Curriculum-Based Measurement and Progress Monitoring

Posted by Beth DuBose on Mar 04, 2009

The other day we looked at how Universal Screening is one element that schools and districts must consider when developing their RTI implementation plan. Another element is Progress Monitoring. Many questions arise when developing your Progress Monitoring plan.

How often should we do it?

What should we use?

Who provides the Progress Monitoring assessments?

How will we track if students are making progress?

Why can’t we just use our traditional assessments?

Traditional Assessments vs. Progress Monitoring

The reason you want to stay away from traditional assessments for your Progress Monitoring is because they are typically more time consuming. They also have many more questions that might not reflect the areas that you are trying to assess the student on. Traditional assessments are also not given frequently enough to track student progress to catch a student early if they are not making the progress we want so the intervention can be changed or tweaked.

Many schools and districts are using Curriculum-Based Measurements for Progress Monitoring. These measurements are quick and provide immediate feedback to the teacher. These measurements are focused on the district curriculum, and can be used to make educational descisions for the student.

This 2007 presentation presents information regarding the benefits and purpose of Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM). It explains how to measure student progress and how to use student progress monitoring data in reading. It was presented by Chris Lemons, Laura Sáenz, and Pamela Stecker, and released by the National Center on Student Progress Monitoring.