Najarro, 2023; Orosco & Klingner, 2010; Robinson, 2016). Implications of this problem consistently point to the need to support teachers with the implementation of RTI, including responsiveness to their unique educational contexts (Cartledge et al., 2016; Cavendish et al., 2016; Gersten et al., 2017; Gomez-Najarro, 2023; Orosco & Klingner, 2010; Robinson, 2016).

Purpose of This Article

The purpose of this article is to describe one university–school partnership focused on initiating an RTI reading program at the Tier 1 level. The collaboration addressed some of the common concerns with RTI systems and led to positive effects for the participating school. Our collaborative process may be valuable to other university faculty engaging with school partners and teachers and administrators who are interested in RTI program development but who find themselves without available support.

We will begin by describing the context of the partnership, followed by detailing the components of our collaboration and the outcomes of our work.

Professional Learning Communities

PLCs are groups “in which the teachers in a school and its administrators continuously seek and share learning, and act on their learning. The goal of their actions is to enhance their effectiveness as professionals for the students’ benefit” (Hord, 1997, p. 6). Stoll et al. (2006) highlight three essential aspects of PLCs based on this definition: (a) learning is focused on improving instructional practices, not maintaining the status quo; (b) practices need to be implemented with students; and (c) the primary function of PLCs is to enhance student learning. Although outside experts may be involved in PLCs to build teachers’ capacity for new practices, teachers retain the primary responsibility for establishing the group's goals and determining the utility of new practices for their teaching context (Stoll et al., 2006).

Research documents that PLCs contribute to the successful implementation of new instructional practices such that the implementation is sustainable and results in greater student learning (Andrews & Lewis, 2007; Cordingly et al., 2003; Little, 2002; Louis & Marks, 1998; Owen, 2016). For example, Cordingly and colleagues relate PLCs and student learning by reporting that PLCs increase teacher confidence, strengthen the belief that teachers can impact student learning, generate enthusiasm for collaboration, elicit a commitment to education change, and foster teachers’ willingness to try new practices.

Mundshcenk and Fuchs (2016) suggest that PLCs are well-suited for RTI program development for several reasons. PLCs and RTI are both whole-school activities aimed at improving student learning. Teachers can develop the knowledge and skills necessary for effective RTI implementation such as evidence-based intervention and assessment practices. PLCs afford teachers the opportunity to consider the unique needs of their school and determine which practices and programs are suitable in that context. Teachers are empowered by shared decision-making as they develop their RTI program. This process also serves as a valuable precursor to collaborative data-based decision-making, which is a key component of RTI in many schools.

During our university–school partnership, we engaged with the teachers and principal in a PLC for approximately one hour every other week using video conferencing for the duration of a school year. In our initial PLC meetings, the principal and teachers described existing school practices, student achievement, and other concerns that influenced their decision to pursue an RTI program. PLC meetings also provided a forum to engage the teachers in conversation about an array of evidence-based practices to determine which practices were most likely to be feasible and beneficial in their educational context and how we could support them in learning about and implementing those practices. All of the subsequent components of our RTI development process—instruction planning, pacing guides, fidelity checks, and assessment training—reflect the supports requested by the teachers and were addressed in the PLC.

Instruction Planning

One of the key expectations of the RTI model is the use of evidence-based instruction and interventions (Fletcher & Vaughn, 2009; Sugai & Horner, 2009). Evidence-based practices are those that high-quality research has consistently demonstrated lead to desirable outcomes for students (Cook & Odom, 2013). Although evidence-based practices are not guaranteed to be effective for all students, they are highly likely to be effective for most students. Consequently, the use of evidence-based practices helps to prevent academic challenges and to ensure that academic challenges that do occur are not the result of poor instruction (an important consideration if students are evaluated for a learning disability).

One caveat regarding evidence-based practices is that individual practices might not have an evidence base for all students, particularly students with existing disabilities or those who are culturally or linguistically diverse. This does not necessarily mean that the practice will be ineffective with these students, but it does mean that, particularly at the Tier 1/classroom/primary prevention level, we should carefully consider the evidence base and likelihood of effectiveness of instruction for all students.

