In schools across the country, the number of students struggling to meet grade-level expectations has increased following the pandemic and has not responded as hoped. While Tier 2 interventions* are intended for those who do not respond adequately to high-quality Tier 1 instruction, many students who fit that description are not receiving the kind of support that addresses the real reasons they’re falling behind.
If we apply the definition of Tier 2 supports—targeted, research-based interventions delivered in small groups with progress monitoring—then Comprehensive Integrated Cognitive Training (CICT) is not just a fit. It’s essential.
Understanding the Scope of the Need
By definition, Tier 2 instruction is intended for students who fail to make adequate progress with Tier 1 alone. That includes students who are not meeting benchmarks, whose rate of academic growth is lagging, or both.
In practice, that describes a large and growing portion of today’s student population. In districts we’ve worked with, cognitive assessments have revealed widespread and significant deficits:
- Executive functions (attention, inhibitory control, working memory, cognitive flexibility) were well below normative levels.
- Verbal memory sills—essential for reading comprehension and language learning—averaged at the 6th percentile.
These patterns are not limited to isolated subgroups. They are common across grade levels, demographics, and schools. And they reflect a reality many educators are experiencing: Tier 1 instruction, even when high quality, is not enough for many students—because those students are lacking the cognitive tools they need to benefit from it.
The Cognitive Impact of the Pandemic
The decline in cognitive readiness among students has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The disruptions to schooling, routines, and social interaction have taken a measurable toll, particularly on executive functions and memory. These are the same skills students rely on to plan, focus, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks, retain and retrieve what is learned—skills that impact learning in every subject.
CICT as a Tier 2 Intervention
Within the current RTI framework, Tier 2 interventions are characterized by several components:
- Targeted intervention delivered in small groups
- Standardized, research-validated instructional programs
- Frequent progress monitoring
- Time-limited, intensive support
CICT aligns with all these elements.
- It is a structured, research-based program designed to strengthen core cognitive skills that underlie learning.
- It is delivered in an individualized format thanks to technology, facilitated by trained educators or paraprofessionals.
- It includes ongoing performance monitoring built into the program.
And it is time-bound, typically implemented over a 12–14 week period.**
What sets CICT apart is that it doesn’t just provide compensatory strategies—it actually builds students’ capacity to learn by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of their brain’s learning systems.
Evidence of Effectiveness
Students who participate in CICT typically demonstrate measurable cognitive growth within a single semester. In many cases, students with below-average scores in working memory, attention, and reasoning skills improve to within normative ranges after 12 weeks of training. These improvements often translate into more meaningful engagement with academic content and stronger performance across subjects. That, in turn, leads to greater self-confidence, and less stress for students AND for teachers, who now have classrooms of students better prepared to learn.
Delivering the Outcomes of Tier 2
If Tier 2 is designed to provide the right support to the right students at the right time, then interventions must address the actual reasons students aren’t making progress. In most cases, that reason is not a lack of exposure or effort—it’s a lack of the foundational cognitive skills required to access, process, and retain instruction.
Conclusion
Today’s students are facing learning challenges that run deeper than curriculum. Many of them are struggling not because they can’t learn, but because they haven’t yet developed the mental tools they need to do so. That makes Tier 2 support more critical than ever—and calls for an intervention that addresses the heart of the issue.
Comprehensive Integrated Cognitive Training fits squarely within the Tier 2 framework—and offers a practical, research-based way to meet students where they are and move them forward.
About the authors
Betsy Hill is President of BrainWare Learning Company, a company that builds learning capacity through the practical application of neuroscience, helping parents unlock their child’s learning potential. She is an experienced educator and has studied the connection between neuroscience and education with Dr. Patricia Wolfe (author of Brain Matters) and other experts. She is a former chair of the board of trustees at Chicago State University and teaches strategic thinking in the MBA program at Lake Forest Graduate School of Management where she received a Contribution to Learning Excellence Award. She received a Nepris Trailblazer Award for sharing her knowledge, skills and passion for the neuroscience of learning in classrooms around the country. She holds a Master of Arts in Teaching and an MBA from Northwestern University. Betsy is co-author of the new book, “Your Child Learns Differently, Now What?”
Roger Stark is Co-founder and CEO of the BrainWare Learning Company. Over the past decade, he championed efforts to bring the science of learning, comprehensive cognitive literacy skills training and cognitive assessment, within reach of every person, and it all started with one very basic question: What do we know about the brain? From that initial question, Roger Stark pioneered the effort to build an effective and affordable cognitive literacy skills training tool, based on over 50 years of trial and error through clinical collaboration. He also led the team that developed BrainWare SAFARI, which has become the most researched comprehensive, integrated cognitive literacy training tool delivered online anywhere in the world. For more, follow BrainWare Learning on Twitter @BrainWareSafari. Roger is co-author of the new
book, “Your Child Learns Differently, Now What?”
