Teaching · For Teachers

Is the student growing
fast enough to get there?

Enter the goal and the dated progress-monitoring scores. The calculator gives the growth per week from a least-squares trend and from first to last score, the growth the goal needs, where the trend lands on the goal date, and what the last four scores say about changing course.

Check a studentWhat you get
$12one-time · every device you sign in on
Buy · $12

Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the For Teachers toolkit, $79 for 72 items.

The growth rate calculator

The worked example is made up: student R-14 with ten weekly oral reading fluency scores and a goal of 98 by late January, and a second student on a math computation probe. Students are codes, never names. Nothing you enter leaves this browser.

Loading the calculator. If nothing appears, turn on JavaScript.

What you get

Teaching · For TeachersAlso for Teaching · Reading Intervention$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with
For each student: growth per week from the least-squares trend and from the first to the last score, the growth per week the goal needs, the score the trend projects on the goal date, the growth needed for the weeks left, and the four-point check on the latest scores, with a graph of scores, trend and aimline. A one-page summary prints per student and all students download as a spreadsheet.
Who it is for
Classroom teachers, reading and math interventionists, special educators and school psychologists who monitor progress weekly or every other week, and the teams that review that data.
Format
Browser tool. Works on a computer or tablet; the graph moves as you type. Up to 60 students and 60 scores each. Prints a summary per student; downloads a spreadsheet (.csv) of all students; export and import a file.
Access
$12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the For Teachers toolkit ($79) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The For Teachers space in Caveat Teaching; also listed for Reading Intervention (reading intervention progress monitoring).
Support
Questions, a correction or a request: team@caveatacademic.com.

How to use it

  1. Give the student a code, not a name, and enter the measure, the goal and the goal date.
  2. Add each progress-monitoring score with its date, oldest first. Add a score fills in the date a week later.
  3. Read the growth per week against what the goal needs, and the score the trend projects on the goal date.
  4. Look at the four-point check once there are at least four scores, and weigh it with what you know about the student.
  5. Print the summary for the team meeting, or download every student as a spreadsheet.

Check a student

How the rates are worked out

Two lines through the same scores: the aimline and the trend.

1 What is needed: the aimlineBaseline, Sep 862first scoreGoal, Jan 269820 weeks laterNeeded+1.80/wk(98 − 62) ÷ 202 What is happening: the trendLeast-squares slope+1.47/wk10 weekly scoresFirst to last+1.44/wk(75 − 62) ÷ 9 weeksProjected Jan 2691.9on the trend line3 The decision checkLast four scores against the aimlineAll four below: consider changing the instruction72, 72, 75 and 75 sit under 72.8, 74.6, 76.4 and 78.2 on the aimline1 The aimlineBaseline62Sep 8Goal98Jan 26Needed+1.80 a week(98 − 62) ÷ 20 weeks2 The trendSlope+1.47/wkleast squaresProjected91.9by Jan 263 The checkLast four scoresAll below the aimlineconsider changing instruction
The worked example: student R-14 is gaining 1.47 words a week, short of the 1.80 the goal needs; on this trend the score reaches about 92 by January 26, not 98.

The arithmetic

Time is counted in weeks from the first score. The aimline runs from the first score to the goal on the goal date; its slope is the growth per week the goal needs. The trend is the ordinary least-squares line through all the scores; its slope is the student’s growth per week, and its value on the goal date is the projection. First to last is the change between the first and last score divided by the weeks between them, which is quicker but swings with any single score.

Using it well

Decision rules from progress monitoring research compare recent scores with the aimline: when the last four scores all fall below it, consider changing the instruction; when they all sit above it, consider raising the goal. Trends from fewer than six to eight scores are unstable, so read early rates with care. Use the growth norms published for your measure to judge whether a rate is typical for the grade, and remember the numbers describe instruction, not a diagnosis.

Sources

  1. National Center on Intensive Intervention, intensiveintervention.org. Using Academic Progress Monitoring for Individualized Instructional Planning: goal lines, trend lines and decision rules.
  2. Fuchs, L. S., & Fuchs, D. (2011). Using CBM for Progress Monitoring in Reading. National Center on Student Progress Monitoring.
  3. Christ, T. J., Zopluoglu, C., Monaghen, B. D., & Van Norman, E. R. (2013). Curriculum-based measurement of oral reading: Multi-study evaluation of schedule, duration, and dataset quality on progress monitoring outcomes. Journal of School Psychology, 51(1), 19–57.
  4. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 34 CFR 300.320(a)(3): IEPs describe how progress toward annual goals will be measured and reported.

The worked example is made up. The page computes rates from the scores you enter; it does not hold norms for any published measure and is not a diagnosis. Use student codes, not names. Everything stays in this browser. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.