When we began working with our partner school, the teachers had previous training in Fundations (Wilson Language Training Corporation, 2014) and had received some, but not all, of the materials associated with that program. They were also receiving training in Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS; Moats & Sedita, 2004) from the state. Teachers expressed concerns during PLC meetings that most of their students’ reading abilities had not improved sufficiently with current instruction.

In consultation with the teachers, we devised three strategies to address these concerns. First, the amount of instructional time for reading was increased from 4 to 6 h per week for all students. Because the school principal was engaged in the PLC, she was able to provide the administrative and logistical support necessary to implement this change. Second, in response to the teachers’ request for additional resources to supplement their existing programs specifically geared toward struggling readers, we guided them to the Florida Center for Reading Research (n.d.) for research-based activities organized by grade level and the component of reading addressed (e.g., phonological awareness, fluency). Finally, given the variety of student needs in each class, we provided professional development and individualized support in differentiating instruction (Levy, 2008).

Pacing Guides

While instruction is intended to be delivered using evidence-based practices, the content of instruction is largely driven by curriculum standards. All states are required to implement rigorous learning standards in core-content areas to ensure that students are college and career-ready when they finish high school (Cramer et al., 2021). Many states have adopted the Common Core State Standards (Porter et al., 2015), while others have opted to develop their own standards (Cramer et al., 2021). Although the goals of setting high expectations for educational attainment, promoting consistency in learning objectives, and pacing across districts and states seem beneficial for most students, Cramer et al. note that standards implementation is difficult and potentially detrimental for diverse learners, including students who are culturally and linguistically diverse and those with disabilities, who have unique educational needs. Not only are these students often not academically prepared for the grade-level standards, the pace that must be kept to address all of the standards conflicts with the learning needs of nontraditional students. Additional challenges with implementing curriculum standards include limited staff training to support understanding and implementation of the standards (Cramer et al., 2021) and weak alignment between standards and textbooks or other curricula (Polikoff, 2015).

Nevertheless, Polikoff (2015) acknowledges that curriculum standards do not all warrant the same level of attention; it is reasonable to prioritize some standards while minimizing others. Similarly, Cramer et al. (2021) emphasize the importance of flexible implementation and pacing of standards in response to student needs. In response to these challenges, Porter et al. (2015) suggest the use of PLCs for teachers to collaborate on understanding and implementing standards. Further, Cramer et al. (2021) suggest that university faculty should partner with schools to help teachers manage the complexity of utilizing curriculum standards while remaining responsive to students’ unique learning needs.

We recognized this support opportunity in our university–school partnership. The teachers noted that they did not know how to prioritize the distinct reading skills addressed in their reading programs and resources, including how much time to allocate for each skill. As a PLC, we approached this task first by considering the elementary Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts, which were adopted by our state. For each grade level, the university partners ensured that the teachers understood the standards and how they aligned with their curricula and resources, as recommended by Porter et al. (2015). We then collaboratively determined which standards address essential skills for reading development and which standards are necessary prerequisites for others. Next, we divided the standards across the four quarters of the school year, ensuring that all essential skills were represented and that prerequisite standards were addressed before, but in close proximity to, their related, subsequent standards. Finally, because standards do not require the same amount of attention (Polikoff, 2015), the university partners recommended time allocations for each standard for each week in the quarter based on our collective professional knowledge and experience.

Fidelity Checks

Selecting sound instructional practices and content foci is not enough to improve student achievement (Cook & Odom, 2013). Practices need to be implemented and content needs to be prioritized with fidelity; that is, they need to be used as intended. Sanetti et al. (2021) describe three dimensions of implementation fidelity: (a) content, the extent to which essential practice or program components are implemented as planned; (b) quantity, which refers to the frequency and duration of implementation; and (c) process or quality, meaning how well a given practice or program is implemented. With regard to the quality dimension, Harn et al. (2013) suggest that it includes not only teacher behaviors but also student factors such as engagement, performance accuracy, and behavior.

