Eight years ago, the editors of this special issue published another special issue focused on the topic of response to intervention (RtI; Vaughn & Fuchs, 2003). At that time, there was considerable interest in the application of an RtI model for providing services to children at risk for learning disabilities. The potential benefits have led to…

Special education referral and identification rates have risen dramatically over the last thirty years. In fact, several studies report an increase of nearly 200% (Cortiella, 2008; Vaughn, Linan-Thompson, & Hickman, 2003). During the last several years a new model of identifying students with learning difficulties has received much…