Reading Comprehension Progress Monitoring

A big part of being a Special Educator is identifying specific areas for student growth, designating annual goals for those growth areas and then monitoring student progress throughout the year.  

One of the big challenges for me as I start this year is figuring out how to monitor student's progress in a way that doesn't take them away from the regular educational progress in the classroom. In a typical Special Education-only setting, we would do weekly monitoring with quick assessments. I haven't figured out a great way to do this without interrupting their time in the Gen Ed classroom or really calling "them" (the Special Ed students) out as different.  All along, I've been delivering additional  or supplemental instruction to small groups but this hasn't been only for Special Ed students.  

My co-teacher and I decided that we would just monitor all the students.  We have a large percentage of students (about 50%) who didn't pass their grade level reading assessment at the start of the year.  This means we are providing additional reading comprehension instruction to the whole class and would like to see more students passing at the end of the year.  (Reading fluency instruction has been harder to deliver and is an area I need to develop and QUICKLY!)

So, Friday, I instructed the students in 2 test-taking / reading comprehension strategies and gave them all a below-grade level reading passage with multiple choice questions.   I told them we'd be working on these weekly as "test prep" (similarly, we do weekly analogy practice).   The steps they were to follow were:  1) Read the questions.  2) Read the passage.  3) Eliminate any wrong answers.  4) Choose the best answer.  Pretty basic stuff, but we're just getting started.

These 7th graders have done some pretty high-level reading already this year ~ and have The Odyssey in store for later in the year!  So, I was expecting someone to say, "This is so easy!" But no one did, thank you, kids! I think the results will yield good information for many students.  

As the year progresses, I plan to provide additional strategy instruction that we can use in other reading settings, not just "test prep." Also, I will eventually level the passages based on how students are doing.  

Success story:  One non-Special Ed student rushed through and was the first one done.  I checked in with him and asked if he'd followed the steps I'd showed them.  Nope.  I reviewed the steps with him and gave him a fresh sheet.  His was the only assessment I scored on the spot.  After he finished his 2nd try I let him know his results:  1st try:  0% correct.  2nd try:  86%. Wow, what a difference actually reading the passage makes!  I hope that sticks with him!!