This guide is a set of strategies and key practices with the ultimate goal of supporting students with the most intensive behavioral needs, their families, and educators in their transitions back to school during and following the global pandemic in a manner that prioritizes their health and safety, social and emotional needs, and behavioral and academic growth.

Staff from the Exceptional Children department in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools convened a group of their teachers in Spring 2020 to share their perspectives and ideas. ​This advisory group includes approximately 20 teachers of exceptional children across Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. ​In this Voices from the Field video, the National Center on Intensive Intervention spoke with four teachers in the advisory group about their work during COVID-19 restrictions.

The purpose of this guide is to provide an overview of behavioral progress monitoring and goal setting to inform data-driven decision making within tiered support models and individualized education programs (IEPs).

The 2017 Supreme Court decision Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District highlighted the importance of monitoring students’ progress toward appropriately challenging individualized educational program (IEP) annual goals and making changes to students’ educational programs when needed. In this guide, we explain how educators can establish IEP goals that are measurable, ambitious, and appropriate in light of the student's circumstances.

In this video, Amy McKenna, a special educator in Bristol Warren Regional School District shares her experience with data-based individualization (DBI). Amy discusses how she learned about DBI, the impact her use of the DBI process had on students she worked with, and how DBI helped changed her practice as a special educator.

In this article, Dr. Jennifer Ledford shares information about single-case design research and how it relates to intensive intervention as well as resources from the Council for Exceptional Children Division for Research (CEC DR).

This synopsis, published in 2007, highlights key findings from a synthesis of research on interventions for struggling math students. Baker, Gersten, and Lee (2002) synthesized findings from 28 years of research on interventions for students struggling in learning math. Access this Resource

This report, published in 2007, summarizes 12 peer-reviewed, high-quality research studies between 1995 and 2005 and synthesizes their findings on the effects of extensive reading interventions (comprising at least 100 instructional sessions) for struggling K-3 readers. It then explains the related implications for practice for students with reading problems or learning disabilities in an RTI setting.

This practice guide presents strategies that classroom teachers and specialists can use to increase the reading ability of adolescent students. The recommendations aim to help students gain more from their reading tasks, improve their motivation for and engagement in the learning process, and assist struggling readers who may need intensive and individualized attention.  

This guide offers five specific recommendations to help educators identify struggling readers and implement evidence-based strategies to promote their reading achievement. Teachers and reading specialists can utilize these strategies to implement RTI and multi-tier intervention methods and frameworks at the classroom or school level. Recommendations cover how to screen students for reading problems, design a multi-tier intervention program, adjust instruction to help struggling readers, and monitor student progress. Access this Resource