1. Progress monitoring
Is the Help Helping?

2. Objectives Understand the purpose of progress-monitoring
Identify what skills to progress monitor
Match interventions to student needs
Know the features of progress monitoring assessment

3. Initiating progress monitoring assessments
When: After close monitoring of student progress as instruction is being implemented and the result is that the student is not making growth then something about the instruction may have to change.
What skills should be monitored is based on data!
Sources of data: brief tests of specific skills, observational data, analysis of work products, self-assessment (interview), direct assessment of skills and/or screening data

4. Subtypes of Reading Difficulty
Weaknesses in fluency with accurate decoding and comprehension
May have related issues in Attention and Executive Functioning
Decoding at or above benchmark/grade level
Comprehension low
Poor comprehension with
accurate decoding and phonology
Language Comprehension
Deficit
Comprehension at or above benchmark/grade level
Good Reader!
Decoding low
Weakness in word recognition,
fluency and comprehension
Double Deficit
Weakness in phonology and word recognition
with better language comprehension
Phonological Deficit/Dyslexia

5. 4 categories of instructional need
1. Weaknesses in word recognition, fluency and comprehension
2. Weak phonology and word recognition with good/better language comprehension.
3. Dysfluent reading with accurate word recognition and adequate phonological processing.
4. Poor comprehension with adequate word recognition and phonology.

6. Weaknesses in word recognition, fluency, and Comprehension (Double Deficit)
Need a comprehensive approach that includes the following:
a. practice attending to phonological aspects of words
b. systematic, direct, cumulative and explicit teaching of the orthographic code
c. vocabulary instruction
d. fluency strategies/practice
e. both listening and reading comprehension at the sentence and discourse level
**Spelling and writing are incorporated into the lessons

7. Weaknesses in phonology and word recognition (better language)
Classic “dyslexic” profile. Inaccurate and slow readers
Direct Teaching of:
Speech sound identity, blending, segmenting
Graphemes to represent phonemes, using multisensory techniques
Decoding and blending of written words from left to right
Automatic recognition of “outlaw” (irregular) words
Word and phrase practice for automaticity and
Application to text-reading

8. Dysfluent Reading (Slow but accurate)
Students need many exposures to words to develop automatic word recognition.
Instructional lessons focus on:
Word structure review (base words, inflectional endings, prefixes/suffixes)
Tracing/saying/writing high frequency words
1-minute speed drills on component skills
Multiple meaning words and semantic associations
Preview of vocabulary in a text
Phrase reading, and
Repeated readings of a text for varied purposes

9. Poor Comprehension
Students need more emphasis on vocabulary and comprehension than word recognition.
Lessons are constructed around text that is at their instructional level
Activities include:
Establishing a purpose for reading
Activating prior knowledge or build background knowledge of topic
Identifying text structure and organization of text (narrative, expository, etc.)
Previewing text, vocabulary, raise questions or make predictions
Asking questions or rereading text
Paraphrasing in response to queries
Summarizing after reading
Making meaningful connections to self or world

10. Types of Progress Monitoring Assessments
Mastery Measures
CBM’s
Focused on specific skills taught during a lesson or unit
Given after a unit or sequence of lessons designed to promote mastery.
Are informal and not standardized.
Scaffolds, supports, and adjustments are allowed.
Measures what should be known by the end of the academic year.
Used for monitoring progress toward that end-of-year goal.
Are standardized, reliable, and valid.
Require standard administration and scoring.

11. Monitoring skill development with mastery tests
“Did the student learn what I taught?”
Test accuracy and speed with:
Writing the alphabet a b c d e
Phoneme segmentation cat= /c/ /a/ /t/
Sound-symbol associations Aa= short /a/ or long /a/
Reading words with specific vowel spellings ai, oa, ea, igh
Irregular word (sight word) recognition said, was, one
Classifying vocabulary words by semantic category nouns, verb, adjectives
Sentence copying dictation
Generating sentences with several target words conventions of writing

12. Monitoring progress with cbm’s
Typically, one-minute timed readings on graded passages.
Used with those students who are below benchmark.
Scored for fluency and accuracy.
Given in a standardized manner.
For students who are well below grade level?
Monitor reading subskills (or)
Monitor with ORF, one to two levels below grade level norms

13. Using DIBELS for progress monitoring
First Sound Fluency
Phoneme Segmentation
Nonsense Word Fluency
Oral Reading Fluency
Daze/Cloze
Retell Fluency
More emphasis on accuracy than speed

14. How often should you progress monitor?
*As often as needed to determine the effectiveness of instruction but not so often as to detract from instructional time.
*For students receiving intensive level of support weekly progress monitoring is recommended when specifically defined skills are being targeted.
*For students receiving strategic interventions progress monitoring should be done after 8-10 hours of intervention have been implemented to show a change.

15. What about non-responders?
Consider changing:
The intensity of the intervention. Examples: increase sessions from 3 times a week to 5; increase time in sessions from 30 minutes to 45 minutes; have a higher response rate or more concentrated practice
The instructional approach or methodology. Examples: more emphasis on multisensory engagement; more focus on underlying skills; smaller steps; more structured or cumulative approach; or more emphasis on word meanings or oral expressive language
The group size or composition. Examples: move from two students to one-on-one; change peer group or partners;

16. Questions about how progress monitoring is implemented
How often do you conduct progress-monitoring assessments (PMA’s)?
Do your measures have alternative forms?
Are the PMA’s administered under standardized conditions?
Do you chart the results and share with students? With colleagues?
Do you consider the results before making instructional decisions?
What challenges, if any, are you facing using progress monitoring?