Progress Monitoring

Progress Monitoring Steps  Monitor the intervention’s progress as directed by individual student’s RtI plan  Establish a baseline and expected growth and monitor regularly  Graph progress – apply gap analysis to compare to peer performance Important to track performance level (comparison to peers) and rate of progress (to determine whether the gap is closing)  Reference developmental norms for oral expression and listening comprehension (see norm table) 2

Progress Monitoring Recommendations for English Language Learners  Monitor progress of English language acquisition based on Stages of English Language Acquisition  Seek assistance from SLP and/or ESL specialists in the development of linguistically appropriate progress monitoring probes Note: Benchmarks appropriate for English-speaking students may not be appropriate for ELLs. Some of the same progress monitoring tools may be used, but the expectations should be based on the performance of other ELLs at the same level of English acquisition. 3

Progress Monitoring Examples: Listening Comprehension  Tally number of repetitions necessary to appropriately follow oral directions.  Track number of questions correctly answered following an appropriately-leveled passage.  Track number of salient details recalled from a Read-To activity Example: Teacher could have a daily tracking sheet to tally a student’s responses, perhaps during a particular part of instruction each day. For exmaple, he/she may tally whether a student starts tasks without the need for repetition of directions or the number of repetitions required. Teacher could put a token in a container whenever the expected behavior occurs and transfer results to a tally sheet at the end of the day/week. 4

Progress Monitoring Examples: Grammar and Syntax  Monitor the occurrence of developmentally-appropriate grammatical structures in an oral language sample  Implement Cloze technique: e.g., one man, two ___  Monitor accurate repetition of sentences containing the structure of concern (e.g., “The cats and dogs are playing.” for subject-verb agreement) Difficulty with this task does not necessarily reflect a grammar/syntax issue, but it might be indicative of one. The theory is that someone is unlikely to repeat a grammatical structure he/she does not normally use.  Monitor the grammar and syntax in written products 5

Progress Monitoring Examples: Vocabulary  Monitor correct use of new vocabulary in context when prompted. (5 to 10 new words per week)  Monitor accurate explanations of word meanings.  Monitor accuracy in identifying appropriate word function or category… receptively by pointing to pictures, or… expressively by stating the information  Student rates own familiarity with words: (1) never heard it before (2) heard it, but don’t know what it means (3) know it has something to do with _______ (4) know it well [adapted from Beck et al, 2002] 6

Considerations for English Language Learners:  Difficulty with typical vocabulary tasks in relationship to stage of English language acquisition (Refer to Stages of Language Acquisition)  Alternative options for demonstrating their vocabulary knowledge… pointing to pictures Pantomime Be sure to consider the English Language Learner’s current stage of language acquisition. Even students at the Advanced Fluency Stage will need intense work on developing vocabulary specific to academic content areas. Progress Monitoring: Vocabulary, cont. 7

Progress Monitoring Examples: Narrative Structure  Monitor spoken narratives for clear beginning, middle, and end (Monitoring might occur during 30-second conversation activity (language sampling)  Monitor number of events successfully sequenced using picture or sentence cards  Monitor the student’s narrative structures in written products ( Poor narrative structure in student’s writing may indicate a need to assess a student’s oral language skill in this area. However, oral and written language ability are not always directly related. A student could have a disability specific to written language only.) 8

Progress Monitoring Examples: Social Language  Track whether or not a student responds or imitates greetings first thing in the morning.  Have student self-rate against a given daily goal, such as asking a friend to play or orally sharing in a cooperative group, on a daily chart (e.g., depicting a happy, sad or neutral face). 9

Positive Response to Intervention “An intervention is successful if the achievement gap between the performance of the student at-risk and the expected benchmark has decreased based on the data collected through progress monitoring.” 10

Sources of Assistance with Language Skill Concerns…  Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs) Consultation for any student language concerns Recommendation of appropriate interventions & progress monitoring strategies/tools  English Language Learner specialist/teacher Consultation if child is learning English as a second language Provision of information as to student’s Language Proficiency level Recommendation of strategies to increase English proficiency  Referral of child to school’s RtI team ELL 11