Response to Intervention

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Response to intervention (RTI) is a program that identifies children that are struggling as early as possible tries to give them the necessary support they need.  To be honest, there is a cornucopia of literature on it and in many ways it seems as though it can be complex to implement it.  Writing about this and how I would apply it in the classroom was one of the more arduous and time consuming assignments for me.  I did not know where to start or how to attack the assignment, so in the end I probably wrote a lot more than was necessary.  

The school I work at currently might have a response to intervention program,  but if they do, I have seen no evidence.  The middle school is made up of three grades- 7, 8 and 9.  I currently work in 9th grade and I have a very low level class of 9th graders that I think are in need of an intervention.  Many of the students have an undiagnosed learning disability or just an absolute lack of motivation. This absolute lack of motivation is, for me, astounding and I am at a bit of a loss as to what to do.  

When I taught in the 8th grade in 2020, I had the same students, but I could get all of my low level students to complete their work and try in class.  Unfortunately, this effort did not transfer to the summative assessments and they continued to remain mired in a cycle of low test scores and disappointment.  Many of the students that were in 8th grade are in year 9 now.  Maybe it is because they are going to be passed on to high school no matter what, but the lack of motivation seems to have increased.  Of course, English is probably not the only course that the students are doing poorly in.  They probably need an intervention in many of their other subjects as well as being on behavior modification plans.  

My point is that, even though I have only been at the school for four months, I feel at a bit of a loss as how to help them.  At first, I was allowed to move from a public (common) classroom to a special class room that was designed for English (posters on the wall, books, etc.).  Things began to improve, but the school took that classroom away and that, along with the addition of another student, has caused a regression.  

This is why, as of late, I have been thinking about which grade I want to teach going forward in the fall semester.  Is 9th grade too late for an intervention?  Would it not be better if there was an intervention earlier, such as in 7th grade?  I am not sure what the future will have in store for me, but I think that if possible, I might look at teaching 7th grade. If I do end up in 7th grade, I would like to try and start an RTI program.  That being said, reading that last sentence makes me sound arrogant and foolish, but I would like to possibly work with the school psychologist to set something up.  

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