Progress monitoring is something that all special education teachers have to keep up with. Ensuring that our students are on track to meeting their IEP goals is not only important for their educational career but it’s also our jobs!

Every school or district as their own requirements for progress monitoring, but putting those progress monitoring dates on your calendar ensure that it actually gets done!

But why should you put your progress monitoring dates on the calendar?

  1. You’ll Forget: Even though those days can be long, we’re somehow shocked when it is suddenly the end of the nine weeks. By adding those progress monitoring dates to my calendar, you won’t suddenly be the end of the nine weeks and be sitting there without data.
  2. Holidays, Breaks, and Testing: We all know that holidays, breaks, and testing are unavoidable. They also seriously screw up our normal routines and schedules. When you have these dates on the calendar ahead of time, you can plan for these kind of interruptions.
  3. You Have Time to Enter the Data: By collecting my data BEFORE the due date, you can also build in time to enter it and generate progress reports.

Now, the most important part…

STICKING to the progress monitoring plan.

Add those dates and then stick to them. You might need to move them to a different date that is a little earlier or later, but at least it won’t slip your mind.

I also add these dates to a Post-It Note which stays on my computer all year long.