Psychology in the Schools, Vol.

47(5), 2010
Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com)


C 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

DOI: 10.1002/pits.20480

EVIDENCE-BASED EARLY READING PRACTICES WITHIN A RESPONSE

TO INTERVENTION SYSTEM
BILL BURSUCK AND BROOKE BLANKS

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Many students who experience reading failure are inappropriately placed in special education. A
promising response to reducing reading failure and the overidentication of students for special
education is Response to Intervention (RTI), a comprehensive early detection and prevention
system that allows teachers to identify and support struggling readers early, before they fail. A key
component of RTI is the implementation of evidence-based reading practices within a multitiered
framework. School psychologists are increasingly being asked to lead or be members of RTI
building teams. As such, they can play an important role in assuring that evidence-based practices
in reading are implemented with integrity. The purpose of this article is to provide a framework
for judging the extent to which early reading instruction within a multitier RTI system is evidence
based. Key evidence-based practices related to the content, design, and delivery of early reading
C 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
instruction are described. 

Many students, including students with disabilities and students who are at risk, continue to
experience reading failure (Lee, Grigg, & Donahue, 2007) despite political support for providing
evidence-based reading instruction to all children. Indeed, students who are most at risk for academic
failure are the least likely to receive effective reading instruction (Stichter, Stormont, & Lewis, 2009).
One common result of the achievement gap is the phenomenon of false positives, or identifying
students for special education when they are not in fact disabled (Bradley, Danielson, & Hallahan,
2002). Indeed, educators tend to locate the problem within students, families, and communities, often
failing to examine the link between school practices and student outcomes as well as the root causes
of failure (Garcia & Guerra, 2004). Although some reading problems can certainly be attributed to
learning disabilities, disabilities at best account for 26% of the cases of reading failure (Chard et al.,
2008). Others can result from general deciencies in the teachinglearning environment, including
the failure to provide evidence-based instruction for students with identied needs and learning gaps
(Torgesen, 2000).
A promising approach to reducing reading failure and overidentication of students for special
education is Response to Intervention or RTI, a comprehensive early detection and prevention
strategy designed to identify and provide support for struggling readers at the rst sign of difculty
(Gersten et al., 2009). RTI is best understood as a multitiered systemic approach to support children
who are at risk for reading problems due to factors such as disabilities, socioeconomic disadvantage,
or limited English prociency before they fall behind (Coyne & Harn, 2006). RTI was originally
intended as an alternative assessment model for identifying learning disabilities (Coyne & Harn,
2006). RTI has evolved, however, into a general education practice (Kavale & Spalding, 2008).
Although the number of tiers in RTI models varies, many include three to four increasingly intensive
instructional tiers into which children are placed, often using a team-based, problem-solving
process. The problem-solving process is guided by student performance on regularly scheduled,
research-validated measures. Students are referred to special education only after sufcient time has
passed in high-quality, evidence-based instruction and after data have been collected to indicate that
students are not learning to read despite this instruction.
RTI has the potential to narrow the achievement gap and reduce the number of referrals to special
education by catching children before they fail, thus allowing special educators to focus attention
Correspondence to: Bill Bursuck, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Specialized Education Services,
PO Box 26170, Greensboro, NC 27402. E-mail: wbursuck@uncg.edu

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and resources on children whose needs are beyond what can be reasonably addressed within general
education. This goal can be accomplished only if the reading instruction implemented is evidencebased, and bringing that about can be challenging (Bursuck, Damer, & Smallwood, 2008; Bursuck &
Smallwood, 2009). Indeed, the successful implementation of RTI requires extensive knowledge and
skill on the part of classroom teachers (National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities, 2005).
Unfortunately, teachers are often unaware of what is effective reading instruction (Graney, 2008)
and may engage in practices that may have no basis in research (Moats, 2007).
T HE ROLE

