While districts and schools continue to place more emphasis on personalized instruction and tiers of literacy interventions, more students are continuing to reach middle school without the ability to read on grade level. Much of the emphasis on the attainment of literacy skills occurs in the elementary grades. As a result, middle grades' literacy interventions such as READ 180 have become part of the Response to Instruction and Intervention tiered model that became mandated in Tennessee on July 1, 2014. Since this time, other instructional resources have been developed based on the foundational research of Piaget and Bruner, as well as Vygotsky and Duckworth. This mixed-methods, causal-comparative research conducted in a rural, middle Tennessee school evaluated the effect of the current Response to Instruction and Intervention (RTI[superscript 2]) protocol for literacy and whether it yielded more student growth compared to protocol used in previous years as measured by Lexile® gains and NCE data. The researchers collected both qualitative and quantitative data collected during the 2016-2017 school year and reviewed archival data from the 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 school years. The researchers also studied whether gender, socioeconomic status, or disability status impacted student outcomes. Analyses determined that there was statistical significance for both Lexile® and NCE in only one of the three years in the study and that intervening variables (gender, income, disability) did not yield a statistically significant difference in any of the three years. Teacher perception data were also collected on the current RTI[superscript 2] protocol, fidelity of implementation, and professional development offerings provided to teachers. The researchers concluded that the qualitative teacher perception data corroborated many of the study's quantitative findings, indicating that teachers acknowledge the need for more specialized training on the implementation of the new RTI[superscript 2] protocol. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]