During this step the teacher, parents and school identify, develop and implement alternative education strategies for students who they recognized might have a learning disability (Project IDEAL, 2019). This is done before referral to special education takes place in order for students to achieve success without needing to enter in special education (Project IDEAL, 2019). They can use a pre-referral process called Response to Intervention (RTI) to help students who are struggling (Project IDEAL, 2019). The RTI has 3 levels or tiers:
Second level (Tier): Focus on providing target group instructions to all students that will improve student performance (Project IDEAL, 2019). If performance does not improve students will have to move to the third level of intervention (Project IDEAL, 2019).
Third level (Tier): Focus on more intensive, individualized interventions.
The first level (Tier): Focus on high-quality general education instruction in the core curriculum with all students in the classroom, not just the students in need (Project IDEAL, 2019). Tactics that I will use include:
Differentiated instructions - Teachers meet the needs of all students by presenting lessons in different ways by realizing that students are diverse, and each have their own strengths and challenges (Understood,2019).
Culture of acceptance- Teach students that everyone is different and that differences are just a normal part of life rather than special circumstances (Understood,2019).
Co-teaching - Include co-teaching with special ed teachers and teachers teaching other subjects in the lessons on a regular basis to make students familiar with having other teachers in the lesson (Understood,2019).