OF THE

S CHOOL P SYCHOLOGIST

WITHIN

RTI M ODELS

Traditionally, the role of school psychologists has been that of gatekeeper for special education,
focusing primarily on the use of norm-referenced tests to establish eligibility for special education
services (National Association of School Psychologists, 2006). Given the increased prevalence
of RTI, many are now recommending a different role that promotes academic wellness among all
students by helping design, implement, and evaluate RTI programs in their schools (Brown-Chidsey,
2005; p. 7). School psychologists often assume a leadership role on school-based decision-making
teams (Burns, Wiley, & Viglietta, 2008) and can play a key role in making informed decisions
about childrens access to evidence-based reading instruction in RTI. The purpose of this article is
to provide a framework for judging the extent to which early reading instruction within a multitier
RTI system is evidence based. First, the prevalence of early reading problems is discussed. Second,
the characteristics of evidence-based early reading practices are described. Finally, ways to intensify
reading instruction within a multitiered model are discussed.
P REVALENCE

OF

R EADING P ROBLEMS

Children enter kindergarten and rst grade with wide variation in their prior knowledge, language ability, and ways of responding to instruction (Chard et al., 2008; Wanzek & Vaughn, 2008).
Estimates based on data from the mental health eld indicate that a well-implemented, evidencebased core curriculum in reading in Tier 1 would ideally meet the needs of approximately 80%
of the students in a given school (National Association of School Psychologists, 2009). An additional 15% of students may meet benchmark expectations in reading when extra interventions are
provided within well implemented Tier 2 and/or Tier 3 instruction (National Association of School
Psychologists, 2009). Approximately 5% of students make little progress even in the presence of
otherwise effective instruction (Lyon, 1999; Torgesen, 2000). Students in this 5% have serious,
pervasive reading disabilities and are served in special education (Vellutino et al., 1996). The failure to provide evidence-based instruction in reading can have serious consequences. The National
Reading Panel (NRP; 2000) suggests that, with the absence of evidence-based instruction, 3060%
of students may fall behind in reading (Lyon, 1998), and, once behind, are unlikely to ever catch
up (Juel, 1988). The percentage of reading problems may be even greater in high-poverty schools
lacking quality teaching in reading (Stichter, Stormont, & Lewis, 2009).
C ONTENT

