Sandbox Reading Assistant What is Progress Monitoring?

Recommendations For SY 24/25 and Beyond

Summary of Improvement:

Based on feedback from districts and teachers, the Reading Assistant Team has developed a measurement feature that will significantly improve teachers' ability to monitor each student's progress. Beginning in SY24-25, Reading Assistant will provide an “Estimated Mastery” metric for each student based on all Reading Assistant activities—even if that student has only engaged in Reading Assistant Practice activities. In other words, teachers no longer need to assign “Progress Monitor” tests. This will increase reporting precision and save teachers time.

Using Estimated Mastery for Progress Monitoring:

Progress Monitoring will be keyed to:

a.              Accurate calculation of the Progress Line (the blue growth line shown in the Progress Monitoring report).

b.              Capturing estimated student mastery bi-weekly as a function of that line.

c.               Reporting on that estimated mastery in both teacher and admin reporting.

Key Terms:

• Progress Line (aka Growth Line):  The dotted blue line designating a student’s trajectory of reading mastery over the year.

• Predicted Ability: The current best estimate for a student’s mastery level at the end of the school year.

• Estimated Mastery: The current best estimate for a student’s ability today. 

Improvements:

This year, Reading Assistant’s Progress Monitoring will feature the following new benefits:

a.              Single Measure: The Progress Line in the Progress Report will become the focal point for each student’s current and predicted progress.

b.              Calculated Holistically: This Progress Line will be calculated from all the data available.  Screening data, Benchmark Assessment, bi-weekly Progress Monitors, Practice and Skills Scaffold sessions will all be used in concert to calculate a student’s current and EOY mastery.

c.               Advanced & Accurate Algorithm:  The Progress Line will utilize a sophisticated algorithm leveraging Reading Assistant’s experience with hundreds of thousands of students to estimate the trajectory of growth.

d.              Progress Monitor Pre-Readers:  Progress Lines will now work better for students in the Early Reader Skills Scaffold. This enables a huge stride forward. Previously, with the traditional Progress Monitoring assignment function, reporting was limited for students not yet reading connected text. 

e.                Equivalent For Spanish & English:  With Spanish ARM scores now calculated in the same way and to the same scale as English, you can employ the same progress monitoring protocol to track 

Recommended Protocol:

1. Administer a full-fledged Assessment in the Fall, Winter, Spring.

2. Have all students practice with Reading Assistant, working in Practice sessions up to 5 times per week. Note that Progress Monitoring will still work well even if many students use far below the recommended dosage level.     

3. The Metric to employ is ARM.  

4. Teachers will track progress in the Progress Monitoring Report by hovering over the Progress Line on a specific date to view “Estimated Mastery.” 

Note: The screenshot above shows that the blue line value is available to teachers via hover.  

1. For administrators, an “Estimated Mastery” column will be in the Weekly Extract that corresponds to each student’s most recent Estimated Mastery ARM.

2. Administrators should designate Progress Monitoring “moments” employing the desired cadence. We recommend monthly or biweekly. At these PM Moments, Estimated Mastery data should be pulled from the extract into the District’s system of record for tracking student growth.

3. English and Spanish Progress Monitoring can both be done using this precise protocol, with no variation.

FAQ

Q: What is the recommendation protocol for Progress Monitoring?
A: The Reading Assistant Team recommends administering the benchmarks three times per year (BOY, MOY, EOY), and requiring students to practice with Reading Assistant multiple times weekly. To monitor progress, teachers and administrators should schedule a handful of moments throughout the year (for example, at the end of each month) to view progress measured by each student’s “Estimated Mastery” ARM Score. This new method has four major benefits: 

1. More data is at Reading Assistant’s disposal to estimate each student’s mastery.

2. Scores for Early Readers are more comprehensive.

3. Less teacher time is expended assigning Progress Monitoring tasks.

4. Process is invisible to students– it does not feel like a “test.” 

Q: Do we need to continue assigning formal Progress Monitoring tests? 
A: No. While doing so will provide additional useful data, updating both Estimated Mastery and Predicted Ability, we recommend simply having students practice. Practice is a “formative assessment” that builds skills while measuring mastery. There is no need to assign Progress Monitors.

Q: Can Reading Assistant accurately monitor progress if she is simultaneously stopping the student to deliver interventions?
A: Yes. At this point, Reading Assistant’s psychometrics are based on millions of practice sessions across the country. This provides ample data for Reading Assistant to produce reliable, normed ARM scores, regardless of the passage difficulty or how often a child is being paused for micro-intervention delivery.   Reading Assistant is self-aware around the time spent on micro-interventions and the time the student is reading, so measures like WCPM are accurate.

Q:Are there any differences between the English and Spanish progress monitoring protocols?
A: No, you can utilize the ARM-based approach identically. Both English and Spanish ARM are now on the same scale.

Should you opt to assign a Progress Monitoring Assessment the cadence by grade level is below:

Please note that the Ready Module ("Wake up, Spot!") will be shown at the beginning of every Progress Monitoring assessment.

‼️ Note
When a student has completed all available Progress Monitors for their grade level (as listed above), the next time a Progress Monitoring assessment is assigned, the student will encounter the following message:

You can navigate to the Tracking Report and remove the current assignment to address this situation. This action will resolve the issue, allowing the student to proceed with practice stories.