Middle School Teachers' Sense Making of RTI: A Case Study

Context for Reform: Responding to the Adolescent Literacy Crises

Most recently, the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 2004), which contains regulations for Response to Intervention (RTI), has bolstered the nation’s recent sense of urgency to improve reading instruction for older struggling students. RTI is a framework for implementing interventions and services at increasing levels of intensity in order to meet the academic and behavioral needs of all students (Brown-Chidsey & Steege, 2005; Jimerson et al., 2007).  However, much of the research on RTI for reading has been conducted at the early childhood and elementary levels (Coleman, Buysse, & Neitzel, 2007; Fletcher et al., 2007; Jimerson et al., 2007). A gap in the literature exists regarding the application of RTI for reading achievement at the middle school level. Meanwhile, middle-level stakeholders are grappling with how to best incorporate effective adolescent literacy instruction within an RTI framework (Brozo, 2009; Shanklin, 2008; Vaughn et al., 2010).     

    Many small-scale reform efforts are underway across the nation with the attempt to translate these recommendations into practice and help better support older struggling readers (CCAAL, 2010; Heller & Greenleaf, 2007). However, while challenged with how to best meet the unique needs of struggling readers, middle-level educators across the nation are also tackling with how to make sense of RTI and how to execute this model in their schools. While some schools are well on their way with RTI implementation, many are still in the infancy stage of the process (Berkeley et al., 2009; Zirkel & Thomas, 2010).  

    The education policy implementation research is scant with regard to exploring what teachers understand about a policy as they attempt to link their understanding to implementation (Coburn, 2001; Coburn & Stein, 2006).  Many studies of curriculum reform have focused on how teachers implement policy or how leadership practices contribute to success, but little has focused on how teachers interact with a reform to understand it and to change their practice. Spillane et al. (2002) contended that understanding teacher sense-making is important for understanding policy implementation. Coburn (2001) posited that “many researchers now suggest that rather than policy influencing teacher practice, it is more likely that teachers influence and shape policy. That is teachers interpret, adapt, and even transform policies as they put them into place” (p. 145).

    In response to the federal and state legislation regarding RTI, a Maine middle school team created a plan that includes a program initiative for improving the reading competence and confidence of students and thus improving scores on district and state level tests. The initiative involves the implementation of Literacy Across the Curriculum (LAC), a RTI program that requires content area teachers to infuse reading instruction into their daily practice. The aim of this initiative is to improve the content literacy skills of all students not just those who are targeted for intensive reading instruction. The purpose of this case study was to understand the process of how middle school teachers make sense of the LAC initiative at the first year of implementation in their school. The teacher sense-making of a policy initiative is generally defined as the way teachers interpret their environment by attempting to reduce multiple meanings and handle complex informational data (Weick, 1995). Simply put, it is the cognitive process for dealing with ambiguity and uncertainty. “Sense-making helps both individuals and organizations think, learn, act, react, and design solutions more effectively” (Ross School of Business, n.d.).

The main question posed was: At three and seven months of implementation, how do middle school teachers make sense of the LAC reform effort and its process?