COLUMBIA — Eight South Carolina elementary schools, including three in the Pee Dee, have been selected as sites for an initiative designed to quickly identify students with reading difficulties and get them on track.
The Response to Intervention (RTI) schools will receive on-site assistance from S.C. Department of Education staffers who will help with intensively monitoring data on students’ reading progress and with developing customized instructional help for students who are struggling.
The schools are Cheraw Primary in Chesterfield County School District; North Vista Elementary in Florence School District 1; St. Paul Elementary in Clarendon School District 1; Alma Elementary in Cherokee County School District; Bells Elementary in Colleton County School District; Ben Hazel Primary in Hampton School District 1; Boundary Street Elementary in Newberry School District; and Riverview Elementary in York School District 4. They were selected after submitting written applications.
Four of the schools — Cheraw. Alma, Ben Hazel and Riverview — will serve as demonstration sites because they are in more advanced stages of implementing RTI.
“RTI centers on a rapid, tightly focused response,” State Superintendent of Education Dr. Jim Rex said in a press release issued Wednesday. “It’s about addressing children’s reading problems early on, before kids get so far behind that they become frustrated, or they get referred for special education services.
“Some youngsters need special education services because they’re battling specific learning disabilities. But for others, reading problems have more to do with instructional issues. We should be able to help those kids without referring them to special education — and we shouldn’t wait until they’re failing reading to start helping them.”
Pam Huxford, who coordinates the Education Department’s RTI efforts, said the strategy’s strength is adjusting instruction to fit a student’s needs at the earliest signs of difficulty.
“Close monitoring of student progress and intervention effectiveness is crucial,” Huxford said in the release. “That kind of close monitoring allows us to ramp up our intensity level for kids who continue to have difficulties. When students still don’t respond, it’s possible that we might be dealing with learning disabilities that do require special education services.”
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