Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Maggie.
[00:00:01] Speaker B: And I'm Nicole. Welcome to the DAC Dyslexia in Coffee Podcast. We are so happy you could join us. We're both moms and dyslexia interventionists who want to talk about our students and children. What dyslexia is, how it affects our kids, strategies to help and topics related to other learning disabilities will also be covered in this podcast. Parents are not alone and we want to give voice to the concerns and struggles we are all having. This is a safe place to learn more about how to help our children grow and succeed in school, in the world. Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the conversation.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: Hi everybody. Welcome to episode 37.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Yay.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: Of DAC holy cow.
We like to start our episodes with the concept of the week. So the concept of the week is our opportunity as practitioners to kind of pull back the curtain and let you into an intervention session with us. So we like to teach you things that we would be teaching with our students or talking a lot about with our students. So the concept of the week this week is progress monitoring.
Progress monitoring is a standardized process and it is used to evaluate a student's progress towards a performance target. So typically it is based on kind of frequent assessments of a specific student skill. Good examples of the ways we might use project progress monitoring here. We would, we would measure single word decoding skills, we would measure reading fluency, we would measure encoding skills for accuracy. So we would distill down the specific school phonemic awareness, we would distill down the specific skill target. And we're going to monitor that student's progress on that particular target very, very explicitly and systematically.
A bit of a nerdy topic for this week, but Nicole and I are very excited to talk about this, which.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: Is actually our topic of the week is progress monitoring. So we get to hear more about it.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: We get to wear our like nerdy glasses.
I happen to very much like. Yeah.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: So progress monitoring, we assess a student before introducing any new concepts to ensure that the instruction remains structured, sequential and responsive to the individual learning needs.
So this evidence based practice maximizes student success in reading and spelling development?
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: So what does that mean?
[00:02:52] Speaker A: Right. So progress monitoring, the tools, they provide insight into whether or not a student has achieved automaticity and accuracy of something we've already taught.
So it tells us if they're ready for the new material or not.
We continuously assess decoding skills, fluency and spelling so that we can reinforce those weak areas while advancing where appropriate. This is where we have talked about a lot of Times the fact that our lessons are diagnostic and prescriptive. So the diagnostic piece, we're taking notes and notes and notes, and then the prescriptive piece is we're going, ah, these are the errors that occurred. This is what I'm going to do next. This is what I'm going to do about it with this information.
So progress monitoring is done every single lesson in the way that we're writing notes all of the time.
And it's also done with the help of different kinds of graphs that we might either create or use, depending on what kind of programs we're using.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: Progress monitoring tools also help prevent overload by ensuring that students are not presented with concepts that they're not yet ready to process.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: Yes.
Right. So we're going to look and see. Okay, when I'm looking at this student's trend line, how quickly are they progressing and how much can they handle? So if I'm thinking about, I think a really good example is certain kind of vowel teams. Right. If I'm thinking about, okay, I want to teach the vowel teams for long O. Well, there are many of them.
Do I want to teach all of the ways we could spell long o in one lesson to this student?
Most likely not.
I almost never advocate to teach all of the ways to spell long O in one lesson. That would not usually go very well.
However, if I have a student that I'm going, okay, they progressed very quickly through these concepts and I actually think they're ready for at least two or three of these ways in one lesson, then I'm going to give that a shot. I'm kind of looking at, okay, what does this student's learning profile tell me about the kind of learner and how fast we can go?
It's the tool that helps me. Right. The whole, the old adage, we've said it before on the past on this podcast, many times. Right. How fast do we go? We go as fast as we can, but as slow as we must.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: Progress monitoring tools help determine which concepts need further reinforcement before we can move on. It also supports long term retention.
OG practitioners use assessments to guide lesson planning, ensuring that instruction is continuously adjusted to meet student need.