Although implementation fidelity is important, classroom realities (e.g., student needs, teacher capacity, time limitations) often impact teachers’ abilities to use practices and programs strictly as prescribed and to sustain implementation over time (Cook & Odom, 2013; Harn et al., 2013). Indeed, some deviation from prescribed implementation is appropriate and even valuable (Harn et al., 2013; Sanetti et al., 2021). These intentional, responsive changes are known as adaptations. As Harn et al. note, “Perhaps paradoxically, one of the best ways to match contextual and intervention characteristics to optimize implementation with fidelity over time may be to adapt the [evidence-based practices] to better match the context” (p. 184).

Practices and programs do not require complete fidelity to be beneficial, but essential components (those upon which effectiveness depends) of any program must be identified, maintained, and documented through the adaptation process (Harn et al., 2013; Sanetti et al., 2021). Other changes may be made to practices or programs unintentionally, resulting in detrimental differences in implementation. This process is known as “drift” and should be avoided (Sanetti et al., 2021).

Fidelity must be assessed when new practices or programs are implemented and continue regularly as they are sustained (Harn et al., 2013). Common assessment techniques include observation, self-report, and permanent product review. Regardless of the technique used, evaluations should consider all three dimensions of fidelity: content, quantity, and process/quality (Sanetti et al., 2021).

One of the key reasons to assess implementation fidelity is related to student achievement. Fidelity has a strong association with student outcomes (Harn et al., 2013) and, consequently, implementation fidelity should be considered when determining students’ responsiveness to intervention (Sanetti et al., 2021). For example, the lack of response may be due to implementation, not practices and programs themselves. Additionally, assessing implementation fidelity can reveal support needed by teachers (Harn et al., 2013; Sanetti et al., 2021), who may benefit from consultation or coaching related to practice or program implementation (Cook & Odom, 2013).

The teachers with whom we collaborated recognized the importance of fidelity as it related to the pacing guides that we developed. They acknowledged challenges with drift, in part because this is a new model for integrating reading programs and prioritizing curriculum standards. Because of the supportive climate of the school and single-class grade levels, teachers had considerable agency over the day-to-day functioning of their classrooms. This occasionally led to impromptu deviations from their lesson plans, more often resulting in decreases in the frequency and duration of reading program implementation than impacting content or process/quality.

In response, we developed an electronic fidelity checklist for teachers to complete weekly. Each week's checklist was prepopulated with the Common Core State Standards planned for that week and timing recommendations from the pacing guide. Teachers provided fidelity information in designated fields, noting the specific reading skill(s) addressed in alignment with the standard (i.e., oral language, background knowledge, literacy knowledge, phonemic awareness, phonics and spelling, sight word recognition, fluency, syntax, vocabulary, comprehension), the amount of time spent addressing the skill(s), and the program or resource used (i.e., Fundations, LETRS, Florida Center for Reading Research). Additionally, teachers documented their goals for mastery, method of assessing student performance, and number of students meeting the goal. Finally, teachers reflected on their implementation of reading instruction that week and considered the next steps.

We attempted to simplify this process as much as possible while still ensuring that useful information was being documented by prepopulating information, providing choices, and keeping checklists in a shared folder so that they did not have to be “submitted.” The fidelity checklists were reviewed periodically during PLC meetings to determine which aspects of instruction and pacing were working well, which needed support, and which had to be adapted.

Assessment Training

An essential component of any RTI program is monitoring student progress (Fletcher & Vaughn, 2009). At Tier 1, progress monitoring is typically conducted three times per year. The first assessment, known as universal screening, takes place early in the school year to identify students who might be at risk of learning challenges and in need of intervention. The second and third assessments, which may be called “benchmark assessments,” determine the progress made by students as a result of Tier 1 instruction and identify students who are not making adequate progress (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2006). If students progress to Tiers 2 or 3, progress monitoring occurs more frequently, usually weekly or biweekly (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2011). Progress-monitoring data will indicate if a student should maintain their current instructional program, change instruction and/or intensity, or return to Tier 1 (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2006). If students are referred for a special education evaluation for SLD, progress-monitoring data become part of their comprehensive evaluation, with multidisciplinary teams considering achievement and rate of improvement (Hunter et al., 2023).

