Progress Monitoring to Close the Achievement Gap

Instructional Flowchart: Analysis of Student Need (PLOP)-> Intervention (SDI)-> Data Collection (PM)

Why do we NEED progress monitoring?

“Progress monitoring is when teachers assess students’ academic performance on a regular basis (weekly or monthly) for two purposes: to determine whether children are profiting appropriately from the typical instructional program and to build more effective programs for the children who benefit.” Fuchs, L.S. and Fuchs, D. (2003).

 

When teachers use systematic progress monitoring to track their students’ progress they are better able to identify students in need of additional or different forms of instruction, they design stronger instructional programs, and their students are more successful.

 

Steps to Data Collection:

  1. Define Target
  2. Select Method
  3. Implement Collection
  4. Analyze and Graph
  5. Make Decisions
    • Intervention - continue, modify, or stop

Teachers for students who are deaf/hard of hearing (DHH) should monitor progress for a myriad of reasons. At the next IEP meeting, the team may want details on how a student is or isn’t progressing toward mastery of their goal(s). An administrator may need to look for data on how goals are measured for each individual student. How do you evaluate them based on the information you have given them to make sure they all have mastered it? It may feel like a lot of paperwork or computer work, but think of the benefits--it is an easy way you can address the present levels in the next IEP, along with providing visible & factual information to the parents on how their child is performing. 

 

Data can also be a great resource to show your administrators how students who are DHH perform in comparison to their same-age or same-grade peers, even when provided appropriate accommodations.

 

Forms of Progress Monitoring:

  • Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM)
  • Portfolios
  • Observations/Anecdotal Records
  • Short-cycle Assessments
  • Performance Assessments
  • Checklists
  • Running Records
  • Work Samples
  • Inventories
  • Rubrics

 

Want to learn more about progress monitoring specifically for students who are DHH in the area of reading? Language Reading Connection for Students who are Deaf/Hard of Hearing is an online professional learning module that includes this very topic. The module can be viewed on the BEESS Portal in the independent study section.
  • Progress Monitoring