How to Track Your Child’s Progress from Home

Did you know that your school is responsible for providing your child with what they need to make educational progress? This means ALL kids, not just those who are on regular standards and spend their day in a regular education classroom setting. Oftentimes, parents hear messages from their school that sound something like, “His disability prevents him from making progress,” “She’s plateaued in her learning,” or “If we push too hard, he’ll get upset and act out.” Not only are these inappropriate statements for educators to make, whose responsibility it is to provide special education in order for your child to make meaningful progress, but it is in fact the school’s #1 role under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to ensure “meaningful” progress.

WITHOUT DATA, WE’RE NOWHERE

It’s imperative that EVERY IEP has documented assessment data – and in fact, the IEP document itself has an “Assessment” section, but quite often when I review an IEP, I find that the FAST is the only assessment documented. Do you think the FAST accurately identifies your child’s ability? Not likely.

Other commonly used assessments include the STAR and iReady. Unless these are given with an adult sitting right next to the student to ensure that they are actually reading, they are useless assessments, in my opinion. I find that computer-based testing (and teaching) is not only not effective, but inadvertently teaches the child that the assignment is to click around until they get to that “submit” button – and then they’re home free.

IMPORTANCE OF PROPER ASSESSMENTS

For students with disabilities, a tailored approach to assessment is often necessary. Remember, the goal is to collect information about what your child has learned, how much progress they’ve made since the last IEP, and to help plot a course that is effective for the coming year.

A variety of meaningful tools can be used to assess a student with a disability to capture current abilities in academics. A few of those are:

• Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS)
• Diagnostic Assessment of Reading (DAR)
• Test of Early Mathematical Ability (TEMA)
• Group Mathematics Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation (GMADE)
• FAIR (Florida Assessment for Instruction in Reading – middle school)
• San Diego Word List
• Quick Reads or Great Leaps Fluency Probes

Not for this article, but maybe next week, I’ll talk about how fluency is often considered the “Canary in the Coal Mine” by reading researchers. If we can’t read with automaticity, then we’re not very likely to understand what we’re reading – and comprehension is everything, otherwise, what is reading???

How You Can Track Progress from Home

Even though you’re not spending the school day with your child (unless you’re homeschooling), there are some ways that you can monitor their progress, or decline. One of the easiest ways to document your child’s progress from home is through a checklist. There are several checklists which are readily available for parents to assess and monitor growth. Just don’t forget to regularly review results.

Create Logs

• On a log sheet, transpose assessment scores as your baseline and expect those scores to go up. You should be able to use the scores that were documented in the IEP if proper assessments were conducted.
• Ensure that your IEP goals are meaningful and measurable, and document them on a log sheet as well.
• Keep copies of ALL home notes. On your home note – the home note is YOUR note – be sure that there are ways for you to keep track of what your child is doing in school and how they are performing. Keep home notes in a binder for easy access.

Video Diary

Another option to document your child’s progress is through video diaries. Technology makes videoing your child an easy and readily accessible form of documentation.

These tips will help you create a video library of your child’s progress:

• Take videos of your child performing targeted tasks at regular intervals.
• Save the videos in a folder on your phone, camera, or computer.
• Make note of the date the video was taken.
• Be prepared to show the videos to the school, therapists, or anyone else who has opinions that are opposite of what you see at home.

Save Work Samples

Hopefully, you’re receiving work produced by your child during their school day. This could be copying letters, writing numbers or their name, a math work sheet, an essay, etc. If you’re not getting anything, which isn’t that uncommon, as for it. One of the most compelling exhibits during formal complaints is when the parent whips out a binder of what their child has been working on in school. For some of you, it might look like the same thing every day, all year long, and no matter what your child’s disability, that is not what’s intended by a “free and appropriate public education.”

Journaling

By writing down your observations in one place not only helps keep you organized, but it simplifies the analyzing process and helps you establish your own patterns of behavior.

• Make a note of where your child is today (based on scores from assessments – as noted above).
• Keep notes about:
  • What they worked on that day (could be from home note, could be from what you worked on with them at home)
  • If they received their therapies in school today (this should be on the home note – if it’s not, ask for a change to the note) You can ask for Service Logs of therapies provided at school any time you’d like. This is especially helpful if you think sessions are being missed.
  • Any sickness, discomfort or sleepless night before
  • Behaviors or emotional status (more or less anxious)

What’s Next?

According to the US Department of Education, there are some steps that you can take if your child is not being educated according to the standards for his or her grade level and IEP and in view of his or her future?

✔ Keep asking questions of the teacher, principal, other parents, and education experts, including questions about your school choices.

✔ Find other parents who have the same concerns and work together toward improving the conditions.

✔ Talk to the counselor, school advisory group, PTA or other school or program staff. They may share your concerns or be able to help you.

✔ Bring your concerns to the school district office, school board member or superintendent.

✔ Attend public meetings and school board meetings and tell your story.

✔ Understand your rights in your Procedural Safeguards

Conclusion

In summary, with a little preparation, you can track your child’s progress from home. Furthermore, if you share important information that you’ve collected at home with your child’s team of professionals, it can help them develop more effective goals and intervention plans. Above all, it provides an opportunity to celebrate each and every gain!

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Good luck advocating!

Stacey