Do you use a progress monitoring schedule in your special education classroom? Over the years, I have tried many systems, but a progress monitoring schedule has been the most efficient and organized way to track data. Let me show you why using a progress monitoring schedule is essential in special education classrooms!
Weekly Progress Monitoring Schedule
When you’re making a progress monitoring schedule, the first thing you want to determine is your daily rotation. This will depend on your district’s progress monitoring requirements. For example, my district requires at minimum we have one data point weekly for academic goals and 2 data points weekly for behavior. I personally like having more data that that, so we get 2 for academic and 4 for behavior. Choose a schedule rotation that works for you and stick to it.
My classroom’s progress monitoring schedule looks like this: Monday-Thursday we track behavior and self-help, Mondays and Wednesdays we track reading and writing, Tuesdays and Thursdays we track math and motor, and Fridays we do any makeups.
IEP Goal Data Matrix
This is going to be the key piece to your progress monitoring schedule. Once you have your schedule, you need to make an IEP Goal Data Matrix. I just make a simple table with each student and each day of the week. Then, I fill in each day’s goals for each student. I stick this in a page protector and we mark off objectives as we track them each day with a dry erase marker.
Organize the Data Sheets
The last piece to the progress monitoring schedule puzzle are the data sheets. You can find my data sheets HERE. I like these data sheets because they are editable and I can customize them to my needs. I format all my data sheets the same way so it is easy for me and my staff to grab and go take the data we need each day. I label each section with the subject and objective title that matches the data matrix. This is a fool proof system for tracking data.
In addition to the subject and objective titles, I put instructions for weekly data at the top, and I put instructions for tracking each objective. This progress monitoring system has made it possible for us to track each goal multiple times per week to get a clear picture of each students’ progress.
What progress monitoring schedule do you use? Progress monitoring can be a beast to complete in your classroom, but using a progress monitoring schedule can make it so much more simple. If you’re looking for more progress monitoring tips, check out my IEP goal bin blog post!
