6 Major Steps in Effective Progress Monitoring

Step #6: Continue Progress Monitoring and Analyzing

• Report progress to families at least as often as students without disabilities receive report cards, and more often if specified by the IEP, determined appropriate by the team, or if there are significant celebrations, concerns, or changes needed to the student’s program.
• If progress monitoring results indicate that the student is not making adequate progress to meet the goal by the end of the year, the IEP team meets to determine if changes are needed to SDI and/or the goals.

Step #5: Analyze Results and Make Instructional Decisions

• Increasing scores indicate that the student is making progress and responding to the specially designed instruction. Consider whether changes to SDI could further accelerate progress.
• Flat or decreasing scores indicates that the student is not benefiting from specially designed instruction and requires a change in the instructional program.
• Rules for determining adequate progress: Numerous decision-making approaches are available. Below are two frequently used examples.
  • Four-point rule - If three weeks of instruction have occurred AND at least six data points have been collected, examine the four most recent data points.
  • Trend-line rule - the teacher calculates the trend-line slope using the most recent eight data points. A goal line provides the final aim point and amount of time for meeting the target.
• To accelerate progress, consider:
  • Increase the fidelity of the implementation of SDI. Ensure that interventions and supports are being delivered as specified in the IEP.
  • Increase the intensity of the SDI. Consider changes to frequency and/or duration of intervention, increase the explicitness of instruction and/or feedback, and/or add additional components of behavioral support.
  • Adjust the nature of the SDI by selecting additional and/or different evidence-based instructional practices that have a greater demonstrated strength, are more narrowly focused on the specific skill in which the student is not progressing or are a better match to the student’s learning characteristics..

Step #4: Collect and Share Data

• Gather and review the data according to the schedule.
• Consider the use of graphs to support data analysis. Graphs are a concrete and accessible means to share data with students, parents, teachers and administrator. Progress monitoring graph includes a goal line, trend line, and data points.
• Graphs can be developed in Excel, Easy CBM, etc.

Step #3: Plan for Data Collection and Review

• Determine the frequency of data collection. In general, academic progress data for a student receiving intensive intervention should be collected at least weekly; data on behavioral targets is usually collected daily. (NCII)
• The more intensive the student’s academic gap, the more frequently progress monitoring should occur.
• Determine how, when, and by whom the data will be collected. Ensure that all staff responsible for collecting data have appropriate training and support to fulfill their role in the process.
• Establish a schedule and process for regular review of the data -- do not wait for the end of the marking period.

Step #2: Determine Expected Rate of Progress

• Set interim targets that lead to mastery of the objectives and ultimately the annual IEP goal.
• Establish the expected timeframe for achieving the target considering previous rates of growth and strategies that will accelerate learning.

Step #1: Select Measurement Tool For each IEP goal/objective that is a target of current instruction, determine how progress will be measured. The measurement tool should be aligned to the criteria and method of measurement described in the goal/objective and should match the behavior being measured. Assessing the temperature of a sick child requires a thermometer, while measuring the growth of a plant requires a ruler. Select a tool that accurately and sensitively measures the behavior targeted through specially designed instruction. An effective measurement tool is:

• Quick and easy to administer
• A reliable and valid measure of the target behavior
• Suitable for repeated administration

Types of progress monitoring tools/probes include: 1. Curriculum Based Measurement (CBM) - suitable for measuring basic academic skills like reading fluency, math calculation, etc.

• Provide an easy and quick method of gathering student progress by using short test (usually 1-5 minutes) frequently, (usually one to two times per week) to determine student’s rate of progress.
• Produce accurate, meaningful information about students’ academic levels and growth and are sensitive to student improvement.
• Links and resources
  • Easy CBM
  • National Center for Intensive Interventions

2. Observational Tools: suitable for monitoring academic and functional behaviors not measured in terms of percent of answers correct - Observational tools (standardized/published or teacher-developed) are used to measure a wide variety of behaviors. These tools may include (among others):

• Frequency counts (a direct measure of how often a behavior occurs) or duration recordings (a direct measure of how long a behavior lasts.)
• Time-sampling or interval recordings (a “snapshot” of how often a behavior occurs in a representative sample of time.)
• Checklists of steps completed and/or level of assistance required.

Effective observational tools are:

• Reflective of the dimension of behavior change required to achieve the goal.
• Efficient and simple to use.
• Objective and reliable across different observers.

3. Other data sources: Some goals and objectives may require individualized approaches to progress monitoring, such as such as work samples and other student products, teacher records (such as recordings of assignments completed), student-completed checklists and other self-monitoring data, etc. If recent, accurate baseline data on the targeted skill using the selected measure is not available in the PLAAFP or from other sources, establish the student’s initial skill level by calculating the average of three data points utilizing the selected tool.