Recognition &amp; Response: Developing and Evaluating a Model of RTI for Pre-K
Author: Buysse, Virginia
Date: 2012-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Intervention,Formative Evaluation,Young Children,Expressive Language,Literacy,Preschool Education,Early Childhood Education,Response to Intervention,Models,Mathematics Instruction,Educational Practices,At Risk Students,Preschool Teachers,Scores,Comparative Analysis

The Recognition &amp; Response (R&amp;R) model was developed and is being validated by a research team at the FPG Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. R&amp;R has generated widespread attention in the early childhood field as a promising RTI model for pre-k (see entire issue of NHSA Dialog, Volume 12[3], 2009) and as one of the few to include a focus on improving children's academic learning (Greenwood et al., 2011). The R&amp;R system is a framework for linking formative assessment to tiered instruction, designed for use with children who have a wide array of learning characteristics across a number of content areas. R&amp;R has a dual focus on improving the quality of instructional practices for all children as well as providing additional supports for some children to ensure that every child succeeds in school. The Development and Innovation (IES Goal 2) study reported in this paper builds on an existing line of research that is focused on further development and evaluation of the R&amp;R model, including adaptations for mathematics instruction, the integration of learning and behavioral interventions/supports, and instructional practices to support dual language learners, in addition to the current emphasis on language and literacy instruction. The current study replicates an earlier small-scale quasi-experimental study that used a different sample of children and programs. The poster focuses on the recently completed Development and Innovation study, but presents findings from both studies. The purpose of the Development and Innovation study was to design and evaluate the R&amp;R model for use by pre-k teachers to address children's language/literacy skills. The study evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, implementation fidelity, and potential for improved classroom and child outcomes of this approach. A total of 26 pre-kindergarten classrooms were included in the main study (Study 2). Results suggest that the R&amp;R system offers evidence of promise for improving language and literacy outcomes for young children. Positive effects were found in the growth rates for target children compared to their peers on formative assessment and standardized measures. Although target children had substantially lower scores initially as well as following the intervention, their rates of growth were greater than or the same as comparison children. These results indicate that through the assessment and intervention components, teachers who used the R&amp;R model were able to successfully determine target children for the interventions (i.e., those with significantly lower skill levels than their peers), and potentially to alter their developmental trajectory so that they began catching up to their peers in some areas and maintained pace in others. Moreover, positive effects were found across different populations of children; although Study 2 included a relatively more disadvantaged population, as evidenced by their background characteristics and fall scores, the model had positive effects for target children in both studies. Not surprisingly, stronger effects were found in critical areas of receptive and expressive language skills when R&amp;R was implemented under the more ideal conditions present in Study 2 (i.e., a full year rather than one semester, more highly educated teachers). Although these studies did not provide the opportunity for a true control group (given the requirements for Goal 2 Development and Innovation studies), the results clearly provide empirical evidence of the promise of R&amp;R as an educational intervention for pre-k, and suggest that further research of the efficacy of this model is warranted. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)