Aimlines and rate of improvement in reading progress monitoring

What is an aimline?

The aimline, also called a goal line, shows the path a student needs to follow to reach a goal by a set date. It starts at the baseline and ends at the goal. Each week's score is compared with where the line says the student should be.

The aimline is a plan, not a prediction. The student's actual trend line is the prediction, and the gap between the two lines is what you act on.

How do you calculate rate of improvement?

Rate of improvement, or ROI, is the change in score divided by the number of weeks.

1. Subtract the baseline from the current score, or from the goal if you are planning.
2. Divide by the number of weeks between the two.
3. The answer is points gained per week.

Say a third grader starts at 52 words correct per minute in week 1 and reads 64 in week 9. That is 12 words over 8 weeks, or 1.5 words per week.

How do you choose the goal?

There are three common ways. The first is the year-end benchmark from your screener. The second, when you have no benchmark, is the spring 50th percentile from published norms such as Hasbrouck and Tindal (2017). The third uses the student's own growth rate, and it fits students far below grade level or already above it.

Benchmarks tie the goal to later success, which is why most teams prefer them. Norms only describe how typical students score, so treat them as a fallback rather than a standard.

Why does catch-up growth need to be steep?

A student who is behind and grows at the typical rate stays behind forever. To close a gap, the student must grow faster than peers. That means an ambitious weekly rate, often half again or double the typical growth for the grade.

Published typical growth rates come from students receiving ordinary instruction. They're useful context, but they're often too low as targets for students in intervention who need to catch up.

What is a trend line, and how is it different?

A trend line summarizes the student's actual scores. Once you have seven or eight points, you can draw one by hand. Split the points into thirds by time, then find the median score and median week in the first and last thirds. Connect those two points with a straight line.

A spreadsheet can fit a least-squares line instead. Either way, compare the trend's slope with the aimline's slope. If the trend is flatter, the student will miss the goal unless something changes.

When should you redraw the aimline?

Redraw it upward when the student is clearly ahead, for example four points in a row above the line. Raise the goal and draw a new line from the current level.

Don't redraw it downward because progress is slow. Change the instruction instead: more time, a smaller group, a different focus. Lowering the goal only hides the problem.

How do you draw an aimline by hand?

1. Plot the baseline at the first week, using the median of three probes.
2. Find the goal week on the bottom axis and mark the goal score above it.
3. Use a ruler to connect the two points with a straight line.
4. Label the line with the goal and the date so anyone reading the graph understands it.

That is all an aimline is. The value comes from comparing new points with it every week, not from drawing it neatly. Count weeks of instruction, not calendar weeks, when a long break falls inside the period.

What is a realistic weekly growth rate?

Studies of oral reading fluency growth report typical gains of roughly one to two words per week in the primary grades, with smaller gains in the upper grades. Those numbers describe students receiving ordinary instruction. Students in a strong intervention can and often do grow faster, especially in first and second grade.

Use typical growth as a floor, not a target. If your plan only asks a struggling student to grow as fast as average students, the gap you started with will still be there at the end of the year.

How do you explain an aimline to a student or parent?

Keep the language simple. The line is the plan, the dots are what happened, and the gap between them tells the teacher what to do next.