Typically, student progress is monitored through the use of curriculum-based measures (CBMs), which are quick, skill-specific assessments in the areas of reading, writing, and mathematics (Fletcher & Vaughn, 2009). CBMs are valid and reliable, and they are developed with multiple versions of each measure for frequent assessment. Results from individual measures are graphed to track student performance and growth rates compared to a goal line. Progress monitoring has been shown to improve teacher decision-making and increase student achievement (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2011).

Our partner school was conducting benchmark assessments before our collaboration began using the online evaluation system required by their district. As we discussed this system, the teachers noted that their young students, students with disabilities, and English learners struggled to navigate the digital assessment platform, which, in turn, impacted their performance. Additionally, the system only assessed grade-level skills, but many of their students were reading below grade level and, as a result, teachers were not able to monitor the progress students were making from instruction in more foundational skills.

Given the challenges with their existing system, teachers requested recommendations for and training on a supplemental assessment that was more likely to meet the needs of their students and provide useful information to guide instruction. We selected easyCBM from the University of Oregon (Anderson et al., 2014), knowing that it addressed their concerns for benchmark testing and would continue to be useful as they extended their RTI program to Tiers 2 and 3 and SLD evaluation (Lockwood et al., 2022).

The teachers learned to administer each of the reading subtests (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension) and to determine which subtest was appropriate for each of their students. They conducted the easyCBM tests with each student 3 times during the course of the school year. Each PLC meeting after a testing session was allocated for reviewing all of the results and discussing implications as a group. We deliberately considered achievement and rate of improvement data at this stage in preparation for using comparable data in the SLD evaluation process (Hunter et al., 2023).

Resources

A brief description of each of the development and implementation components from our collaborative model is provided in Table 1 for at-a-glance reference. Additionally, we have recommended resources aligned with each of the components for teachers and administrators who may want to undertake a similar process without the support of university partners.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

Components of tier 1 development and intervention.

Components	Practice summary	Resources
Professional learning communities	Biweekly meetings for 1 h, goals established for collaboration	Professional learning communities: A review of the literature (Stoll et al., 2006) Revisiting professional learning communities at work: Proven insights for sustained, substantive school improvement (2nd ed.; DuFour et al., 2021) Professional learning communities: Divergence, depth, and dilemmas (Stoll & Seashore Louis, 2007)
Instruction planning	Instructional time increased from 4 to 6 h, and professional development and individualized support in differentiating instruction	Florida Center for Reading Research for research-based activities organized by grade level Evidence-based practices: Identifying and selecting a practice or program (IRIS Center, 2023) What Works Clearinghouse (Institute of Education Sciences, n.d.) IRIS Center's evidence-based practice summaries (IRIS Center, 2023) Best evidence encyclopedia developed by the center for data-driven reform in education at Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins University, n.d.)
Pacing guides	Divided Common Core State Standards into quarters and provided time allocations for each standard by week based on our collective professional knowledge and experience	The common core state standards and reading: Interpretations and implications for elementary students with learning disabilities (Haager & Vaughn, 2013)
Fidelity checks	Fidelity logs of aligning instructional goals with state standards, student mastery, reflection on next steps, resources to address needs of students and supports for teachers	Implementing a practice or program with fidelity (IRIS Center, 2023) Evaluating learner outcomes and fidelity (IRIS Center, 2023) Fidelity of implementation within a response to intervention (RtI) framework: Tools for schools (Mellard, 2010) Center on Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (American Institute for Research, 2021)
Assessment Training	Instruction for teachers on using easyCBM (Anderson et al., 2014) followed by implementation and analysis	RTI: Assessment (IRIS Center, 2023) Using CBM for progress monitoring in reading (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2011) The ABCs of CBM (Hosp et al., 2016)