RTI

Today I attended the RTI meetings for first and second grade teams. Although I only have a few RTI groups at these levels (I support primarily 4th to 6th grades), I look forward to witnessing this amazing process. Each grade level meeting includes our Instructional Support Teacher, who facilitates the meeting, our school counselor, our district school psychologist who has synthesized all the data, our reading specialists, grade level teachers, and usually the principal and/or vice-principal. The purpose of todays meeting was to review all the data gathered from mid-year DRA's and Dibels testing. We look closely at individual students who are in Title 1, Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 (Reading Recovery in grade 1). Everyone has a chance to comment and we use our collective expertise to move students into the appropriate supports. I teach in a school with close to 1200 students. It is gratifying to see so many professionals working together to make sure no child slips through the cracks. It is also amazing to see the progress that children make when there are appropriate supports in place. I always leave these meetings motivated to do my best. The dedication and professionalism of the people with whom I work is inspirational.