OF

S CIENTIFICALLY BASED R EADING P ROGRAMS

The NRP (2000) and The National Early Literacy Panel (NELP; 2008) evaluated thousands of
early reading studies to determine what skills or skill areas teachers should target for instruction. In
both panel syntheses, ve key skill areas were identied as essential for effective reading instruction
(NELP, 2008; NRP, 2000). These areas are: phonemic awareness, phonics, uency, vocabulary, and
reading comprehension.
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Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the smallest units of sound in spoken
language (Ball & Blachman, 1991). In both the NRP (2000) and the NELP (2008) ndings, phonemic
awareness was the most highly predictive indicator of later student decoding ability. Many children
need systematic, explicit instruction in two phonemic awareness skills in particular: segmenting,
which involves the breaking up of words into their individual sounds, and blending, putting individual
sounds together to form words (Ball & Blachman,1991). Phonemic awareness instruction in general
education reading programs is often incidental rather than systematic and explicit. Programs so
construed may offer too little systematic, explicit instruction in blending and segmenting to meet
the needs of at risk children (Moats, 2007).
Phonics and the Alphabetic Principle
To become procient readers, children must attain the alphabetic principle, which is the understanding that there are systematic and predictable relationships between written letters and spoken
sounds (Bursuck & Damer, 2007). Phonics helps children attain the alphabetic principle by teaching
soundsymbol relationships in a sequence that facilitates accurate, automatic word decoding. Phonics instruction in general education may present problems for students who are at risk. For example,
it may not be explicit enough, encourage students to guess at words, provide little systematic presentation of soundsymbol relationships, and/or may not include decodable reading materials that allow
students to apply the soundsymbol relationships practiced during phonics lessons (Moats, 2007).
Reading Fluency
Reading uency is the ability to read connected text accurately, quickly, and with expression
(Therrien, Gormley, & Kubin, 2006). Fluent readers are better able to understand the concrete or
abstract thoughts that text represents because they can devote their attention to meaning rather than
decoding (Osborn, Lehr, & Hiebert, 2003). General education instruction must provide a variety of
guided repeated oral reading activities to increase reading uency (Therrien, Gormley, & Kubin,
2006), particularly in younger children (Edmonds et al., 2009). Despite its importance, many general
education reading programs do not provide sufcient practice in reading uency to meet the needs
of children who are at risk or who have disabilities (Bursuck & Damer, 2007).
Vocabulary
Vocabulary knowledge is critically important to comprehension (August, Carlo, Dressler, &
Snow, 2005). Although much vocabulary is acquired indirectly through conversations, being read to,
or independent reading, students who are at risk often have fewer vocabulary-rich life experiences
than other children and need direct vocabulary instruction to become successful readers (Coyne,
McCoach, & Kapp, 2007). Evidence-based vocabulary instruction includes the direct teaching of
important, useful, and difcult words as well as strategies for deciphering word meanings independently using context clues, word parts, and tools such as dictionaries (Stahl & Nagy, 2006).
Vocabulary instruction in general education often consists of much mentioning and assigning and
little actual teaching (Beck & McKeown, 2007; p. 252) even though directly teaching new words
is highly effective with students who are at risk (Coyne et al, 2007; Moats, 2007).
Reading Comprehension
