Tamara Fisher is the K–12 Gifted Education Specialist for the Polson School District in Polson, Mont., on the Flathead Indian Reservation. She is a teacher and coordinator of the gifted and talented (GT) program for the district's four schools—K–1, 2–4, 5–8, and 9–12. Fisher, who has been in her position for 14 years, also serves as the president of Montana AGATE, the state's gifted education advocacy organization. She blogs about gifted education for Teacher Magazine at http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/unwrapping_the_gifted ,and she is an author. In this Q & A interview, Fisher discusses how educators can use Response to Intervention (RTI) to meet the learning needs of gifted students.
Q: Do you feel like there has been a recent shift away from making gifted education a priority? If so, why?
I think the answer to this question is more complex than "yes" or "no." In some ways, the answer is both "yes" and "no." Gifted education's current priority status ranges dramatically from state to state, district to district, school to school, and classroom to classroom, as it has for many decades.
I also see a huge philosophical range across our country when it comes to gifted students and gifted education. Some people see and understand that gifted children, just like all children, should be learning in school—and that to allow them to learn, we need to make accommodations to reach them where they are as learners.
Their learning needs are often not met by typical curricula because they have already mastered all or most of it before it's even taught. Some educators actually do see each of these kids as "one less kid to worry about" (academically speaking). In practice, that way of thinking means advanced and gifted students receive less teaching effort and therefore are denied opportunities to stretch their learning potential.
Recent studies, such as the Thomas B. Fordham Institute report High-Achieving Students in the Era of NCLB, have shown that it is our advanced-ability students whose academic growth is stagnating. I, of course, don't deny the importance of the significant teaching effort that goes into our struggling learners. We should continue to put everything we can into them so they can be everything they possibly can be. What I don't get is why other children, our gifted and advanced learners, are allowed to sit in classrooms with very little effort put into their learning progress.
Q: Can you set the scene for what you think RTI is currently being used for (struggling students) and why this leaves out the students you teach?
Response to Intervention (RTI) is a great model and fulfills an important purpose. It aims to assist teachers and specialists in better identifying and reaching students who struggle with any learning task, whose learning needs aren't initially met by just the core curriculum. It is described as a tiered integration of assessments and interventions, together with progress monitoring, and its strengths result from an individualized focus that narrows in on specific learning goals for which a student needs additional assistance (together with how to provide that assistance).
RTI grew out of concerns in the special education world that some students were being over-identified for special education or as having learning disabilities, while other students who still needed some form or level of academic assistance didn't qualify for the programming that could give them that help. Because RTI has its genesis in special education, a lot of people see it as "a special education thing," despite multiple messages that it is a model for whole-school improvement.
Those of us in the gifted education field look at the RTI model and intuitively see how gifted students can and do fit into it. How does it apply? Well, just as some students area little bit behind in any given area or subject and will need some extra assistance, about the same number of students are a little bit ahead and will need some extra challenge or acceleration. Just as a few students are significantly behind in any given area or subject and will need some intensive assistance, about the same number of students are significantly ahead and will need extra challenges or acceleration.
The concern of many of us in gifted education is that very little of the information about RTI offers any details or materials on how schools can actually [use] the model to reach and meet the needs of their advanced learners.
Q: How can teachers use RTI to reach or stretch the students who already have a handle on the skill or concept?
RTI uses regular progress monitoring to assess what students have learned and what they need more practice or help on. Frequent assessment is important for all students because it helps us to know who has learned what we've taught and who isn't quite there yet. It can also help us know who already knows what will be taught before it's even taught (in the case of using pre-assessment).
If we can utilize assessments that give us a more accurate picture of where our advanced learners are, then we will be better able to know what to provide next for them. Unfortunately, real progress monitoring is not typically applied to our advanced learners because (1) we're more worried about getting everyone to the grade-level standard rather than stretching every child forward from where they are, and (2) adequate assessments for this use with advanced learners are hard to come by.
If our goal is a grade-level standard and a gifted child in that grade has already met or surpassed that standard, it's easy to accept the child as a "mission accomplished" and ignore what that child actually needs next as a learner. But if our goal is to monitor every child's progress and thereby pay attention to providing what each of them needs next, then even our advanced learners will be afforded opportunities to be stretched academically. After all, they come to school to learn, not to make us look good by providing the same excellent test score in April that they could've just as easily achieved in October.
Q: What are some special measures formulating around using RTI in your school, district, or state?
Some states, including Montana, are working on developing ways to implement RTI "in both directions." Colorado, Ohio, and Utah are heading this direction, too. In Montana we have a draft document that, when finalized, will help districts learning how to implement the RTI process [with] our gifted learners, too.
Our school district began using [a multitiered] process in reading instruction a couple decades ago, so it isn't technically an outgrowth of RTI, but it demonstrates how RTI or an RTI-type process can be applied across our spectrum of students in order to better reach all of our learners.
We are Title I schools here and have trained all of our Title I aides to be reading specialists. Together with our regular classroom teachers, we then have enough staff to accommodate many smaller groups for reading instruction. In the 2nd grade, for example, we have 6 homeroom classes that together are divided into about 10 different levels of reading groups. All 2nd graders are assessed and sorted into these fluid groupings. Through the use of running records, every student's reading progress is assessed and monitored frequently (on average about every three weeks) and students are flexibly grouped and re-grouped according to what they are ready for as readers. Children move up or sometimes down a level in order to better place them into a reading group that will be reaching, teaching, and stretching them from where they are.
The beauty of this process is that our students who are really struggling with reading get significant extra assistance on their journey to becoming readers, and our students who are advanced readers (some who even come into kindergarten already reading) are able to move on in their development as readers.
Noneducators might think this sounds too much like the "bluebirds and buzzards" groupings of previous decades. "Aren't the kids in the 'lower' groups going to feel badly about themselves because they're in a 'lower' group?" In its practice here, they actually feel better about themselves because they get to learn what they're ready to learn as readers and they can see themselves making progress, rather than being constantly outpaced. Plus, the groupings are multileveled and fluid enough that such clear distinctions aren't all that apparent.
Besides, as Stephanie Tolan says, "You don't have the moral right to hold one child back to make another child feel better." It is never okay to deny any child their rightful opportunity to learn. RTI has the potential to help us make sure every child gets to grow academically as much as they are able.
