Response to Intervention (RtI)
You could write an entire book about how Cranium CoRE, with its multiple strategies that work well for literacy skill development, can fit well with RtI.
There are many specific issues that must be addressed in order to effectively implement RtI approaches. Strong leadership and effective collaboration are essential ingredients in implementing RtI. Cranium CoRE is all about collaboration at several levels; teacher to teacher, teacher to student, student to student, teacher to parent, parent to student. As time goes on and our Cranium Community of Reading Engagement grows, there will be an endless stream of examples cited on this website of RtI success stories.
In addition to the leadership and collaboration issues, schools must be prepared to offer a variety of proven instructional strategies, staff must be trained to measure student performance using methods that are sensitive to small increments of growth and parents must be kept informed of these new procedures and made partners in the process. Cranium CoRE is not an assessment tool and was never designed to be. There are more than enough assessment vehicles available to educators for this facet of RtI. The strength of Cranium CoRE is in the potential strategies for the incremental educational growth as well as involvement with the parents.
Perhaps the most commonly cited benefit of an RtI approach is that it eliminates a "wait to fail" situation because students get help promptly within the general education setting. Cranium CoRE can be a very alluring, dynamic educational piece of this RtI puzzle.
Universal Screening is a step taken by school personnel early in the school year to determine which students are "at risk" for not meeting grade level standards or those who have behavioral or emotional problems that may interfere with their learning. Once the target audience has been identified with Universal Screening, either for an individual or a group, Cranium CoRE has incredible appeal to attract and hold the attention of even the most disengaged students.
You will see two video clips below. In one, you can listen to how Cranium CoRE and RTI has helped a Florida media specialist in her RtI role at her school. In the other video clip, you will hear how the "at risk" students this same librarian mentors feel about the Cranium CoRE process. The second video was podcast as part of the Florida Association of Media in Education (FAME) Media Quarterly Newsletter.