This is my last MTSS Monday post before spring break! In an effort to keep your expectations low when it comes to me posting on a regular basis, I will be taking spring break off ;)
Cheryl of Primary Graffiti decided to jump on my MTSS Monday train! It's nice to see her inspired by another one of my ideas!
Maybe MTSS Monday will become a "thing" and I will be the creator. Kind of like that time Dr. Seuss created the word 'nerd'!
MTSS is basically RTI, if you're familiar with that term, but with a different name. We used to call it RTI but then the 'man' changed the name (probably just to confuse me) so now it's MTSS or Multi-Tiered Systems of Support....fancy.
MTSS happens everyday from 9:15-9:45 in our school. EVERY student works on individualized activities. (Don't stop reading here...it's possible and can even become easy if you can find a way that works for you!) Some grade levels exchange students across the whole grade level...it's a circus. I can't deal.
My first grade team and I decided we wanted to do MTSS in our own rooms. With our own students. This opens up our collaboration time to share resources....see last weeks post....as opposed to catch up on our own students progress in another teachers MTSS group.
Tier 1 instruction is the general education program. This means that ALL students are receiving core instruction with flexible grouping and differentiation. Screening and progress monitoring are utilized to determine instructional needs and measure student progress.
For students who are not making adequate progress, teachers combine their core instruction with additional interventions depending on the needs of the individual students. This additional support is considered Tier 2. In this tier you will see targeted, supplemental interventions aligned with the core curriculum. Tier 2 supports can be provided by the teacher or school support faculty (a reading or math coach) 3 times a week for 30 minutes. These interventions should be delivered through a small group format. Progress monitoring data is used to adjust instruction and intervention.
There will be a small percentage of students who still may show learning difficulties with Tier 2 intervention. These students will need more intensive interventions. Tier 3 interventions are designed for students who do not respond to Tier 1 or 2 interventions. This is the highest level of support and is much more individualized. Students will meet one-on-one or in very small groups (2-3 people) 4-5 times a week for 30 minutes.
At our school they almost always need 6-8 weeks of intervention data to move from Tier 2 to Tier 3 and beyond that to testing. Tier 2 documentation should show assessment results bi-weekly. Tier 3 assessments should happen weekly.
In a couple of my previous posts I shared with you how I structure and organize MTSS in my classroom so I won't do that again here. I know this is starting to get a little long. I will share with you how I'm monitoring my students progress and keeping track of the extra practice and enrichment activities I provide my Tier 1 students.
I posted an early version of these in my first MTSS Monday post. Since then I've fine-tuned each tier and added some very basic graphs that could be used to graph either Tier 2 or Tier 3 progress. I print the Tier 3 progress monitoring page and graphing page back to back. You will need a Tier 3 page for each Tier 3 student but you will be able to use it for the whole course of your intervention. You can download these Progress Monitoring sheets for FREE from my TpT Store!
