What's in your Progress Monitoring Playbook?
- Tanya
- Sep 6, 2022
- 5 min read
Updated: Jan 12
Build a playbook of easy-to-use tools for tracking your learners’ progress and guiding them to set reasonable goals in reading and writing.
Take a sneak peek into this playbook that has been put together to guide the informal assessment of your learners’ progress.
This playbook of guides and tools will make your classroom informal assessments so much easier, organized and informative!
Why Put Together a Progress Monitoring Playbook
It’s important to equip your instructional toolkit with tools you can easily use to track your readers’ (and writers’) progress.
The purpose of having a Progress Monitoring Playbook is to have just the right tool at just the right time.
You never know what path your readers (or writers) may take you down. So, it’s important to always be ready. That’s why creating your own Progress Monitoring Playbook is essential.
Take a peek inside my Progress Monitoring Playbook.
Put together a Literacy Portfolio for each student.
Build a reader profile for each student
Help readers understand their reading (and writing) identity using Engagement Inventories & Reading Inventories.
Guide readers and writers in setting reasonable & attainable goals.
Revisit those goals every 4 to 6 weeks.
Guide readers to track their own reading and writing progress.
Use exit tickets & utilize the Exit Ticket Cheat Sheet to quickly assess the work
Use the Evaluating Reading Artifacts Cheat Sheet to guide your thinking as you look over reading work samples, observe, assess, and talk with your readers
Utilize the Conferring Guides and Toolkit for guiding questions and note forms to use when conferring with readers and writers
Create a Small Group & Conferring Schedule to maximize your time
Have a clear plan to assess Stop & Jots with an easy-to-use assessment tool
Conduct quick and easy Informal Oral Reading Records
Guide learners in understanding how to use Written Response Rubrics
Encourage and guide readers’ text conversations using Discussion Rubrics
Literacy Portfolios
✅What Are Student Literacy Assessment Portfolios
A Literacy Portfolio is a place to collect reading and writing artifacts (work samples) to review and track the growth of your readers and writers.
You have probably received some type of folder with student work samples from previous grades. I have heard these collections called by several different but very similar names, such as…
Literacy Assessment Portfolios
Student Literacy Folders
Literacy Assessment Folders
Literacy Portfolios
Student Literacy Portfolios
Reading and writing folders
Student portfolios
OR…any other similar names.
These Literacy Portfolios are easy to assemble because they will include authentic work your readers and writers are doing every day in your classroom.
These Literacy Portfolios are easy to assemble because they will include quick and informal assessments you conduct every day in your classroom.
✅Why You and Your Learners Should Build Literacy Portfolios Together
Student Literacy Assessment Portfolios will guide your learners (and you) in seeing how they are growing as readers and writers.
Many young learners benefit from seeing a visual picture of a new concept or skill. Literacy Assessment Portfolios will help create a visual picture of a student’s growth in reading and writing.
When learners help you keep and review their Literacy Assessment Portfolios, they will be able to compare their progress to their previous progress. That’s better than any data chart on the wall or bulletin board where readers and writers are compared to their classmates.
All students learn differently and grow at different rates.
Literacy Portfolios are a way to track student progress throughout the school year. This is the place to determine the strengths and weaknesses of each learner in reading and writing. This assessment tool will travel from grade to grade to document their progress..
✅What A Literacy Portfolio Looks Like
A Literacy Portfolio is a folder or binder filled with student work samples (artifacts) from previous grades. If you use a pocket folder, have one side for reading and the other side for writing.
The work samples are arranged in sequential order with the most recent on top.
Each reading and writing artifact is labeled with the grade level in which it was completed, the teacher's name and the date on which that sample was completed.
✅What Reading and Writing Artifacts Could Be Included
The reading and writing work samples that are included throughout the school year will help learners SEE how they are progressing as readers and writers. This work will guide them in creating student written goals for reading and writing.
Some possible artifacts to include are…
Stop and jots from several times throughout the school year
Written responses from several times throughout the school year
Rubric assessments of student work
Student created goals for reading and writing
Student created goal reflections for reading and writing
Reading reflections from several times throughout the school year (such as, beginning, middle, end)
Anecdotal notes from the teacher
Engagement inventories (several throughout the year)
Reading Interest Inventories (several throughout the year such as beginning, middle and end of year)
Formal and informal running records
Reading level tracking chart
✅The Value of Student Literacy Portfolios
When readers & writers have a collection of their work throughout the school year to review, the teacher can guide conversations to show the growth that has been made from the beginning of the school year to the present.
Or better yet, if each grade level is using Literacy Portfolios, a student's growth can be shown over their school career.
👉Every learner grows each school year.
👉Every learner grows at a different rate than their peers.
👉Every learner needs the confidence that Literacy Portfolios can bring to their reading and writing work.
Build Reader (& Writer) Profiles
✅ Utilize engagement inventories to assess learners' reading and writing behaviors, including their focus, deep thinking time, and distractions.
✅ Employ Reading Inventories to help learners identify their reading identity, aiding them in discovering the readers they aspire to be.
✅ Use classroom snapshot sheets to identify the immediate needs of your specific group of readers and writers.
Guide Readers (&Writers) Through Goal Setting
✅Readers and writers need guidance when establishing personal goals.
✅By sitting with readers and writers to help them reflect on their current work, they gain the confidence to set realistic and achievable goals.
Exit Tickets
✅An exit ticket is a quick way to assess the day's learning.
✅By synthesizing their learning into a short response or visual image, students engage in critical and analytical thinking.
✅When reviewing their work to choose what best showcases their understanding, students think at a higher level.
✅Students evaluate and analyze their work to determine what best demonstrates their learning.
Conferring With Readers & Writers
✅Conferring is crucial for providing individualized and differentiated instruction based on students' immediate needs.
✅Conferring is like a "one-man roadshow," so preparation is essential.
Your conferring toolkit should be packed thoughtfully and intentionally.
✅Both you and your readers/writers need to be prepared for conferring sessions.
✅Readers and writers should learn the expectations for requesting and participating in a conference during a minilesson, where you also model what a conference looks and sounds like.
Easy-to-Use Assessment Tools
✅When understanding what your readers need to gain, progress monitoring becomes a daily routine. You need a toolkit of progress monitoring tools at your disposal that are easy to use.
✅Determining a students’ reading progress is about...
Assess the student's current level
Set a realistic improvement goal
Implement targeted instructional actions
✅When that goal is achieved, set another reasonable goal and the process starts over.
✅Your readers are giving you a myriad of data every day during independent reading, small group instruction, and within individual conferences.
Your readers use engagement tools like think sheets, post-it notes, and graphic organizers for quick text responses during independent reading.
They have likely written longer reading responses.
You observe their behaviors and attitudes towards reading during independent work.
You conduct running records and listen to them read.
You listen to their discussions about the text.
You track their reading levels over time, maintaining a chart to monitor progress.
You confer with them on strategies and skills applied in independent reading.
They probably share reading interests and reflect on their progress with you.
Until next time...