What Are High‑Leverage Tier 1 Interventions for Elementary Schools?

It's early October in Des Moines, Iowa. Educators at Smithfield Elementary School have just administered universal screeners for reading, math, and social-emotional learning (SEL). The MTSS team now has the school’s beginning-of-year (BOY) baseline data to evaluate progress toward helping all students succeed.

The team gathers to review the data. Ms. Powell poses the first guiding question: Is our core instruction supporting 80% of students (i.e., are 80% on grade level)?

As the MTSS team reviews the BOY data, they notice three alarming trends:

1. Reading fluency scores for 3rd grade students have declined for 3rd graders have declined for three consecutive years; 67% are below grade level in fluency.
2. Math scores for 3rd grade computational fluency (multiply/divide within 100) have declined for two years; 48% are below grade level.
3. In SEL, 62% of students in 2nd grade reported self-management as an area of need.

Smithfield Elementary School is just beginning to understand the power and importance of systematically reviewing this baseline data to determine the need for school-wide, Tier 1 intervention. They know that educators involved with Response to Intervention (RtI) are familiar with Tier 2 (Targeted) and Tier 3 (Intensive) interventions. But as they make the shift to a comprehensive MTSS framework, how do they support teachers in understanding what Tier 1 interventions are and how to choose the ones that are considered “high-leverage?”

What is Tier 1 Intervention?

Tier 1 is the general instruction provided to all students to ensure access to grade‑level curriculum. All students participate in core instruction; intervention supplements standards‑based instruction. MTSS is a prevention framework; instructional strategies at Tier 1 are intended to build on student strengths and create a foundation for further learning and achievement.

MTSS decisions at the Tier 1 building level focus on balancing the needs of the entire student population, as well as resources available to the building. Critical areas for teams to examine include identification of student needs and the effectiveness of the core instruction or the instruction that all students receive every day.

In Smithfield Elementary’s case, an intervention might be a program they adopt to support particular skill development. Or, an intervention might be a change in instructional approach, such as a double-dose of explicit systematic instruction. 

How Do We Know When Tier 1 Intervention is Necessary? 

The foundation of an MTSS is the use of evidence-based curricula taught consistently in the general education classroom for all students. Universal screener data and the Problem-Solving Cycle help us determine when a Tier 1 intervention is necessary for most or all students.  

This graphic explains the problem-solving process that schools undertake to determine when/if a Tier 1 intervention is necessary.

In the case of Smithfield Elementary, the reading data revealed that fluency scores in grades 3-5 had been dipping for 3 years (identify the problem). In reviewing opportunities for students to practice fluency across content areas (analyze the problem), members of the leadership team deduced that students did not have enough opportunity during the school day to build automaticity and fluency in reading. So they searched for a high-leverage fluency intervention that could help students build automaticity at multiple levels. 

How Do We Define a High-Leverage Intervention?  

The term “high-leverage” indicates a “proven” intervention with evidence and data to support claims of effectiveness. Evidence-based interventions came into practice under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The goal of ESSA is to help increase the impact of educational investments by ensuring that interventions being implemented have proven to be effective in leading to desired outcomes, namely improving student achievement.

Evidence-based interventions are practices or programs that demonstrate effectiveness in producing results and improving outcomes when implemented, thus “high-leverage.” The kind of evidence described in ESSA has generally been produced through formal studies and research. Under ESSA, there are four tiers, or levels, of evidence:

• Level 1 – Strong Evidence: supported by one or more well-designed and well-implemented randomized controlled experimental studies.
• Level 2 – Moderate Evidence: supported by one or more well-designed and well-implemented quasi-experimental studies.
• Level 3 – Promising Evidence: supported by one or more well-designed and well-implemented correlational studies (with statistical controls for selection bias).
• Level 4 – Demonstrates a Rationale: practices with a well-defined logic model or theory of action, are supported by research, and have some effort underway by an SEA, LEA, or outside research organization to determine their effectiveness.

When the MTSS team at Smithfield Elementary ensures teachers select interventions with strong or moderate evidence, they are supporting educators in choosing Tier 1 interventions with solid data supporting their effectiveness for all students.

What is an Example of a High-Leverage Tier 1 Reading Intervention?

Smithfield Elementary decided to implement a practice across grades 3-5 that improves automaticity at the letter, word, and text level and increases reading comprehension called Repeated Reading. 

They evaluated the research and meta‑analysis of Repeated Reading by Therrien (2004) and found the following information:  

• The intervention is much more powerful if students read passages to an adult (ES = 1.37) rather than a peer (ES = 0.36).
• Instructors should provide direct corrective feedback after every session. 
• The intervention is more impactful if students read until they reach a rate and accuracy criterion (ES = 1.78), rather than a set number of times (ES = 0.38).

The ESSA evidence for programs assured the leadership team that the intervention met the criteria for a high-leverage intervention. They created a plan to introduce Repeated Reading to all teachers of students in grades 3-5.

What is an Example of a High-Leverage Tier 1 Elementary Math Intervention? 

The Smith Elementary team reviewed the IES Practice Guide for Mathematics and decided to improve their 3rd graders’ computational fluency by following Recommendation 6: Interventions at all grade levels should devote about 10 minutes in each session to building fluent retrieval of basic arithmetic facts.

They reviewed the ESSA evidence level for Imagine Math Facts, an online program that provides students with activities and lessons to develop math fluency and automaticity. The program focuses on basic math skills, such as multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction. Research studies have shown the program has strong positive effects on elementary students' math fact fluency. So they decided to introduce this online program as part of their morning routine for all students. 

What is an Example of a High-Leverage Tier 1 Elementary SEL Intervention?

Smithfield Elementary recognized from their DESSA data that their 2nd graders needed support in Self-Management. They decided to adopt a program called Competent Kids, Caring Communities to increase student self-efficacy in the targeted competency. Competent Kids, Caring Communities is considered an evidence-based SELect program by the  Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL). They set aside time during their Morning Meeting every day to deliver the lessons in the program. They also decided to send home the weekly activity sheet for parents to be partners in progress.

Now that they are equipped with these evidence-based, high-leverage Tier 1 interventions for each targeted area, the Smith Elementary MTSS team is confident their next data review will show improvement in scores!

References

• California Department of Education: Evidence-based Interventions Under the ESSA. https://www.cde.ca.gov/re/es/evidence.asp
• Rubric for Tier 1 Intervention from Center on MTSS at the American Institutes for Research https://wyominginstructionalnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/WY-WAVE-Tier-1-HLPs-and-EBPs-HANDOUTS.pdf
• Assisting Students Struggling with Mathematics: Response to Intervention (RtI) for Elementary and Middle Schools, 2009. https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/Docs/PracticeGuide/rti_math_pg_042109.pdf
• Imagine Math Facts https://www.imaginelearning.com/math/math-facts