Upside-Down Response to Intervention: A Quasi-Experimental Study

This quasi–experimental study explored a response–to–intervention (RTI) design in which Tiers 2 and 3 were inverted for the most at–risk first grade students in reading intervention in seven classrooms (n = 24) across two culturally diverse schools. These students were matched using propensity scores and compared to a second group of first grade at–risk students for reading difficulties who received a traditional RTI intervention program (n = 24) from 12 classrooms across nine culturally diverse schools in the same southeastern city. Interventions were identical with the exception of the RTI tier inversion. The intervention largely emphasized word–level reading skills, with focus on letter–sound correspondence, sight–word recognition, and decoding, and also included spelling and fluency. Statistically significant effects were found for the intervention on word reading measures; however, differences for decoding measures were not found to be statistically significant. Given that the decoding assessments had effect sizes of. 025 (small) and. 037 (medium), a larger sample may demonstrate a significant positive impact of udRTI on these measures as well. Implications for continued study with the udRTI model are discussed.

© 2018 Division for Learning Disabilities of the Council for Exceptional Children.

The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, US Department of Education, Grant R324G060036, Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, NICHD Grant P30 HD15052, and Department of Special Education, Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the above supporters.