How can teachers determine whether students are making appropriate progress?

Page 5: Create a Goal Line

To more quickly evaluate a student’s performance over time, the educator will find it helpful to add a goal line to the student’s graph. The goal line represents the progress a student is expected to make throughout the year. It is simply a line on the graph that connects an individual student’s baseline performance and the expected mid-year or end-of-year performance goal. Below are step-by-step instructions for creating a goal line, followed by an example.

Note: For illustrative purposes, many graphs in this module depict 10 weeks of instruction. Ideally, data should be collected for a longer period to monitor progress toward a long-term goal.

Establish a Baseline: To create a goal line for each student, first determine each student’s baseline—or current level of performance. A stable, clear baseline can usually be established with three to five data points collected over a short span (e.g., one week). To denote the shift from baseline data to an instructional change or intervention, draw a solid vertical line after the last baseline data point—between the x-axis on which the last baseline data point is plotted and the next x-axis on the graph. Next, identify the median score—the score that falls in the middle when scores are ordered from lowest to highest—of the baseline data points. Finally, plot the median baseline data point on the graph by placing an “X” at the intersection of this new line and the median baseline data score.

Determine the Expected Goal: After establishing the baseline, determine and plot the expected goal and denote with a “G”. When doing so, it’s important to set ambitious long-term goals for students. Most commercially available GOM measures include mid-year and end-of-year (EOY) performance benchmarks or goals that are based on national norms. These can be used for typically developing and at-risk students. For example, the benchmarks below are for common grade-level reading measures.

Source: National Center on Response to Intervention, Behavioral Research & Teaching

Draw the Goal Line: Now that the student’s baseline and goal have been plotted, the next step is to create a goal line by drawing a dashed line between these two points. This line represents the slope—or the student’s expected rate of improvement (ROI) needed to meet their end-of-year goal. For example, an ROI of 2 means that the student would need to correctly read two additional words correct per week to stay on track to meet the goal (e.g., mid-year goal, end-of-year goal). Just as students’ median baseline data points will vary, so too will the goal line. Note: Most commercially available GOM measures include the ROI.

Example: Now let’s look at an example of how to create a goal line.

Step 1: Establish a baseline—A teacher collects and plots baseline data for a student across three consecutive days and draws a vertical line on the graph to denote the end of baseline data collection (see red line on graph below). The student receives scores of 7, 5, and 8. To determine the median, the teacher orders the scores from lowest to highest and then identifies the middle score: 5 7 8.  Next, she plots the median baseline score on the solid vertical line (denoted by the green X on the graph below).

Step 2: Determine the expected goal—Using a Vanderbilt Progress Monitoring Measures end-of-year benchmark for a grade-level oral reading fluency measure, the teacher determines that the end-of-year goal is 60 words correct. She plots this on the graph and denotes it with a “G.” Note: For illustrative purposes, this graph reflects a ten-week goal of 20 words correct.

Step 3: Draw the goal line—The teacher draws a goal line connecting the students median baseline data point and the expected goal (see green dashed line on the graph below).