We have a deep desire to change the lives of struggling readers. You feel stuck because you’re not sure what to do next. That's where we come in.
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You see their brightness, their creativity, but you worry that their love of learning will begin to dim.
11/18/2025
As educators, we’ve all worked with a student week after week and seen little to no growth. It’s frustrating, disheartening, and can sometimes feel like a reflection of us.
But stalled progress isn’t failure. It’s information. It’s a signal that something in the plan needs to shift.
Swipe through for more information about what to do if your student's progress isn't moving the way you'd like it to.
Then, to dive even deeper, check out our Spotlight PD Training: Progress Monitoring Made Simple. Inside, you’ll learn a step-by-step system to track what matters in literacy intervention and get a complete toolkit so you can put these strategies into action immediately.
When it comes to setting goals for our students, we want to make sure they are specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time-based. Swipe through to see what this looks like across different literacy skills 👉
For more information, check out our Spotlight PD Training: Progress Monitoring Made Simple. Inside, you’ll learn a step-by-step system to track what matters in literacy intervention and get a complete toolkit so you can put these strategies into action immediately.
One of the most important questions we can ask when supporting struggling readers is: How will we measure progress?
Progress monitoring is the proof that a plan is working. Without it, we’re left guessing if students are truly on track to meet their goals.
In our blog, we walk through the steps to measure progress effectively:
✔ Identify the primary goal
✔ Look at the contributing skills that impact success
✔ Write measurable, concrete goals
✔ Track progress at the right intervals
When we measure consistently, we can adjust instruction in real time and make sure students' scores are moving in the right direction.
Plus, the blog includes a free data-tracking printable to make progress monitoring easier to build into your daily lessons.
Effective progress monitoring is a process. Swipe through for a sneak peek 👀
Then, for more information, check out our Spotlight PD Training - Progress Monitoring Made Simple: How to Set Goals and Track What Matters.
In this training, we’ll walk through a simple, four-step process:
1️⃣ Identify student needs
2️⃣ Set clear, measurable goals
3️⃣ Collect and interpret data as part of your lessons
4️⃣ Adjust instruction when needed
And you don’t have to figure it all out on your own! As part of this training, you’ll also get a Progress Monitoring Toolkit (with phonological awareness checklists, phonics word lists, fluency and comprehension rubrics, and goal-setting templates) so you can start using these strategies right away.
If we’re honest, the hardest part of progress monitoring isn’t the data, it’s finding the time and tools to actually do it.
You know that voice in the back of your mind saying, “I really should be checking in on this”? Yeah… that one.
We built the Progress Monitoring Toolkit because progress monitoring shouldn’t be another thing that sits on your to-do list or lives inside a computer program.
It should sound like:
➡️ “Let me hear you read this.”
➡️ “Let’s see what you already know.”
➡️ “Look how amazing you just did with that, let's see where we can focus next.”
That’s what real progress monitoring looks like, the human kind.
The kind that actually helps guide your instruction.
Inside our PD training, Progress Monitoring Made Simple, you’ll get access to the full toolkit with hundreds of ready-to-use probes for phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension, everything you need to make data collection doable in the time you have.
When it comes to progress monitoring, there are a number of different ways you can measure students' progress towards their goals.
Swipe through to learn more ➡️
For more information, check out our Spotlight PD Training: Progress Monitoring Made Simple. Inside, you’ll learn a step-by-step system to track what matters in literacy intervention and get a complete toolkit so you can put these strategies into action immediately.
Confession: our team did an escape room a while back... and we totally failed. We're talking the kind where you really wish you weren't on camera kind of failed.
We were surrounded by clues, but none of them seemed to connect. We kept trying combinations that almost worked...except they didn't and then the time ran out and the door stayed locked.
The irony wasn’t lost on us. Because that’s exactly how progress monitoring feels sometimes, isn’t it?
Sometimes you have all the data (all the clues) but they don’t quite connect.
And then suddenly, you see the pattern.
