Moving Forward with Rti: Reading and Writing Activities for Every Instructional Setting and Tier: Small-G Roup Instruction, in

"If you’re a teacher trying to incorporate RTI into your day-to-day classroom practices, but you don’t quite know how to manage it, then this book will be a cherished, well-guarded resource you’ll want to chain to your desk." ―Sharon Taberski

How do I keep the rest of the class engaged while I teach small groups?

"In the course of implementing RTI, teachers invariably search for ways to promote literacy learning and actively engage students in rich teacher-supported, peer-supported, and independent experiences. They need easy-to-adapt, open-ended options that will support and extend learning in any setting or context."
―Mary Howard

In her first book, RTI from All Sides, Mary Howard alerted teachers to the merits and potential missteps of Response to Intervention. In this follow-up guide, Mary provides teachers with the flexible literacy activities they need to move ahead with RTI and implement effective differentiated instruction in a variety of settings―including whole-group, guided practice, small-group, partner work, and independent learning. Through these instructional and reinforcement activities teachers gain the freedom to work with small groups of students and the confidence that all their students are on-task with meaningful, high-level work.

"We can’t warehouse students with decontextualized worksheets that promote passive learning and waste valuable time," Mary explains. &qhot;I developed response forms as a vehicle for thinking using teacher modeling, partner work, and collaboration that revolves around rich dialogue. These concrete tools are deeply rooted in research-based reading, writing, and discussion practices that serve as a springboard for learning." Each form and assessment sheet is carefully designed to cultivate daily rituals that introduce and support new learning while creating opportunities to promote student independence, encourage personal accountability, build long-term word knowledge, and make reading more purposeful and thoughtful. While ideal for tier 1 classroom instruction, these forms can be easily adjusted for tiers 2 and 3 when more intensity and teacher support is needed.

Building on her long-held belief that the key to RTI success is knowledgeable and empowered teachers, Mary Howard’s Moving Forward with RTI is designed to help you manage your class using a variety of interactive teaching and learning tools within and beyond the literacy block.

The forms in Moving Forward with RTI include:

• Daily Choice Folder
• Golden Book Basket Response
• Student Anchor Chart
• Personal Pondering Pad
• Focus Cards
• Summary Preview
• Dictionary Redefinition
• Adopt-a-Word
• "Living" Vocabulary
• Stoplight Words
• Five-by-Five Partner Reading
• My Sharing Bookmark
• Vocabulary Jigsaw

…and many more "kid-tested" resources to fill your RTI instructional toolbox.

Sharon Taberski is a nationally recognized educator, author, and presenter. A teacher for 28 years, Sharon currently works in school districts throughout the country helping teachers set up reading and writing workshops, and think systematically about how to best accomplish their goals. She also presents keynotes and seminars throughout the US and Canada.

Sharon has been a member of NCTE's editorial board, and has served on the development committee for the Primary Literacy Standards (more commonly known as New Standards) by the National Center on Education and the Economy.

In her latest work, Comprehension from the Ground Up, Sharon cuts through the pressurized, strategy-overloaded, fluency-crazed atmosphere surrounding reading instruction to lay out reading and workshop practices that are most effective in the primary grades. The companion DVD, Lessons from the Ground Up, shows Sharon in the classroom, modeling effective ways to develop comprehension in real-life classroom settings through exemplary teaching techniques and is perfect for your workshop or PLC. Sharon is also the author of It’s ALL About Comprehension, Teaching K-3 Readers from the Ground Up, a DVD set for long-term staff development that shows how to teach children through rich, varied, comprehension-building experiences through the literacy block. Sharon is also the author of On Solid Ground: Strategies for Teaching Reading K-3, and the video series A Close-Up Look at Teaching Reading: Focusing on Children and Our Goals.