This is why we do one on one interventions, because obviously a student's learning profile is very different to a different student's learning profile. And you. Nobody's ever the same.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. You know, even if you are a practitioner out there working with small groups, you know, you know that each group profile is going to be different and you're going to have to Plan accordingly. So you are constantly planning based on who is in front of you through Orton Gillingham instruction. I mean, really, they say no more than five students at a time. And that is pretty unruly. We don't work with groups like that in this setting. But I know that we have listeners out there who are working with groups and kind of are forced into situations where you're working with a lot bigger groups than is recommended.
So, you know, I see you and I hear you out there, listeners, thank you for doing what you can for students. I often find myself in that position and it can be really hard. It's when that progress monitoring becomes so overwhelming then because I don't really know what I can do with this day data anymore.
Yeah. So that's really hard.
And just know that I do see you. And there are a lot of resources out there for trying to figure out, okay, how can I process the data that I'm taking?
You know, and what data do I really, really need to collect and what is going to be meaningful. We even have to think about that in a one on one setting. What kind of data do I want and how am I going to use it in a meaningful way?
[00:08:22] Speaker B: Correct.
And then even every lesson we mark down student error so that we can address them again in the next session. So even if it's not a formal kind of progress monitoring, we're always progress monitoring those errors.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: Exactly. Exactly. You know, we're going to do, right after a few concepts, we would do a review.
We would make sure all these concepts are still automatic. If they're not, we're going to go back and you know, do explicit instruction. Students with dyslexia need more repetition for any rule or concept.
Yeah, those guys you just really need to do that with every time you do kind of a review lesson. Just kind of a pro tip, that is a great time to also do a little fluency check in and to do that kind of single words reading, single word spelling, throw it on a chart, you know, that's a good time. You're doing a review anyway. That's a really good time to sit down and think about, okay, where am I going next with this kid?
[00:09:41] Speaker B: And then usually depending on the scope and sequence that, that you use, because they're all different, you either have a level or stage. You also then review at the end of each level and stage. So it's more of a, it's a bigger review at that point to make sure that all the concepts are still automatic.
And if they're not, you Go back.
[00:10:05] Speaker A: Right, right. It's why it's part of every single lesson.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: We also always. It's very good practice to give that data to the students in the family. They should know where the student is, and the student should know where they're at.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: Yeah. It can be such a great motivating tool for a lot of my students, too. They love it.
Many of them love to see, here is where you were, here is where you are. Because, spoiler alert, this kind of instruction really, really works.
And so we.
Our trend lines are always up and to the right.
I mean, if they're not, something else is going on. Truly.
Truly.
So a lot of those students, right, they love it. They love to see, look where you were, look at where you are now.
The way we use progress monitoring here, we kind of follow the general recommendations, which is kind of six to eight months, is when we're going to do another informal assessment where we're going outside of the materials that we're teaching from, and we're doing something like a phonics survey. We're doing a spelling assessment, and we're comparing. Where were we at the beginning? Where are we now?
We might do that with sight words. We might do that with reading fluency. It's going to depend on what we're working on with our students.
Recently we've been hiring a lot of people here at dc, which is fantastic.
But it's also, also now our job to train the people that are incoming. And a lot of the questions that I get from new practitioners is, you know, how often do I have to go through and do all of that kind of informal testing? I think sometimes when we hear progress monitoring in our brain somewhere, something like a report card pops up. Right. At least for me, that's what I kind of feel like that people have the idea that this progress monitoring has to be very, very formal. It has to be charted out, it has to look pretty.
You know, I think none of that is necessary. I don't think it has to look pretty. I don't think it has to be super duper formal. I think that you have to be consistent and find a system that works for you as a practitioner.
