Progress Monitoring: What You Need to Know to Help Your Child Succeed

A young child wearing headphones uses a laptop with animated graphics overlayed.

Parents and schools have tools to help students learn and succeed. Progress monitoring is one of those tools. Even if a child has a disability, they can still learn and make progress. Monitoring their progress helps them see their improvement. Progress looks different for each child, but setting realistic goals and having a plan can help them succeed.

“You cannot improve what you do not measure” Peter Drucker

According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), most children have the ability to learn how to read. Only about 5% of children have significant difficulty learning to read due to their cognitive abilities. It is important to note that having a cognitive impairment is different from having an intellectual disability, and not all children with cognitive impairment have an intellectual disability.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) found that by the end of third grade, 83% of students from low-income families could not read at a level considered proficient by NAEP. Similarly, for students with disabilities, 71% of them were below the basic reading level by that same benchmark period. This means that many students from low-income families and students with disabilities struggle with reading compared to their peers.

What Is Progress Monitoring?

Progress monitoring is a way to measure how well students are doing in school. It helps educators and parents see if students are making progress and reaching their goals. By looking at data and information about a student’s performance, teachers and the IEP team can decide if they need to change how they teach or if they are doing a good job.

There are some important things to remember when it comes to progress monitoring:

– Use tools that have been proven to work.

– Start by figuring out where a student is and what

Follow a plan to help them learn and improve.
Consider any challenges they might have, like special needs or not speaking English well.
Look at their strengths and use them to help them learn better.
Regularly check how they are doing and whether current teaching methods work.

Progress monitoring can be used for one student or a whole class. It helps teachers ensure students do their best and get the support they need to succeed.

What Are the Steps for Progress Monitoring?

Assessing the current performance level is crucial before formatting any planned expectations and goals for a student. Once that is done, a plan of action with specific benchmarks/goals and timelines can be implemented. Measuring the student’s academic performance and progress towards those goals at preset times allows for the adjustment of teaching methods sooner rather than later.

To monitor a student’s progress, teachers follow these steps:

Assess how well the student is doing right now.
Set specific goals and decide when they should be achieved.
Try making one change in how they teach to see if it helps.
Regularly check how the student is doing.
Compare their progress to the goals they set.
If the goals aren’t being met, look at the teaching strategies and decide if changes need to be made based on the data.

What Are the Benefits of Progress Monitoring?

Because the goal of progress monitoring is to help the student improve achievement and academic growth, creating a plan of action, implementing it, and assessing the results regularly allows for more targeted instruction. Without progress monitoring, educators do not have direct feedback on whether the teaching method used for the student works.

Progress monitoring provides the following benefits:

Helps students improve and learn better.
It lets teachers see if their teaching methods are working.
It helps teachers make decisions about how to teach more effectively.
Progress monitoring keeps track of how well students are doing.
It helps teachers and families talk about how the student is doing.
Teachers can share important information with other professionals.
Teachers and parents have higher expectations for students’ progress.
Progress monitoring shows ways to help students improve at home. It helps students reach their learning goals faster.

Progress monitoring helps students learn better and reach their goals faster. It makes teaching more effective and helps students meet state standards.

Assessing the Student’s Progress and Further Actions

Checking a student’s performance helps teachers see if their teaching strategies work for that child. These checks should be short and not feel like a test. If a student is falling behind, the teacher can make changes quickly.

When a student reaches their goals, it means the teaching is working. If a child exceeds the expected goals, new goals can be set to keep challenging the student.

But if the student is not making enough progress, the teacher can try different teaching methods, groupings, or more time for instruction. It is important for the student to get helpful instruction. Checking regularly helps the teacher make a difference.

What Challenges Face Progress Monitoring?

Implementing any new program often faces challenges, and if your child’s school or teacher does not use progress monitoring or any similar assessment program, it could take time to put it into effect.

Here are some of the challenges faced:

It takes time to start using progress monitoring in schools.
Teachers and parents need to understand how it helps and works.
Teachers need training and support to use progress monitoring effectively.
There should be help available for tracking progress and interventions.
Choosing the right tool to measure progress is essential.
Teachers need to give students the right kind of help.
Teachers should communicate well with parents.

What Should Parents Expect From the Teacher or School?

Progress monitoring is crucial, including measuring where the student begins (the benchmark baseline). As a parent, staying on top of your child’s progress and the steps the school is taking to ensure their learning and advancement is vital. You want to ensure that progress monitoring is part of the IEP goals.

Here are some crucial actions for parents to take:
Be involved in monitoring your child’s progress.
Stay on top of assessments and talk to the teacher about updates.
Ask how and when you will receive updates (like a letter, chart, or graph).
Find out how you can help your child improve at home.
Share suggestions with the teacher about what works at home.
Parents must be aware and understand progress monitoring to ensure their child is progressing.
Taking a proactive role can help your child succeed.

The bottom line is that parents must be more aware and understand the progress monitoring (their role in the process) to ensure that their children are making adequate progress because too many are not. By taking a proactive role, you can help your child succeed.

Parent TIP: You must learn the school’s progress monitoring system and how to track it. Staying on top of progress monitoring is crucial.

Helpful Articles

This post originally appeared on our July/August 2023 Magazine