Take Action on Progress Monitoring Data

When reviewing progress data, we often think first of individual student intensification. More and more, I see that most students in an intervention group aren’t making expected growth. Starting progress monitoring data reviews by examining the performance of the overall group, instead of student by student, has several advantages.

More Efficient

Think about it…we pull up a student's graph and see they aren’t making expected progress so we talk about some potential reasons and decide how to intensify. Then, we pull up the next student’s graph and see they aren't making expected progress and talk about the potential reasons and decide how to intensify. And so on with all the students in a grade level receiving intervention. 

If we start with the intervention group, we efficiently identify entire groups that need intensification, instead of going student by student. It saves time during intervention meetings.

Gives a clue about implementation fidelity

If 6 students are in an intervention group and 5 of them are on track to meet their goals, teams that aren't collecting formal implementation fidelity data can infer that implementation was strong enough for almost the entire group to make sufficient progress. 

On the other hand, implementation fidelity would be the first thing a team may consider if 5 of the 6 students in a group were not on track to meet their goals.

Informs system needs

By reviewing progress data by the intervention group, building leadership teams can identify interventions that are most effective and those that are not successful. They can identify coaching areas of focus, professional learning needs, and gaps in high-quality intervention materials. As the team grows more sophisticated with data use, they can even start to identify dosage needs for local students. For instance, a team may determine that 30 minutes 5 days a week is needed for a specific program to result in accelerated student growth.

By reviewing progress monitoring data by group first, teams can identify best next steps for both groups and individual students. 

The MTSS Data Academy supports teams to take action with their progress monitoring data through data protocols, additional resources, professional learning and ongoing coaching. Learn more here or contact us with any questions.