Data-Based Decision Making

FastBridge - This screener is comprised of 3 earlyReading and 3 earlyMath subtests. It has recently been updated with new benchmarks and norms for PreK.

A primary step in Kansas MTSS and Alignment is to determine what your program will use as a Universal Screening tool. Unlike Developmental Screening tools, a Universal Screening tool is used to compare students to a normative sample or standard for the purposes of identifying which students might be at risk for later learning difficulties based on indicators that are predictive of later achievement. A Developmental Screening tool identifies children who might have a developmental delay, while a Universal Screening tool identifies students who might be at risk and ranks them based on that risk into levels/tiers. This distinct difference makes the data from Universal Screening tools particularly helpful for examining the effectiveness of your curriculum and supports a process for tiered intervention.

Universal screening tools appropriate for early literacy assess the predictive elements of early literacy: oral language, alphabet knowledge, and phonological awareness. They are valid and reliable for this purpose, can be used with confidence to make instructional decisions, and can be given at least three times per school year. To assist teams in selecting a universal screening tool, leadership teams will need to ensure that they have the tool or tools to assess all three predictive elements of early literacy (i.e. oral language, alphabet knowledge, and phonological awareness). Keep in mind that some tools do not assess all three elements, therefore programs might consider using more than one universal screening tool when one tool does not contain all three elements.

Your leadership team will use the universal screening data to examine the adequacy of your curriculum and your system’s need for professional development. The classroom staff will use the universal screening data to plan for differentiated instruction within the core curriculum and to identify students in need of additional support for literacy to determine the focus of that intervention. Each universal screening tool sets the criteria for determining which students are at or above the benchmark and which students are in need of Tier 2/3 support. Programs should follow the decision rules for the tool they select when using this information to group students into levels of tiered support.

Progress Monitoring

Progress monitoring for students receiving supplemental or intensive instruction answers two questions:

Is the instructional intervention working?
Does the effectiveness of the intervention warrant continued, increased, or decreased support?

Unlike in a K-12 MTSS, preschool universal screening tools can generally not also be used as progress monitoring tools, because they cannot be given with enough frequency to monitor intervention effectiveness or to make changes to a student’s intervention focus. Instead, preschool programs are encouraged to use mastery monitoring strategies as a means to assess and monitor the progress of students receiving tiered intervention. Mastery monitoring strategies are teacher designed and involve directly collecting data on students’ mastery of specific skills.

Typically, changes to the level of tiered instruction a preschool student receives will only happen after each universal screening benchmark period; however, teachers can use the data they collect through mastery monitoring and their knowledge of the student to make changes when the intervention efforts do not seem to be effective or indicate that a change is needed. Collecting and graphing progress-monitoring data over a series of weeks provides a visual pattern of skill acquisition for students receiving additional support. Kansas MTSS and Alignment recommends that mastery monitoring data collection in preschool occur at least one time every two weeks for students receiving Tier 2 support and one time every week for students receiving Tier 3 support.