Students with good reading comprehension skills read purposefully and actively engage with or
think about what they are reading (Rand Reading Study Group, 2002). Research-based comprehension strategies and recommended practices include (a) activating background knowledge to make
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meaning of the text (NRP, 2000); (b) asking questions while reading (Baumann, Seifert-Kessell, &
Jones, 1992); (c) drawing conclusions from text (NRP, 2000); (d) making reasonable predictions
(Armbruster, Lehr, & Osborn, 2001); (e) summarizing the meaning of text (NRP, 2000); (f) building
students awareness of what they do and do not understand about text during reading (BoulwareGooden, Carreker, Thornhill, & Joshi, 2007); and (g) using text structures to derive meaning from
text (Dymock, 2007). Too often, reading comprehension instruction in general education may not
teach the structures of narrative and expository text explicitly, or model or practice comprehension
skills in a planned progression (Moats, 2007).
It is not enough to merely address the ve areas of reading within a reading program. For students
to acquire these skills, they need to be taught systematically and explicitly using empirically based
instructional design and delivery principles described in the next sections.
I NSTRUCTIONAL D ESIGN
Well-designed reading instruction is universally accessible and appropriate for all students
(Coyne, Kameenui, & Simmons, 2001), making it ideal for RTI in which effective instruction
in general education is the primary level of intervention. Instructional design in reading is built
around the following principles: big ideas, conspicuous strategies, mediated scaffolding, strategic
integration, judicious review, and primed background knowledge (Coyne et al., 2001).
Big Ideas
Big ideas are those concepts, principles, that facilitate the most efcient and broad acquisition
of knowledge (Carnine, 1994). The big ideas of reading are the ve components of reading
previously described. In a multitiered system, the Big Ideas are the same across tiers, and it is the
intensity with which they are taught that differs.
Conspicuous Strategies
Strategies in reading are used to solve a range of problems, from reading words to comprehending text. Making strategies conspicuous, or explicit, prevents students from having to guess or
intuit any aspect of their application (Coyne et al., 2001). For example, modeling the process of
phonemic segmentation for students by saying a word followed by articulating each individual sound
in the word makes the phonemic segmentation sequence more conspicuous (Coyne et al., 2001). In
a multitiered RTI system, reading strategies in all tiers are conspicuous. This practice is consistent
with its prevention-based orientation.
Mediated Scaffolding
Mediated scaffolding refers to the instructional guidance provided by teachers, peers, materials,
or tasks that offers students additional support during the initial stages of learning a new or difcult
skill. The multitier arrangement in RTI individualizes scaffolds naturally, with the more intensive
tiers employing the most extensive scaffolds for the longest duration (Torgesen, 2000). Scaffolds are
temporary: As students become procient with a skill, the scaffolds are scaled back and eventually
removed so that students do not become dependent on them (Coyne et al., 2001). In the phonemic
segmentation task described previously, the teacher rst modeled segmentation of new words, and
then segmented new words with the students until they were able to segment words independently.
Scaffolds can also be provided at the task level through the manipulation of task difculty, sequencing,
or the amount of information presented at one time. For example, when students are struggling to
segment words into individual sounds in Tier 1, the teacher can rst provide more practice in Tier 2.
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425

