Charting Progress

Charting the student's progress is a key component of precision teaching and My Breakfast Reading Program.  The charting is normally based on the number of correct responses in a 60 second timed activity.

Each lesson should be charted separately over the week with one of the daily charting forms (Range 1 - 4).  In addition, you should use a weekly chart form (Range 1 - 4) to compare progress from week to week.  This will allow you to monitor daily progress as well as over a period of time. 

One of the key observations is to notice when a student is leveling out on a skill on the daily charting and/or over a period of time.  Remember, each student will have a maximum rapid naming capacity.  That is, one student may be able to have a sight word rate of 92 while another student may have a sight word rate of 72.  Each student is working up to their individual capacity. 

Using the analogy of a person training for the 100 yard dash, once the person is in peak condition, regardless of how much more they practice in the next month, the gains will be minimal increments.  However, the runner wants to maintain the capacity during the remainder of the track season.  In many cases, the runner is involved in several types of races, such as the 100 dash and 220 yard dash.  They may have peaked in the 100 yard dash, so they practice it less frequently to maintain the skill while they focus on additional practice for the 220 yard dash.

However, over long periods of time, capacity can be increased.  For the runner, he or she may still be growing, so as their stride becomes longer, they may see significant gains year to year. 

Each week, the student should be working on sight words and phonetics.  Normally, the student will peak out on the sight words before the phonetics.  Therefore, as discussed in precision teaching, you can spend less time practicing the sight words and use more of the 15 minute session focusing on a "splinter skill" in phonetics.

Since sight words are being memorized and the phonetic words are being analyzed, don't expect the charting of the two scores to be equal.  Until the phonetic skills become so automatic, expect the phonetic scores to be 40% - 70% of the sight words.  For example, if a student hits 100 sight words per minute (it is possible), the phonetics score may be as low as 40 to 70.  The closer the ratio, the closer the student is to becoming an automatic reader.  However, it takes a lot of time, practice and patience.  The goal is to provide the student the capability to analyze an unknown word, sound it out and blend it within two to three seconds. 

Following is a sample table of scores for a five week period and charted in Chart #1 and Chart #2.

Chart #1 represents the daily charting for Week #1 for both the sight words and the phonetic words. 

In reviewing the chart, it appears that the student is leveling out around 54 words per minute for sight words.  It also appears that the student is still making slow but steady progress for the phonetic words per minute and that a leveling affect has not been reached yet.

However, since the lesson has been used all week and the vowel sounds/rules and 50% of the consonants are repeated in the next lesson, it is time to move on to the next lesson.

Chart #2 represents the charting of all five weeks.  The score for each Monday and each Friday is charted for that week for both the sight words and the phonetic words. 

In review the chart, it appears that the student has not leveled off for sight words at 54, but is still making minor gains. You now expect the leveling out to be somewhere in the 60s for a period of time. 

For the phonetic words, it appears that two things are happening.  First, the student may be applying the phonetic skills because as new words are introduced each week, the Monday score is higher each week.  Also, the Friday scores still have not leveled out but the progress is only in small increments.  As you watch the student in the timed tests, try to determine if one or two vowel sounds are slowing them down.  If so, target these "splinter skills" as discussed in precision teaching.