Students’ Progress Report Template for SPED

What do you write in a progress report?

Students’ progress report narratives are an important part of the IEP process. 

The information found within students’ progress report summaries provides data showing whether or not a student has met their goals and objectives.

The information within the progress report needs to contain just the facts.  

Only objectively data backed information should be included.  Leave your opinion and speculation out of it.

Typically, progress reports are documented within a grading period.  

A student’s progress report needs to have the date the report was generated along with the date that assessments were given. 

The most valuable information in a progress report is the student’s ability based on the data collected.  

Standards-based assessments are preferred for students’ progress report summaries.  

The students’ scores along with what is considered a benchmark also needs to be included.

Then, the information is documented within the IEP system that the school corporation uses.

This is important because the information is available for anyone with access to the students’ IEP currently or as the years advance. 

How do you write a progress report?

To write a progress report, a teacher first needs to gather the data. 

This is best done over the weeks within the grading period. 

Ideally, it would be collected weekly.  Either way, there’s a variety of ways to collect data. 

When you are the teacher creating the IEP document and goals, you have to decide how each goal will be reported out. 

This could be done either with a rating scale or with a single data point. 

Depending on which method you choose, you may or may not need to identify objectives to meet within those goals. 

When I identify objectives, I write one objective for each quarter. 

Try thinking of these as mini goals that  document progress as benchmarks throughout the school year to meet the main goal written.

After you’ve gathered all of the documentation and placed it in a student’s portfolio, you’re ready to write the students’ progress report summaries. 

Students’ progress report narratives should include a series of items no matter what type of goal is being reported out on. 

• Date of collection
• Date of reporting
• Assessment used
• Information reflecting the student’s performance
• Benchmark scores for the assessment
• Teacher who gave the assessment

If you’re using a single point assessment, you need to make sure to update the students’ performance level.  Next include what the typical performance is at that time in the school year for other students. 

This is extremely helpful if a student moves and transfers schools.  Whether or not the new school is familiar with the assessment that was used, they have the information necessary to interpret the data.

How do you track students’ progress?

The easiest way to track students’ progress is to use in class work along with tests, quizzes, and assessments given by the general education teacher. 

If the student has modifications and accommodations though they have, of course, have been included. 

These documents require little extra work from the special education teacher. Typically all she has to do is organize that paperwork. 

Other examples of data collection could be benchmark assessments given by the special education teacher. 

When goals are behavior based the collection is a little bit more challenging. 

Office referrals can be useful for this. I also use a large amount of time interval checklists to note behaviors. 

Sometimes, I’ve student interviews to specifically gain the student’s insight into their progress in a behavior goal.

Who should really care more about a goal than the student???

Once all this information is gathered, the teacher needs to compile it into an easy to understand summary for the parents and other team members. 

Also, I make sure to include the date in the facts related to the goal at hand.

Student Progress Report pdf

Having a set of student progress report PDF documents ready to use is essential during the school year. 

A special ed teacher gets pulled in so many different directions during the year that it’s difficult coming up with an assessment or finding them during the middle of the year.

I recommend having several categories ready to go.  The list below is the typical categories I use throughout the school year.

•  Reading comprehension
•  Fluency
•  Math computation
•  Math fluency
• Writing components
• Organization
• On task Behavior 
• Self-regulation
• Coping abilities
• Participation

While there are many different categories to monitor for students’ progress report summaries, these categories come up frequently for my students. 

I find the most challenging students’ progress report narratives to document and write are behavior related. 

Students’ Progress Report Comments

One of the most time-consuming parts of students’ progress report summaries is the comment box. 

I’ve seen many teachers leave these blank and just report out on the single point data mark that the student received that quarter. 

While that’s really tempting, I try my best to comment on every single box so guardians know what’s happening with their students. 

So, what I did is made myself a comment list to copy and paste comments from. 

This allows me to use a template and edit it as appropriate for each student’s comments.

For instance, if I’m working on reading fluency with 11 of the students on my caseload I’ll write up a comment sentence about reading fluency. 

It would read something like this: 

When given a third grade reading passage, STUDENT was able to read X words in a one minute time period.   While reading they made X errors.  This resulted in a total word per minute count of X. 

Then, I use this summary and edit the student’s name. 

Next, I edit the information about how many words they read in a minute along with their error account. 

This saves me minutes for each student. 

As the weeks progress, I tweak the students’ progress report comments quarterly when I report out on the goals. 

This way it appears that I am writing a fresh comment for each student for each quarter. 

Changing the wording slightly keeps me from looking like a robot while, hopefully, making a good connection with the family. 

Regardless, I find that having ready to use template summaries for the students’ progress report narratives is an invaluable way to reduce my time on special education paperwork.

Students’ Progress Reporting Forms

There are many ready to use progress reporting forms out there for teachers. 

I recommend that you find one aligned to the standards with a curriculum based measure for all academic tasks. 

Then organize them in an easy for you manner. 

I like to have mine saved in digital folders on my computer. 

But, I really like my students’ progress report forms to be paper copies that I can place in the students’ portfolios. 

So, like I mentioned before, coping and organizing all of the students’ progress report forms that you need during the school year is really challenging. 

I worked on creating a set over the last several years and have a system ready to go. 

Here’s what I do: I download my caseload before each school year starts and look over the students’ goals. 

Then, I go ahead and print out the students’ progress report assessments that I need for each student for the school year or at least for the life of the goal. 

Then I place those in the students’ portfolios. 

This makes them accessible to me and any assistants or other teachers who are helping me document the students’ progress report assessment.

When I’m ready to sit down at the computer and type up the student’s progress report summaries, I have all of the data that I need at my fingertips so I can get the reports time. 

Now, it’s your turn!  Go organize your paperwork and get your collection of assessments for your students’ progress report summaries.

Check out the sets Caroline uses to all of her behavior progress monitoring here.