RTI Case Study

Based on the information provided, begin the process of drafting a 250-500 word summary of Laney’s current educational performance that could later be incorporated into a Present Level of Academic Achievement and Functional Performance (PLAAFP) section of an IEP.
Your draft should include:
Student strengths;
Evaluations;
Performance in classes;
Influences of 
language, culture, and family background;
Strengths, preferences, and interests in
nonacademic areas; and
Any other relevant issues.
Also indicate in your draft summary any additional information that should be collected.

RTI Case Study: Laney
Laney is a student at Rosa Parks Elementary.
Every day, Laney receives 45 minutes of intensive, individualized instruction in Tier 2 in addition to 90 minutes of instruction in Tier 1. When Laney first begins Tier 2 intervention, Ms. Jacobs administers a brief reading assessment and determines that Laney has difficulty with decoding. Using this information, Ms. Jacobs begins working with Laney on letter-sound correspondence and sight words. After three weeks of collecting progress monitoring data (six data points — two probes per week for three weeks) from Laney, Ms. Jacobs evaluates these data using a method known as the four-point rule. She examines the relationship between the four most recent data points on Laney’s graph and goal line. She uses these data to determine whether Laney is not making adequate progress.

This graph shows Laney’s data point graph and goal line graph. The x-axis is labeled “1 through 6” in one-point intervals. The y-axis is labeled “15 through 40” in five-point intervals. Laney’s data points are in red and are as follows for weeks 1 through 6: 20, 22, 23, 23, 21, and 23. Laney’s goal line stretches from 20 at week 1 to 28 at week 6. Laney’s first three data points are around the goal line, but her last three data points fall below the goal line.
When Laney doesn’t respond adequately to Tier 2 intervention, her teacher refers her for a special education evaluation.
Laney’s parents indicate that there are no hearing and vision impairments to her continuing struggles with reading. Laney is well-liked by her peers and her teachers are not aware of any environmental or cultural disadvantage, motivation, and situational trauma as potential factors.
Based on the information provided, begin the process of drafting a 250-500 word summary of Laney’s current educational performance that could later be incorporated into the Present Level of Academic Achievement and Functional Performance (PLAAFP) section of an IEP.
Adapted from: The IRIS Center for Training Enhancements. (2008). RTI (part 5): A closer look at tier 3. Retrieved from
http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/rti05-tier3/#content

SAMPLE SOLUTION

While Laney demonstrated challenges in reading assignments, testing and assessment proved that the foundation of the difficulty involved decoding, that is, interpreting symbols arrangement patterns that form a syllable or word and translating printed symbols into comprehensible speech. Following this determination, Tier 2 learning intervention with learning goals was developed for her and progress was assessed over a period of 21 days that incorporated 6 data collection centers. The student’s performance matched learning aims in the first 2 assessments, but dropped marginally below the learning objective during the third measurement. Her performance dropped substantially below…