Response to intervention (RTI), the controversial three-tiered, triangular instructional model is getting stretched in new directions by educators who favor holistic, proactive support strategies over formal remediation. A senior scientist at the FPG Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Virginia Buysse directs a research program on recognition and response (R&R), a new method of universal screening she helped develop that looks to detect and address learning deficits through intervention in early childhood. While it is derived from the traditional RTI model, R&R is specifically designed for very young children. Following a successful pilot implementation carried out by Buysse and her colleagues in fall 2009 at 24 pre-kindergarten classrooms in Maryland and Florida, R&R will soon be tested at public school-based pre-K programs in North Carolina, with funding from the US Department of Education. What R&R does, Buysse explains, is shift RTI's notion of intervention as something remedial to something that benefits all students regardless of their developmental level. Teachers focus on early language and literacy development, conducting universal screening and progress monitoring for all children (recognition); offering a core curriculum for all children, plus small-group interventions for some (response); and making decisions and solving problems collaboratively, guided by data.