Teaching · Special Education

A writing baseline you can put in present levels.

Enter the counts from three timed story-starter probes. The organizer takes the medians, works out spelling and writing-sequence accuracy and drafts the present-level sentence.

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Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the New special education teacher kit, $39 for 31 items.

The writing baseline

One baseline per student and date. The example is made up.

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What you get

Teaching · Special Education$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with: Medians of total words written, words spelled correctly and correct minus incorrect writing sequences, two accuracy shares, a present-level sentence and the conventions to teach.
Who it is for: Special education and intervention teachers writing present levels and goals for written expression.
Format: Browser form. One saved baseline per student and date; printed with the summary or as a blank scoring form; CSV; 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 New special education teacher kit ($39) and the Special Education toolkit ($99), and 2 more bundles. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives: The Special Education space in Caveat Teaching.
Support: Questions about an order, access or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.

Drawn for this page. A writing baseline is short timed samples, scored the same way each time, summarized by the middle score.

How to use it

Give a story starter, one minute to think and three minutes to write, on three different days.
Count total words written, words spelled correctly and correct and incorrect writing sequences for each sample.
Enter one row per probe, then mark the conventions you saw.
Note the supports the student had, and keep them the same when you measure progress.
Copy the present-level sentence into the IEP draft and set the goal with your team.

Start a baseline

How the baseline is scored

The four counts

Total words written counts every word, spelled right or not. Words spelled correctly counts words that are real words spelled right in isolation. A writing sequence is two adjacent units (words and punctuation) that are correct together in spelling, grammar and meaning; correct minus incorrect sequences gives one number that rewards both quantity and accuracy.

Why the median

Short samples vary with the topic and the day. The middle of three probes is steadier than any one of them or their average.

What this is not

A norm-referenced test. It compares the student with their own samples; any comparison group (your school’s fall data, for example) has to come from you.

Sources

Hosp, M. K., Hosp, J. L., & Howell, K. W. (2016). The ABCs of CBM: A Practical Guide to Curriculum-Based Measurement (2nd ed.). Guilford Press: written expression probes and scoring.
McMaster, K., & Espin, C. (2007). Technical features of curriculum-based measurement in writing: A literature review. The Journal of Special Education, 41(2), 68–84.
National Center on Intensive Intervention, Academic Progress Monitoring Tools Chart: written expression measures.
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act regulations, 34 CFR 300.320(a)(1)–(2): present levels and measurable annual goals.

The example student and samples are made up. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.