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Why wait for students to fail before applying solutions that will help them succeed? Response to Intervention (RTI) is an approach that is designed to identify students with academic or behavioral needs that have had a detrimental effect on their achievement in the classroom. The RTI approach begins with a universal screening of all children in the general education classroom. This course illustrates proven practices to provide at-risk students with interventions at increasing levels of intensity in a tiered approach designed to accelerate learning. A variety of educators become instrumental providers of these intervention services, including general and special education teachers, paraprofessionals, speech and language pathologists, occupational therapists, psychologists, social workers, guidance counselors, ESL, and bilingual teachers. RTI methodology affects all subject areas including reading, math, spelling, language, auditory and visual processing, technology, and writing for students in elementary and secondary school environments as well as their behavior within those environments. The first part of the course identifies the roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders and practitioners of the RTI methodology, including how administrators implement the tiered approach in both elementary and secondary school settings. The second half of the course identifies the key interventions using a three-tiered approach to increase academic competencies in reading, writing, spelling, and math. The tiered approach is also used to address processing disorders and behavior management. Key components of a successful school-wide RTI implementation include an effective universal screening program for all students and continual progress monitoring. Through a role-playing session and case studies, participants will observe how to transition students through the RTI maze. Using the RTI approach, educators will play a crucial role in providing students the interventions they need to succeed without having to fail first. This Response to Intervention course will impact student learning by improving how educators teach and handle at-risk students within the educational process. In this scenario, schools quickly isolate and directly address students’ academic needs so that students no longer “wait to fail.” Course participants will learn how to implement an effective three-tier RTI model and thereby change the way educators teach children, using proven strategies in an explicit and systematic way.