Bottom line, you need to be taking notes at every single lesson, and you need to have a very good understanding of. My student knows this concept very well. My student does not know this concept, and this is where I need to go.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: And really, the first lesson that you. You always do in formal assessments, the first lesson when you first meet a student to kind of see where they're at. Right. Because you don't want to not be challenging enough, but you don't want to be over challenging. So to have that informal assessment right away so that you kind of know where to start is important also, you.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: Know, and best practice is whatever informal assessment you used in the beginning. I'm just going to name one just because we do use it here pretty often and I think it helps to put a name on things. So there's the core phonics survey. Okay, so if I gave a core phonics survey at lesson number one in about six to eight months, I'm going to give that again and I'm going to do a direct comparison. Here's the skills they had at the first meeting. Here are the skills they have now.
If there are any that I would have expected to be secure but aren't, I need to go back and reteach them. And it really is as simple as that. Progress monitoring, honestly is that simple. It is using the data to inform your instruction.
I think as a brand new teacher, this is something that really intimidated me.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: It's, it's hard because on the teacher side of things, outside of kind of this, the context, not my job I have right now.
But often student data is tied to teacher pay.
It is tied to school outcomes, district outcomes, state outcomes. So there is a awful lot of pressure to collect data. Data, data, data, data, data. And I did not feel as a young teacher that I was prepared to even understand what that data meant and also why I was taking it in the first place.
So I really, I get new practitioners who don't have, don't have the tools they feel like they need. Progress monitoring can feel really overwhelming. And so now I really like it because I understand it, but I don't think I had a great understanding as a newbie teacher. So it's now a topic that I feel pretty passionate about and I feel like I have a really good system and I know my students very well.
It helps me develop a good profile for them and it helps me effectively communicate not only with them, but their teachers and their parents.
But it took a minute.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You know, data is not easy to interpret. Yeah. And that does take a little time to figure out how it applies to the student right in front of you.
[00:16:25] Speaker A: I think it does. You know, and there is different kinds of data. I mean, it is really important that we have the hard numbers here. This student is 80% accurate at this level. Right. That kind of data is very important at this Level.
It is equally important that we have that qualitative data, right? That kind of data that says that the quality of their voice has improved, their porosity has improved things that you don't really. You can't really put a number on their ability to read a sentence with proper phrasing.
That is something that is much more difficult to measure in a quantitative data way. But it is incredibly important to track it and talk about it and be able to explain that.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: I think your example a couple of episodes ago about the student who didn't realize they were not.
They didn't realize that they really needed to be here until they started realizing they now can read their text messages from their friends.
That's what you're talking about. That's. That you can't measure that. Right.
[00:17:53] Speaker A: But that was a number.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: That was a number. That's not a data point. Right.
You just can't. But for him, it's very functional and that's important to him to be able to be with. Understanding his friends and being able to meet up with them and understanding their plans for the day when, you know. But that's good to have in that narrative part.
[00:18:19] Speaker A: Well, and I think that's exactly it. You know, I will beat the drum forever.
I think that quantitative data is incredibly important. We cannot. We really cannot do our jobs without quantitative data, but we very much need that qualitative data.
I think, you know, doing the kinds of formal assessments that Nicole and I both do here as well, where we do, like a diagnostic assessment, we talked about those a few episodes ago. We actually did a whole series on that.
But writing that narrative piece where we explain what do these numbers even mean and how do they affect this child, I think that is really important. And probably the part that clicked for me as a teacher over time that, oh, okay, I understand now, I use these numbers to drive instruction. I get what I'm doing now.
And it. It's. Can be actually pretty fun.
You know, Year two teacher Maggie is like, what is wrong with this woman?
Can't believe you like progress monitoring. What happened to you?
But I do. I do, right?
[00:19:49] Speaker B: And just going back to like, regular lesson planning, just having those errors, that's a form of progress monitoring.
[00:19:58] Speaker A: It is.
[00:19:59] Speaker B: So just knowing that, you know, it doesn't have to be a huge chunk of data. It can be small pieces of data, too.
[00:20:09] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. You know, it's that idea of you want. You want your little small pictures, and then when you're doing a big old review unit, you want to get that bigger Picture. So it's like you zoom in and you get hyper focused on a skill and then you zoom out and you start looking at the big picture.
