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Kindergarten teacher Jennifer Nanneman assesses Baltazar Morales Wednesday afternoon at Hosea Elementary.

The St. Joseph School District began a pilot program this year to help struggling readers.

“Response to Intervention” (RTI) takes a three-tiered approach that allows teachers to give more individualized instruction to students in kindergarten through second grade.

Kerry Harvey, the RTI coordinator for the pilot schools Hall, Hosea and Mark Twain, said the program helps identify students who have trouble with reading skills. Those students receive supplemental reading instruction throughout the day.

“We benchmark all the kids in K through second grade, and according to assessment, they’re identified as being red, yellow or green,” said Ms. Harvey, explaining that red means an intense risk, yellow means there’s some risk and green indicates the student’s reading level is where it should be.

Within Tier I, all students receive scientifically based instruction and are screened three times a year to establish an academic baseline to identify readers who need additional help.

At-risk students then receive supplemental reading instruction during the school day in the regular classroom, Ms. Harvey said. “This is an additional 30 minutes extra a day,” she said, adding this phase lasts about six to eight weeks.

After this period, if students do not show adequate progress, teachers move them to Tier II for more targeted interventions. This tier may last up to 10 weeks.

Students who get to Tier III receive even more intensive intervention with groups of two or three students.

Brian Shindorf, assistant director of elementary education for the St. Joseph School District, said only three schools were chosen for the program to get a sense of whether it would prove successful. If RTI succeeds, it will be available in all schools.

“We tried to get a good cross section of schools,” he said. “Up to this point, we’re very optimistic that very soon we’ll be able to look and see how many students are going to be moving to Tier II and how many students are successful in Tier I. That’s what we’re anticipating very soon.”

Federal stimulus dollars fund the RIT program, but Mr. Shindorf said the cost is minimal.

“The beauty of this program is once you do the professional development,” he said, “there’s very little cost to it since you use your current staff members and current material in your classroom.”

Alonzo Weston can be reached

at alonzow@npgco.com.