Progress monitoring assessments are designed to measure students’ response to intervention and progress throughout the year. Progress monitoring assessments are available from kindergarten to grade eight in both reading and math.

The assessments in the system are what are known as CBMs (curriculum based measurement), standardized measures that sample from a year’s worth of curriculum to assess the degree to which students have mastered the skills and knowledge deemed critical at each grade level. The CBMs in the easyCBM system are often referred to as ‘next-generation CBMs’ because we used an advanced form of statistics, the Item Response Theory (IRT), during measurement development.  Implementing IRT increases the sensitivity of the measures to monitoring growth, while at the same time increasing the consistency of the alternate forms of each measure type.

In schools that use the benchmark screener, all students are tested two to three times per year to identify how they are doing academically in areas such as reading and math. Those students performing in the normal range for their grade level will continue with grade level materials and instruction.  However, for students testing low or below the expected range of performance, easyCBM provides a tool that teachers can use to help better understand the areas in which the student is struggling and then differentiate instruction. The goal will always be to move low functioning students back on their expected grade level as soon as possible and at the 50th percentile.