Guide
Progress monitoring without the paperwork
Progress monitoring often means formal probes on a fixed schedule. Those have their place. Day to day, the most useful record is the one you can keep in two minutes after every lesson and read at a glance a month later.
In short
Record three things after every lesson: what was taught, one rating of how it went, and any skill to revisit. Review shaky skills on a short schedule, watch for skills that stay at Developing, and summarize monthly as secure, developing and needs support. That record answers most progress questions and takes two minutes a session.
The two-minute record
- Lesson taught and the date.
- One rating: Needs support, Developing or Secure.
- Skills to revisit, if any.
- Minutes, if a report will need them.
How often
Every session, not every week. A rating from the moment you saw the student work is worth more than a Friday reconstruction. Formal probes can stay on their own schedule; this record is what makes them make sense.
Reading the record
- A skill at Developing for more than three sessions wants a different approach, not more of the same.
- Two Needs support ratings in a row is a stop sign: check the foundation skill underneath.
- A long gap between sessions explains more regressions than any teaching choice.
- Secure means move on. Holding a secure skill for extra practice slows the whole sequence.
What to show a parent
Three lists (secure, developing, needs support) and the dates of the last few lessons. Plain words, no percentages. Parents want to know what their child can do now and what you are working on next.
What to show a school
An instruction log: every session by date with minutes and what was taught. It documents that intervention happened and how much. Pair it with the parent summary and any formal probe results.
In Literacy Trail
The ratings you tap after each lesson build the skill history, schedule review and fill the reports. The attention list applies the reading-the-record rules above automatically and tells you who needs a second look.