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MTSS: Multi-tiered Systems of Support
Recent data indicate that students, especially those with disabilities, are struggling to demonstrate the kinds of growth educators would hope to see. In fact, for students with disabilities, 67% of fourth graders and 63% of eighth graders lack basic reading skills (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2015). Such data are troubling, given that students' reading achievement at a young age is highly predictive of future academic success (e.g., Cooper, Moore, Powers, Cleveland, & Greenberg, 2014; La Paro & Pianta, 2000; Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997). Schools are being pushed, often with limited resources, to impact reading outcomes for students with disabilities, including students with dyslexia. One approach used by educators to positively impact student-level reading outcomes is through the use of Multitiered Systems of Support (MTSS). MTSS offers a framework to help schools prioritize instructional resources and time so that, ideally, all students would access instruction and demonstrate improved outcomes. Implementing the process of MTSS requires educators to make many decisions. And while each decision is important, perhaps none is more critical than those that involve data collection, data interpretation, and using data to inform instructional adaptation over time.
As schools have implemented tiered systems of support over the last two decades or so, one thing has become clear: Implementing MTSS within the infrastructure of authentic school systems is very challenging (Arden, Gandhi, Zumeta Edmonds, & Danielson, 2017). This could be due to a lack of guidance from policy makers around how to successfully implement MTSS (Balu et al., 2015; VanDerHeyden et al., 2016; Hauerwas, Brown, & Scott, 2013), or because many educators have not received in-depth training or practice opportunities to hone the nuanced data-based decision-making skills required (Cook & Odom, 2013): delivering instruction, monitoring progress, collecting and analyzing data, and adapting and intensifying intervention. In addition, MTSS requires schools to use fluid iterative processes of analyzing assessment data to adapt instruction in new ways (NCII, 2013). Asking teachers to demonstrate high levels of proficiency using data to drive instructional decisions is something both special and general education teachers have reported as very challenging (Fuchs & Vaughn, 2012; Young & Kim, 2010).
The health of any multi-tiered system of support relies heavily on the skill of the...