Multi-Tiered Systems of Support for Young Children

Driving Change in Early Education

Judith Carta, Robin Miller Young

• Publisher: Brookes Publishing
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781681253060
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) is a framework for delivering effective and efficient services and supports to meet the needs of all young children and their families so they can achieve essential developmental and early academic learning outcomes. With this evidence-based planning book and video set, you'll discover how to design, implement, and monitor successful MTSS for children ages 3–5 across various early learning environments, including classrooms, programs, districts, and the state level.

LEARN HOW TO

• assess readiness for systems-level change including modifying existing practices
• employ shared-leadership and Implementation Science (IS) strategies for shifting into MTSS
• set up a successful system of data-based decision making to ensure children's needs are met
• identify children who need additional supports and provide targeted or intensive interventions
• develop, provide, and evaluate evidence-based primary, secondary and tertiary programming
• provide effective instruction in key areas, including language, early literacy, and social-emotional skills
• use MTSS to meet the needs of dual language learners and children with disabilities
• engage families in designing a MTSS built on their strengths and needs
• scale up MTSS implementation across a state
• evaluate how well your MTSS is working and determine how to make improvements

Filled with the wisdom and research findings of more than 25 experts, this book brings you foundational information about MTSS plus concrete guidance on creating a system to help all learners reach their potential. Practical tools (reproducible and available online) help your team with key steps of MTSS implementation, and six videos (available online) enhance your application of important concepts covered in the book.

The ultimate MTSS guide for leaders at all system levels—and a visionary textbook for tomorrow's professionals—this book will help early childhood education professionals usher in big-picture change that will benefit all young learners.

Practical tools and resources

• Six videos (available online) illustrating an Instructional Leadership Team coming to consensus and using Implementation Science to shift into MTSS and application of a four-step, data-based, decision-making process at the program/school, classroom and individual-child levels
• Language Exposure Evaluation Report
• Self-Assessment of Family Engagement Practices
• Home–School Plan
• Tune-Up Checklist

1

Introduction to Multi-Tiered Systems of Support in Early Education

Judith J. Carta

Despite the increasing availability of quality early education programs in recent years, a sizable portion of young children leave preschool lacking many of the skills needed to engage in and benefit from instruction in quality kindergarten classes. Some children have limited vocabularies, whereas others lack social-emotional skills and have difficulties with self-regulation (Child Trends Databank, 2015). Some may not have acquired skills in early literacy, math, or science that pave the way to academic success. The reasons for these challenges are many. Some children have come from homes with limited opportunities to learn these skills and behaviors that will be needed in kindergarten (Blair, 2010). Many may not have received the necessary support for language and social-emotional development from their teachers, caregivers, or family members. In addition, some may not have had opportunities to attend high-quality preschool and been able to learn school readiness skills. Other children may have delays in acquiring these skills in spite of ample opportunities to learn them.

The learning needs of students entering preschool programs are complex and growing in number. Early education programs are increasingly aware that higher proportions of their students may be at risk for later learning and behavior problems and are seeking ways to provide more timely interventions. While programs face growing challenges of providing children with instruction of varying levels of intensity to match their needs, new evidence-based practices can reduce the achievement gap while children are still in early education settings. If children’s delays are identified early, and they receive an appropriate level of instructional intervention in a timely manner, many children will acquire the skills they need to be successful in kindergarten and beyond. Multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) offer programs and a framework of evidence-based practices to ensure that children receive the support they need without having to demonstrate failure first.

MTSS offers a new paradigm that shifts the ways programs respond to students—a shift from trying to fit students into specific programs and services to a new approach focused on designing services and support around the needs of the individual student. In this way, programs employing MTSS have a quicker way of identifying students showing the first signs of delay and addressing these delays with individualized supports, therefore preventing problems and improving the likelihood that students will be ready to succeed in kindergarten.

We, the authors, have written and organized this book to help those who are striving to organize early education programs into systems that provide preschool children with carefully designed instruction that matches their level of need. MTSS offers a framework with useful tools that helps educators address children’s diverse learning needs through a set of practices for identifying children who need more instructional support, implementing those practices, and quickly determining whether the practices are working. The purpose of this book is to describe each of the components of MTSS and to illustrate for practitioners how the practices work together within a larger MTSS framework within a school, program, or state. Our goal is to help practitioners, program administrators, and researchers alike understand those practices, learn about the evidence supporting them, and provide information to guide the implementation of MTSS, resulting in improved learning proficiency of all children. We hope this book will help readers to understand the many practices of MTSS, comprehend how the components of MTSS work together, and recognize how team members can work together to support their implementation.

We also have designed this book for use in graduate and undergraduate teacher education programs in early childhood education (ECE) and early childhood special education (ECSE). We realize that students who go on to teach young children will be working in programs that are addressing the needs of children with and without disabilities. The information presented in this book should be relevant to teachers in ECE or ECSE programs and should help them apply evidence-based practices to all children. Although the content in this book should be relevant to the entire early childhood age range (birth to age 8), it will be most applicable for programs serving preschool-aged children. We think that the information in this text will be most relevant to program directors and practitioners within center-based settings such as state-funded prekindergarten classes, Head Start, or other center-based programs (including private, tuition-based programs).

