Blog- Jennifer Harrison
R2S Reading and Writing in the Content Areas Course
Source: "Linking
Progress Monitoring Results to Interventions"
by Jennifer N. Mahdavi and Diane Haager
http://rtinetwork.org/essential/assessment/progress/linking-monitoring-to-intervention
My blog is based on two of the following themes:
1) Resource Recommendation
2)
Assessment: How do we know what our students
know?
Being a reading interventionist at my elementary school
means that I do a lot of assessments to see how and what students are able to
do. I don’t assess students just to
assess, there is a purpose. I want to
know what my students truly know and what they need additional help with.
The article that I read and would recommend if you want to
learn more about assessment is called:
“Linking Progress Monitoring Results to Interventions” by
Jennifer N. Mahdavi and Diane Haager.
This article addresses the importance of assessment of
students. If we aren’t assessing
students before and during learning, then how do we know what they are learning
and/or what approaches/skills are working or not working?
Assessment of students can help teachers determine the next
steps for individual students. Teachers
can determine if students have mastered a skill, if instruction should be
adjusted, if the student just needs additional practice, and/or if the student
needs one on one support from the teacher.
Progress Monitoring is a great way for teachers to assess
along the way by tracking data to monitor student growth over a period of
time. In order for progress monitoring
to be successful, the teacher must continually assess and monitor student
data. The data can then be used to plan
the direction of instruction to meet the individual needs of students.
What can data from progress monitoring tell us?
Progress monitoring is two-fold:
1) It assesses student academic progress
2) It evaluates the
effectiveness of intervention
Data from progress monitoring can help teachers identify
reading levels to create small groups with like needs and then compare the
growth of students with like needs and goals and determine what steps are next
in instruction. Progress monitoring is
most successful and useful when it is done in a timely manner, meaning students
are assessed weekly or in a scheduled manner.
Data can then help teachers adjust instruction, make changes, create new
goals, and/or implement new strategies to meet the needs of students.
This article also featured a case study of two students and
how progress monitoring and assessments were helpful and led to changes in
student instructional plans. It’s
definitely worth the read and offered a lot of great ideas in terms of the
importance of assessment.
Jennifer you have provided excellent, helpful information on assessment. Data has certainly become the force that drives instruction. An area I would like to improve on is the time spent on a goal(s) and transitioning to a new goal. I feel like I am collecting data frequently enough but need to use it in a more timely manner and keep my students moving as they make progress on each goal. Thank you for your post.
ReplyDeleteJennifer,thank you for the recommendation. I will follow up with and read this entire article. I use mostly running records with my littles because it gives me a way to watch progress overtime. However, it also takes a lot of paper and I end up with notes on sheets of paper everywhere. Do you have a better method?
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ReplyDeleteJennifer,
ReplyDeleteIt's always good to be reminded of the importance of progress monitoring. I want to do better at letting my formative assessments truly inform my instruction. I am sometimes guilty of giving exit slips. quick writes, etc. and reading over them and then moving on because of time and pressure to "cover" all the standards. I am also making it a goal to take the time to give pre-assessments to get a baseline and see how I can maximize instruction for students. Last year I went through Reading Recovery training and I remember Marie Clay stressing the fact that after the OS is completed, you begin with what students can do- and wow, this was a big ah-ha for me. How many times have I started a unit with what students didn't know? It only makes sense to build off of what they know! The article you shared makes me think of all the progress monitoring done in the Reading Recovery program and the difference it can make when teachers drive instruction based on the data.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
Ms. Harrison,
ReplyDeleteI agree progress monitoring is necessary for those very reasons you mentioned, however, I believe we put too much and time in this process. It seems both teachers and students expend much energy doing these evaluations.
I believe that a few years ago it was decided that observation is the best kind and the most used way of progress monitoring.
RTI is easy and short and can direct instruction but teachers need to be trained on the system so as to know how to adjust the system to what interventions are necessary for the students. CBM seem to be the most popular progress assessment tool.
I remember when District 7 in Spartanburg used an RTI program. Some teachers believed in the program and others felt it was not working. Students must be monitored and computers must be kept in great working
conditions.
Progress Monitoring Within a Response-to-Intervention Model
by Douglas D. Dexter, Ph.D., and Charles Hughes, Ph.D., Penn State University
Thank you all for your comments. I thought the article was definitely worth the read and helpful to those of us that monitor student progress so frequently. :) Jennifer H.
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