Raise your hand if you have gone back to school. I started back on the 1st. The beginning of the school year is ALWAYS crazy. Right!! #YesIknow #CRAZY

This year with my new team members and general education teachers, I have to remind them to progress monitor identified students, students in RTI, oh well I really mean more or less your whole class.

What are those reasons for progress monitoring? We have some right?

1. Best practice
2. Monitor progress to grade level benchmarks
3. Adequate progress
4. Know if intervention worked

Progress monitoring has always been a best practice in teaching and learning. However, in an era of accountability ongoing, consistent progress monitoring is an essential component to determine the effectiveness of instruction and student learning. It is critical that we have routines for monitoring students’ growth and achievement that will support appropriate instruction. How do we know whether or not our instruction and our interventions are supporting student growth and learning? Progress monitoring helps us answer this question.

Another consideration is the frequency with which to monitor student progress. I want to give the student enough time to master the strategy, which means I don’t want the monitoring intervals to be too close together. At the same time, if the strategy is not working I want to discontinue it as soon as possible and replace it with methods that do work. This means I don’t want the monitoring intervals to be too far apart.

Without effective progress monitoring, I cannot determine whether or not our methods are working. Therefore, it is essential to think about how I monitor my students’ progress, how often I monitor, and how I use the findings to plan instruction so students learn and master the appropriate skills and strategies aka adequate progress.

Let's remember that progress monitoring is best implemented in a very realistic and sensible manner that can be sustained by the teacher. Using completed homework, class tests, learning/work station products, student share out time, oral presentations, conferences, and portfolios, to name a few, will provide you with the pulse of your students. And only you, as the classroom teacher, the professional, can determine which data and routines best serve you and your students for teaching and learning.

Until next Time,