If students continue to struggle, however, teachers can break segmenting down into its component
skills of segmenting words at the syllable, rst sound, and onset-rime levels, teaching them in a
deliberate sequence, as part of Tier 3.
Strategic Integration
Research clearly indicates that isolated skill training is insufcient for students to become
procient readers (Ball & Blachman, 1991; NRP, 2000), yet isolated skill training is the type of
instruction that struggling readers often receive (Stichter et al., 2009), even within RTI systems
(Bursuck et al., 2008). In a lesson in which skills are strategically integrated, students review and
practice phonemic awareness skills, learn new letter sounds, review previously learned letter sounds,
and practice reading words made up of mastered letter sounds, all within the same lesson. As
students master additional letter sounds, these become part of the review and word-reading portions
of the lesson (Coyne et al., 2001). In the same way, students can rst be taught individual readingcomprehension strategies such as predicting, questioning, summarizing, and clarifying, and then be
explicitly taught to integrate all four strategies. In a multitiered system, great care must be taken to
ensure that the skills targeted for more intensive instruction in Tiers 2 and 3 are carefully aligned
with the Big Ideas of reading covered in the core reading program in Tier 1.
Judicious Review
Students often have problems retaining what they have learned (Bursuck & Damer, 2007).
Retention problems can be reduced when reading instruction includes structured opportunities
to recall or apply previously taught information. Known as judicious review, this is the process of
repeatedly working with instructed material in meaningful and appropriate ways (Coyne et al., 2001).
For review to be judicious, it must (a) facilitate students performing the task or skill automatically
and correctly, (b) occur repeatedly over time, (c) be cumulative and integrate previously learned and
less complex information into more complex tasks over time, and (d) vary to encourage students
understanding of the information and its generalizability across tasks and applications (Gersten,
Fuchs, Williams, & Baker, 2001).
Primed Background Knowledge
Early reading skills are progressive, with later skills depending on the mastery of earlier skills.
Becoming a procient reader depends on what students know before beginning a reading task,
the accuracy of that information, and the extent to which students access and use that information
(Adams, 1990). Effective teachers of early reading systematically and explicitly remind students
about the informational and skill requirements of each task and prompt students to make connections
to previously learned information and previously mastered skills (Coyne et al., 2001). Teachers
who understand priming create prompts that are specic enough and targeted enough to elicit the
intended response rather than distract students by sending them off in another direction. Students
who lack background knowledge may require more than reminders or targeted prompting. They
may need to be provided with specic information in Tiers 2 or 3, depending on the extent of the
knowledge gap.
A DDITIONAL R ESEARCH -BASED I NSTRUCTIONAL E NHANCEMENTS
As previously discussed, evidence-based reading instruction includes complete coverage of the
ve areas of reading and is designed according to empirically based principles of instructional design.
In this section, additional ways to enhance reading instruction are described. These enhancements
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provide the consistency, predictability, and structure many students need to be successful (Bursuck
& Damer, 2007; Stichter et al., 2009) and are an integral part of all of the tiers. The enhancements
include advance organizers, maximized opportunities for practice, efcient teacher talk and perky
pace, systematic error correction, teaching to success, and motivational strategies.
Advance Organizers
Advance organizers help establish an instructional environment that is predictable and comfortable for students by explicitly stating prior to each lesson what will be learned, why it is being
learned, and that the student is expected to behave during the lesson (Marzano & Marzano, 2003).
Advance organizers can be visual and/or oral, and are vehicles for achieving strategic integration
and priming background knowledge, design principles described in the previous section.
Maximized Opportunities for Practice
For many students, the provision of appropriate practice maximizes engagement and, ultimately,
learning (Kern & Clemens, 2007). Unison response is one way to maximize students opportunities to practice new skills and review previously learned skills (Carnine, Silbert, Kameenui, &
Tarver, 2010). Traditional individual turn-taking, a common arrangement used in general education
classrooms (Stichter et al., 2009), signicantly reduces opportunities for student practice. Signals to
cue unison responses vary with different instructional skills and tasks, but within each skill or task
effective signals must be clear, predictable, and consistently delivered (Carnine et al., 2010).
Efcient Teacher Talk and Perky Pace
Effective teachers are purposeful and deliberate when speaking to students. Those who use
concise, easy-to-understand statements are more likely to get and sustain students attention (Kern &
Clemens, 2007). A perky pace during instruction can also increase students attention and learning
(Englert, Tarrant, & Mariage, 1992) as students are more likely to attend to instruction that is
enthusiastically presented and moves smoothly from one activity to the next.
Systematic Error Correction
Students make mistakes. McEwan & Damer (2000) recommend that students be able to answer
correctly approximately 80% of the time during a lesson to prevent them from practicing the
material incorrectly for an extended period of time. Systematic error correction allows for immediate
corrective feedback; as soon as students make an error, the teacher models the correct skill or answer,
guides the students to the correct response, and asks the same question so that students have the
opportunity to answer correctly. The teacher also returns to the question later in the same lesson to
conrm that students are able to answer the question or perform the skill correctly.
Teaching to Success
Most children learn from evidence-based instruction if they have sufcient time to do so
(Ornstein & Lasley, 2004). Unfortunately, in this era of accountability, pacing guides, and high-stakes
assessment, teachers often feel pressured to move through a preset curriculum at a predetermined
rate or pace regardless of whether their students have mastered skills and concepts (Bursuck et al.,
2008). In contrast, effective teachers within an RTI system employ a mastery learning paradigm,
ensuring that students have thoroughly learned a skill before moving on to the next skill in the
sequence.
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Motivational Strategies
Many students enter school with inappropriate or inadequate social and academic skills, making
success in a typical general education classroom challenging. Learning can be difcult for them,
even when teachers provide systematic, explicit instruction. Effective teachers typically reinforce
appropriate behavior using a 3:1 ratio of positive to corrective feedback (McEwan & Damer, 2000),
providing specic praise for behavior as well as tokens or points as needed (Haager, Gersten, Baker,
& Graves, 2003). Of course. student motivational systems work best in classrooms where routines
and a classroom management plan are evident, the teacher effectively redirects and proactively
addresses behavior, and where the teacher creates a warm and supportive environment for student
learning (Hagger et al., 2003).
I NSTRUCTIONAL I NTENSITY

