Eight-week tier movement cycles with fast-tracking and exit rules aligned to report card periods

Design · All designs
Evidence · 2 claims (2 for) · 1 study (1 causal), q3 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 2 claims rest on one study

Description

The study's RTI protocols allowed movement across tiers every 8 weeks in tandem with report card periods. Students who remained below the 40th percentile on three out of four measures and showed growth slopes below the sample mean moved to a more intensive tier; students successful for two consecutive 8-week periods were exited to a less intensive tier. The design was "unique relative to prior RTI investigations in allowing movement across tiers every 8 weeks ... and in allowing fast tracking to Tier 3 for the most needy students."

Design Implications

Context

Requirements

• Screening and progress-monitoring assessments administered at each 8-week session
• Local-norm 40th-percentile cut points and sample-mean growth slopes as movement criteria

Constraints

• Movement criteria were developed and evaluated in a first-year RTI implementation in one district

Target Learners

• First-grade students in Tier 1, Tier 2, or Tier 3 reading intervention

Learning Goals

• Timely intensification of support for non-responders and de-escalation for responders

Claims

• Tier3 Immediate Higher Brief Reading [+M]
• Students initially eligible for Tier 2 in Dynamic RTI had significantly higher reading outcomes than Tier 2-eligible students in Typical RTI who had to wait [+W]

Related Designs

• Dynamic RTI versus Typical RTI: two models for timing assignment to multi-tier reading intervention

Examples

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Key Sources

• Al Otaiba, S., Connor, C. M., Folsom, J. S., Wanzek, J., Greulich, L., Schatschneider, C., & Wagner, R. K. (2015). To Wait in Tier 1 or Intervene Immediately: A Randomized Experiment Examining First Grade Response to Intervention (RTI) in Reading. SREE Spring 2015 Conference. https://www.sree.org

Page metadata

Field	Value
type	design
id	eight-week-tier-movement-fast-tracking
title	Eight-week tier movement cycles with fast-tracking and exit rules aligned to report card periods
description	The study's RTI protocols allowed movement across tiers every 8 weeks in tandem with report card periods.
status	review
generated	by process:settle-candidates on 2026-11-01
trust	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources	1 — al-otaiba-2015

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