5 Simple Steps for Progress Monitoring in Early Childhood Programs

Progress monitoring can be made simple and straightforward and have a big impact on improving outcomes for the children in your early childhood program. In this session you will learn the basics of progress monitoring and 5 simple steps to implement a progress monitoring approach that is easy to do, time efficient, and effective.

Progress monitoring is an important part of an early childhood program but many times is not done because it seems too difficult or not appropriate for young children. However, research shows that when progress monitoring is used the children learn more, the decision making of the teacher improves, and there is accelerated child learning.

There are 5 simple steps that can be used to carry out progress monitoring with young children:

1. current levels of performance are determined

2. goals are identified for learning that will take place over time.

3. performance is measured on a regular basis

4. progress toward meeting the goals for the child is measured by comparing expected and actual rates of learning

5.  instruction is then adjusted based on this information and to best meet the individual child’s learning needs.

In this session we will walk through the steps using a scenario for each of the main domains of physical, cognitive, and social-emotional learning. We will put this in the framework of progress monitoring at the child, classroom, and program level.