To listen to Mary Howard's podcast "Principles for Success with RTI" click here.
This book is desperately needed in districts and state departments everywhere. It is loaded with interventions that are right for kids and right for the educators who serve them. It profiles RTI as a framework for increasing intentional instruction…keeping the emphasis on knowledgeable educators rather than “programs.” If this book could become a prerequisite to implementation, I fully believe that the goals of RTI may well be realized.
Linda Hoyt
Author of Revisit, Reflect, Retell, Updated Edition
Response to Intervention (RTI) is here, but what do teachers need to know about it? As Mary Howard investigated that question, she was surprised: the more she knew about it, the more this “teacher’s teacher” was excited by it. That’s because RTI promises to use the great teaching you know to catch readers before they falter. With RTI from All Sides, she shows how to make RTI live up to its promise.
In RTI from All Sides, Howard points the way toward thoughtful and effective RTI—and away from potentially dangerous, rigid implementations. She offers suggestions for instructional design, collaboration, and troubleshooting—even for avoiding mediocre RTI products. Most important, she demonstrates how to apply the principles you trust to RTI:
- teaching reading and writing in authentic ways to help students choose just-right books that set them up to read in and out of school
- using simple, ongoing assessments to know when to intensify instruction inside and outside the regular classroom
- differentiating reading instruction to maintain the flow between whole-class, small-group, and one-on-one instruction while meeting specific students’ needs
- designing interventions to amplify instruction instead of sidelining students to skill-and-drill that takes them further from engaged, proficient reading
- coordinating efforts within and between instructional supports to emphasize acceleration through the targeted instruction students need to succeed.
In addition, Howard includes helpful questions that lead book study groups to a better understanding of RTI, its structure, its implementation, and its daily application.
RTI has the potential to return instructional decision-making to teachers and to galvanize schools to design effective practices for helping all readers achieve—especially those who struggle. Read RTI from All Sides and get the information you need to create a safety net that can save struggling readers before the learning gap widens forever.
