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Welcome to Real Talk Intervention - your secondary RTI resource

Who are we?

 We are a community of secondary educators implementing Response to Intervention in middle school and high school settings.

Why are we here?

 I don't know about your Google search history, but this is what happens to me...

Don't get me wrong; we all know the basics. RTI is this federally mandated initiative at all grade levels. So there ain't no party like a response to intervention party because a response to intervention party is mandatory. But how do we actually DO it in the complicated environment of secondary education? The rules and regulations, the paperwork, the meetings, scheduling - all of it quickly becomes Sisyphean, especially in the secondary setting where we are dealing with an extremely high number of students, in larger and larger classroom settings, with a huge range of both skill and will.

Secondary educators - we need HELP. And what sort of help are we actually getting?

Are you tired of hearing intervention strategies that sound like this:

  • Have you tried using a Frayer model?
  • A great accommodation is reducing multiple choice answers from 4 to 3.
  • We can improve overall literacy if you bring authentic content-specific reading tasks into your class!
  • Here's a printable K-W-L chart!
Do you want to have real conversations? Conversations with people who understand that you are trying to teach Hamlet to a student who reads at an 800 Lexile? Or how about with content area teachers who absolutely get that the student has many educational gaps, but you are still responsible for teaching that student Lewis Dot Structure and that's what you need to spend your time doing. 

We want to talk about what we are actually doing that is helping kids, that is intervening with them where they are, while simultaneously teaching to the standards and preparing them for their graduation tests.  We want to hear about interventions that work, those that don't work, and what we can all ACTUALLY do in our secondary classrooms. 

How to join us

Follow us here at our blog where we will have our written posts and episodes of our biweekly podcasts - starting in January!

Want to contribute to Real Talk Intervention and be a part of the conversation? We'd love to hear what you have to say either in a comment, as a guest blogger for us, or as a guest on our podcast. Comment on any of our blog posts or email us at realtalkintervention@gmail.com. 

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Follow us on Twitter @Intervene4Real

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