Programs that implement MTSS use a systematic problem-solving model and data-based decision-making process that can be applied at any number of educational grade levels or to programs serving students varying in ability levels. This book describes the application of MTSS to early education. Depending on the specific early education setting, the key players that form the leadership team that drives the MTSS initiative in preschool programs will vary. In a state-funded prekindergarten program, for example, the players may include individuals such as the speech therapist, school psychologist, school social worker, early childhood coordinator, literacy specialist, positive behavior support specialist, and school principal. In a Head Start program, individuals involved may include the Head Start director, disabilities coordinator, coaches, or teachers. In all cases, programs must choose the most appropriate staff members to design the system, select screeners and interventions, carry out the universal screening, engage in data-based decision making to determine how children are identified for higher tiers of intervention, implement each tier of intervention, and monitor children’s progress in response to intervention.

The fundamental promise of MTSS is that all students will be engaged in educational programs founded on evidenced-based instruction and progress-monitoring practices to increase the likelihood that they will master early academic and developmental competencies. When these systems are implemented in early education settings, children will more quickly receive the level of instructional support that meets their needs. The promise of this approach is prevention. More timely, efficient, and individualized support to young children through MTSS means children will be less likely to need special education services when they enter elementary school (Greenwood et al., 2011).

WHAT IS MTSS?

MTSS is a “whole-school, data-driven, prevention-based framework for improving learning outcomes for every student through a layered continuum of evidence-based practices and systems” (Colorado Department of Education, 2015a, p. 1). The goal of MTSS is to organize the resources available in a system or program to meet the needs of all students. At the core of MTSS is a data-based, decision-making problem-solving process that guides differentiated instructional supports to students based on their demonstrated need (Batsche et al., 2005; Colorado Department of Education, 2015b; Deno, 2016; Stoiber & Gettinger, 2016). MTSS is based on the following core principles:

1. All children can learn and achieve when they are provided with high-quality supports to match their needs.

2. Instruction should focus on both academic and behavioral goals.

3. Children showing signs of delay should be identified as early as possible and provided with a level of instructional intensity to match their needs.

4. Interventions to address children’s needs should be designed by collaborative teams that include parents, administrators, teachers, and other instructional staff, and should be guided by student data and informed by evidence-based practices.

5. Children’s responses to intervention should be continuously monitored, and explicit data-based decision rules should be in place for making adjustments in intervention.

6. All intervention should be based on evidence-based practice implemented with fidelity.

MTSS is based on an earlier instructional framework, Response to Intervention (RtI), and both approaches have focused on identifying and addressing students’ learning needs at the earliest possible time. RtI paved the way for MTSS and incorporates many of the same principles as MTSS, including high-quality, research-based instruction of all students, universal screening of all students to identify those showing the earliest signs of learning difficulties, evidence-based interventions that increase the intensity of instruction to address students’ problem areas, frequent progress monitoring for tracking students’ response to targeted interventions, and decision making based on progress-monitoring data. In most past approaches to RtI, the focus was primarily on providing support for struggling learners in the academic areas—primarily in literacy, language, and sometimes mathematics. In contrast, MTSS moves beyond RtI in that it focuses on creating a continuum of systemwide strategies and structures that aim to address barriers to student learning in both academic and behavior areas. Thus, MTSS offers the potential to create systemic change resulting in improved academic and social outcomes for all learners. In addition, MTSS puts a greater focus on systemwide support for teachers’ delivery of instruction that will benefit all students. In school districts, this systemwide support means that practices, programs, and policies are aligned at the classroom, school, and district levels. This typically means that teachers, administrators, and instructional support personnel often change the way they work together and shift to a more collaborative and cohesive culture.

Core Components of MTSS

A number of MTSS models exist across states and school districts, and these vary somewhat in their content and manner of delivery. The following core set of components outlines the basic features of MTSS that can be found across most models.

1. Evidence-based instruction and intervention practices: The foundation of MTSS is its use of research-based instructional and intervention practices that have been proven effective in improving outcomes for students. The use of scientifically based interventions within RtI was originally stipulated within the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (PL 89-10). In MTSS, the assumption is that evidence-based practices (EBPs) will be implemented within both academic and behavioral domains. EBPs are defined as “instructional techniques that meet prescribed...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• About the Videos and Downloads
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction to Multi-Tiered Systems of Support in Early Education
• 2. Leadership Practices to Design and Operationalize MTSS Frameworks for Young Children
• 3. Employing Implementation Science to Transition Early Childhood Systems into MTSS
• 4. Using Data-Based Decision Making to Improve Learning Outcomes for All Children
• 5. Developing and Sustaining High-Quality Tier 1 Early Literacy and Language Practices
• 6. Designing and Implementing Tier 2 Instructional Support in Early Literacy and Language
• 7. Designing and Implementing Tier 2 Instructional Supports to Promote Social-Emotional Outcomes
• 8. Creating and Providing Tier 3 Instructional Support
• 9. Meeting the Needs of Young Dual Language Learners in Multi-Tiered Systems of Support
• 10. Meeting the Needs of Young Children With Disabilities in a Blended ECE and ECSE Multi-Tiered System of Support
• 11. Scaling Up Multi-Tiered Systems of Support
• 12. Engaging Families in Multi-Tiered Systems of Support
• 13. The Path Forward for Multi-Tiered Systems of Support in Early Education
• Index