[00:20:28] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:20:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Fun.
Who knew progress monitoring could be fun?
[00:20:36] Speaker B: Who knew?
[00:20:37] Speaker A: Who knew?
[00:20:37] Speaker B: Who knew?
[00:20:44] Speaker A: So, yeah, a little bit of a shorter episode, but I think really important that we touch upon what is progress monitoring. How do we use it here?
What drives us as practitioners? And it's just. It's a good tool for talking to parents, talking to students.
We talk a lot about it one on one with our students. I will pull out sheets. And it doesn't have to be formal. I will pull out previous lesson plans and show my students. Yeah, look at the words you were working on just a month ago. And they'll be like, I could do those in my sleep.
[00:21:25] Speaker B: You know, it really builds their confidence when they see that.
[00:21:28] Speaker A: Really builds their confidence. It's such an important tool that we have in our toolbox. And learning better ways to kind of keep track of that has really benefited me as a teacher and a practitioner. You don't have to be some number wizard to keep good data.
[00:21:53] Speaker B: No.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: You don't even have to be particularly organized about.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: Would be good if you were.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: It would be better if I was, but you don't have to be.
So it's any. Any time we can get a snapshot of what's going on in our. In our students brains is. It's good.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: It is.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's all progress on our train.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:22:25] Speaker A: So.
[00:22:26] Speaker B: So what's going on? Beyond dyslexia.
[00:22:29] Speaker A: Beyond dyslexia.
So beyond dyslexia right now. It is.
I'm gonna call it spring, folks.
[00:22:40] Speaker B: It is.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: I'm gonna do it. It is. I'm gonna say it is spring.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: We're going for it.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: We're going for.
Is a nice day. As Nicole and I recording this, it is actually a Saturday.
[00:22:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: And the Boyntons and the Gunthers are hanging out today.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: Yes. Guys, we left the men alone with the children.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: We did as we should.
I will beat that drum all day.
Yes.
[00:23:08] Speaker B: Yes. So we'll see how they're doing in a little while.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: Not my problem. The D ready.
I am hungry and I expect to be fed.
What is going on? I would you. Nicole.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: I mean, I think it's pretty similar. Being outside has been wonderful.
It's. It's. And seeing the sun. It's been amazing today. Today is the first time. I think the sun has been out for a couple days and.
[00:23:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Like on a weekend.
[00:23:38] Speaker B: Yeah. On a weekend. Usually the weekends, it's raining here all the time, it seems like. I know it's April. Showers bring May flowers, but I really could handle a little less rain showers right now.
[00:23:53] Speaker A: Agreed. Agreed.
[00:23:54] Speaker B: I need the happiness of the sun. But I do notice that the grass has actually turned green for the first time.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: So neighbors have already mowed their lawn.
[00:24:05] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:24:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, they are. I mean, they are very nice people, but they are very meticulous about their lawn. And they have already built their grass.
[00:24:13] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: I think more than once.
[00:24:15] Speaker B: You know, our neighbor has been out, too, and we have dogs, so our.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: Lawn doesn't look that great.
Our backyard especially.
[00:24:25] Speaker B: Yeah, ours too.
It's mostly mud right now. Yeah. Because of all the rain.
[00:24:32] Speaker A: So much rain lately.
[00:24:33] Speaker B: So much rain. But, hey, it makes the flowers grow and it'll hopefully make the summer really nice and sunny and warm and so we can be outside and playing.
[00:24:45] Speaker A: Yes. That is what we need.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:24:47] Speaker A: Well, thank you, everybody, for listening. If you like our show, please follow us on social media. Please reach out if you have any questions or would like us to discuss a topic. We are always looking for listener feedback. If you do like our show, be sure to rate us and follow us on your favorite podcast player. That's how we reach more listeners, and that's how we get to help more families. Thank you, everybody.
[00:25:11] Speaker B: Thank you.