WITHIN THE

T IERS

The content, design, and instructional enhancements just covered are an essential part of all the
tiers. The tiers differ, however, in the degree of intensity with which evidence-based practices are
implemented. Instructional intensity involves time (e.g., number of days of intervention, instructional
time per day; Harn, Linan-Thompson, & Roberts, 2008), group size (Elbaum, Vaughn, Hughes,
& Moody, 1999), and the explicitness of instruction (Harn, Linan-Thompson, & Roberts, 2008).
Evidence-based ways to increase instructional intensity within each RTI tier are described next.
Tier 1
At the heart of Tier 1 is a core reading program that embodies the evidence-based practices
described previously. As book publishers are understandably inclined to present their programs as
research based, a careful analysis of the core reading program is critical. There are some data to
suggest that the greater the number of children living in poverty in a given school, the more intensive
Tier 1 reading instruction needs to be (Bursuck et al., 2004). Research on effective instruction in
general would suggest that the more time students are engaged in reading instruction under the
direction of a teacher, the greater their achievement (Marzano, Gaddy, & Dean, 2000). For Tier 1
instruction, a minimum of 90 minutes is often recommended (Arndt & Crawford, 2006), more
for schools with greater numbers of students who are at risk (Taylor, Pearson, Peterson, Clark, &
Walpole, 1999). Although instruction using small homogeneous groups of three to four students
has been shown to be the most effective grouping procedure for teaching new skills (Elbaum et al.,
1999), extensive use of small groups can reduce instructional time with the teacher (a key predictor
of student success; Rosenshine & Stevens, 1986). Bursuck and Damer (2007) modied large-group
instruction, making it more effective by adding the instructional enhancements described earlier
(e.g., unison response, systematic corrections). They then used small group instruction only for
those students who needed additional support as indicated by universal screening and progressmonitoring measures, a practice also recommended by Gersten and colleagues (2009). Regardless
of the approach, the quality of the core reading program, and the amount of time students receive
systematic, explicit instruction from the teacher are the critical factors to consider.
Tier 2
For students who score below benchmark on universal screening measures, the Institute of
Education Sciences (IES) recommends that Tier 2 include systematic explicit instruction on up
to three foundational reading skills aligned with the core reading program (Gersten et al., 2009).
IES further recommends that Tier 2 instruction be conducted in small homogeneous groups of
three to four students between 3 and 5 times per week in individual sessions lasting from 20 to
40 minutes. Although the emphasis on particular foundational skills may vary according to grade
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level, with phonics and phonemic awareness stressed in Grades K2, and uency, comprehension,
and vocabulary in Grades 3 and beyond, all areas of reading are important to students at all levels.
This is particularly true for students who are at risk as they are likely to have decits in vocabulary
and oral language, skills (Hart & Risley, 1995) that underlie successful reading comprehension.
Two traditionally problematic issues related to Tier 2 implementation are the failure to align skills
covered in Tier 2 with the core reading program and the difculty in nding time 35 days a week
to conduct the Tier 2 sessions (Bursuck et al., 2008; Gersten et al., 2009). For example, a common
problem with skill alignment is engaging students in extensive sight word memorization activities
when the core program stresses a phonics-based approach (Bursuck & Smallwood, 2009; Bursuck
et al., 2008).
Tier 3
Although a specic package of effective reading practices for students needing intensive instruction has yet to emerge (Wanzek & Vaughn, 2008), some guidelines exist (Gersten et al., 2009;
Roberts, Torgesen, Boardman, & Scammacca, 2008). With respect to time, Gersten and colleagues
(2009) recommend that, on average, students participating in Tier 3 receive, in addition to time spent
in the core program, extra instructional time ranging from 45 to 120 minutes per week. This can
be in the form of a double dose, whereby student daily time in instruction is doubled; however,
simply doubling the time alone without attention to what is covered and how it is covered may not be
more effective (Wanzek & Vaughn, 2008). With regard to group size, one-to-one instruction appears
to be most effective (Gersten et al., 2009; Wanzek & Vaughn, 2007), although small groups of three
to ve students using instructional enhancements described previously such as unison response can
also be used in situations of limited resources (Bursuck et al., 2004). Most important to Tier 3
instruction is the provision of highly explicit, scaffolded instruction (Foorman & Torgesen, 2001)
that focuses on a small, targeted set of foundational reading skills (Gersten et al., 2009). Bursuck
and Damer (2007) recommend the use of highly scaffolded prepackaged, commercially produced
programs (as long as they are evidence based) for students in Tier 3. A number of such programs
exist, and their teacher-friendly organization can facilitate the quality of teacher implementation
(Bursuck & Damer, 2007).
S UMMARY

AND

C ONCLUSION

RTI is a promising approach to both solving the achievement gap in reading as well as helping
to assure that only students most in need are provided with special education services. Although the
success of RTI depends on many factors, the use of scientically based reading practices is crucial.
There is evidence to suggest that many schools may not be implementing evidence-based reading
practices. School psychologists can assume an important role in helping their schools comply with
guidelines for implementing evidence-based reading programs. In this article we have presented
essential features of evidence-based early reading instruction including its content, design, and
delivery. These are features that school RTI teams, including school psychologists, should consider
as they go about assuring that the promise of RTI is realized.
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