IMPLICATION OF THE ALIGNMENT OF GRADE LEVEL STANDARDS TO INTERVENTION: FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE INTERVENTIONIST

Abstract

Qualifying a student for a learning disability can be difficult to know if they truly are learning disabled or is something else going on. Due to the IQ discrepancy model, to qualify a student with a learning disability, you must have an average IQ, but you are performing below grade level in achievement (Willis, 2019). However, there could be a number of reasons a student’s IQ is average, but their achievement is low. They could lack proper instruction in the general education classroom or proper intervention. Response to Intervention (RTI) was introduced in in the 1960s in an effort to move away from student unnecessarily qualifying for a learning disability (Preston et al., 2016). Unfortunately, there are several intervention programs that are not run effectively which leads to students still getting unnecessarily referred to special education. To make students’ time in intervention more effective, the author of this study decided to try a method of aligning grade level standards to intervention instruction. This qualitative study is about the perceptions interventionists have about aligning grade level standards to intervention. The study found that aligning grade level standards to intervention impacted how RTI was ran, the work of the interventionists, and impacted students in various ways.