Developing assessment tools in numeracy for a contextualized implementation of the Response to Intervention model in Kindergarten

Abstract

For almost two decades, the Response to Intervention model (RtI) has propagated in North America in order to improve teaching for all children, to prevent learning disabilities and to better identify children facing them. This model advocates to provide evidenced-based teaching to all children (Tier 1); to regularly monitor – on the basis of objective data – the progress made by the students; and to quickly intensify teaching for the students who do not respond positively to the class-wide instruction (Tier 2). According to this model, the children who do not adequately respond to these two first tiers of intervention can reliably be diagnosed as having a learning disability, requiring more targeted interventions (Tier 3). This model has been shown to reduce the number of children facing learning disabilities. However, for now, it has not spread much in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. In order to do so, tools based on the international literature as well as on the local curriculum must be developed and validated. First, an observation checklist of the teaching practices would help teachers to provide evidenced-based instruction and researchers to assess the quality of Tier 1 instruction. Second, in order to assess the initial level of the children as well as the way they respond to interventions, brief screening and progress monitoring tools are required. In this communication, we will present the RtI model and the assessment tools that we are developing for numeracy at Kindergarten.