Successful Approaches to RTI: Collaborative Practices for Improving K-12 Literacy

Successful Approaches to RTI: Collaborative Practices for Improving K-12 Literacy edited by Marjorie Y. Lipson and Karen K. Wixson, International Reading Association, 2010, 296 pp., ISBN 978-0- 87207-834-5

Lipson and Wixson co-chaired IRA's Commission in RTI, and their edited volume includes nine chapters that detail exemplary approaches to this initiative. Their first chapter, "Making the Most of RTI," was coauthored by Wixson, Lipson, and Peter Johnston, who was a member of the IRA's commission and chaired IRA/NCTE's Joint Task Force on Assessment Standards (2006). This chapter is a must-read. The authors provide background information on RTI, explain what it looks like, review the existing research, and conclude with IRA's Guiding Principles for RTI. Among their many key points, they describe RTI as a "comprehensive, systematic approach to teaching and learning designed to address language and literacy problems for all students through increasingly differentiated and intensified language and literacy assessment and instruction" (p. 2). They stress that "qualified personnel with appropriate expertise should provide that instruction" (p. 2).

This...