That’s the moment everything changes.
So basically, we thought we were solving an escape room.
Turns out, we were just getting a reminder about progress monitoring. 🤦♀️
In this week’s blog, we’re sharing how to turn student data into real insight (and why you don’t need to collect more…).
Comment "blog 236" to get a link to the full blog!
11/11/2025
Today, we honor those who have served our country.
Word of the Day: Veteran
Using the vocabulary framework for students...
Category: A person
Function: who has served in the military
Synonym (like): Soldier, servicemember
Antonym (opposite of): Civilian
Veteran:
➤ Has three syllables (closed = vet, r-controlled = er, closed/schwa = an)
➤ Has six sounds (the a in veteran is schwa and sounds like a short /i/)
We then invite students to provide background information or share what they know or their connections to veterans with the group orally or in writing.
11/10/2025
If you've been following along with us, you know that we deeply believe that progress monitoring isn’t just a step in your lesson.
It's how we stay connected to our students. It’s the moment that tells you, yes, this is working. Or, no, something needs to shift. Not to prove anything, but to guide you.
It’s not about collecting data for the sake of it. It’s about having real evidence that your instruction is doing its job to help students move forward (or provide clarity on where to go next).
If you’re ready to feel more connected to your instruction, to your students, we shared some of our favorite progress monitoring tips and strategies in this week’s episode. Tune in using one of the links below!
Wondering what data to track in your literacy lessons and how to do it without it feeling like extra work?
We’re sharing exactly how to make progress monitoring a natural part of every lesson across phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and writing.
Learn how to:
✅ Capture meaningful data as it happens
✅ Keep instruction flowing smoothly
✅ Track growth without sticky notes or guesswork
This system makes data collection simple, consistent, and actionable.
The goal of progress monitoring is to get to a point where it doesn't feel like it's just something extra on your list, but rather, that it becomes part of the way you teach.
It’s not a separate task or another form to fill out.
It’s a part of your lesson cycle that you move through to stay connected to your students and your instruction. It's that part of your teaching where you...
✅ Identify what students need
✅ Set clear, meaningful goals
✅ Collect and interpret data as part of your lessons
✅ Adjust instruction when something’s not clicking
That’s how progress monitoring actually works.
It turns instruction into a living process, one where you’re constantly learning right alongside your students. It's what keeps your instruction fresh, what keeps it alive.
We've said this before, we will say it again...
That’s progress monitoring. It’s not about the paperwork. It’s about staying connected to the process of growth.
If you’d like a clear, simple system to put this into practice, our Progress Monitoring Made Simple training walks through each step and includes a full toolkit to make it doable.
Progress monitoring isn’t just about data points or charts.
It’s about paying attention (really paying attention) to what your students can do today that they couldn’t do last week.
At its core, progress monitoring means regularly checking in on student performance to:
✅ Measure growth toward specific goals
✅ See whether your instruction is working
✅ Make smart adjustments when progress slows
In real life, it looks like an educator sitting beside a student, listening closely, and noticing patterns: the self-correction, the pause, the proud grin when a tricky word finally clicks.
That’s progress monitoring.
It’s not about the paperwork. It’s about staying connected to the process of growth.
If you’ve ever wished you had an easier way to track that growth, our Progress Monitoring Made Simple training walks through the exact system we use (and includes a full toolkit of ready-to-use probes).
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We believe that effective reading instruction should be accessible to everyone.
We work directly with students and families providing educational diagnoses such as dyslexia and dysgraphia in addition to research-based instruction to help get struggling students to grade level and beyond.
It’s awful watching a child struggle. You see the brightness, the creativity, but you worry that their love of learning will begin to dim or burn out altogether if something doesn’t change. You feel stuck because you’re not sure what to do next.
We get it. With all the information available out there, it’s hard to sort through what’s reputable from what’s not. And that’s where we come in.
Our tools and resources for SLPs, teachers, special educators and reading interventionists are only a click away. Let us help you stop wasting time and start changing lives.
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