Similarly to PARA I, PARA II includes 25 challenges organized in five benchmarks, starting with Emerging and progressing to Platinum. In this iteration, there are five challenges in each benchmark.
The first two challenges in each benchmark cover phoneme-grapheme relationships (PGRs), high-frequency words, and affixes (prefixes and suffixes). The last three challenges of each benchmark include a short passage which serves to assess the students’ reading accuracy, fluency, and comprehension.
This article provides an overview of how to access PARA II content in Progress Monitor. Please refer to the Scoring Sheets, Scoring Rules, and Teacher Guide, located in the Learning Management System (academy.thelearningbar.com), for additional information.
PARA II in Progress Monitor
When a student successfully completes all 25 Challenges in PARA I (a score of 3 or 4 on every Challenge), you will be prompted to move to the next Phase. Note that you can access both Phases at any time using the drop-down menus, but scores should only be entered for PARA II when a student has completed PARA I.
Prompt displayed when a student has completed Phase 1.
Entering Scores
Data entry for PARA II is identical to PARA I, simply be sure to select the correct Phase before entering any scores. You will see a drop-down menu allowing you to select on the student page, and the data entry pop-up window will also indicate which Phase you have selected:
The data entry pop-up window for Phase 2 with challenge descriptions.
To go back and see the scores you have entered for Phase 2, you can simply toggle using the drop-down menu.
Viewing PARA II Data
Users will have different views on the Progress Monitor depending on the role granted to them. In each view, you can toggle between Phases using the drop-down menus.
A classroom teacher’s view with the option to switch Phases.
A district user’s view of the Growth Chart allowing them to switch between schools and Phases.
For the Student, Classroom and School views, the reporting is identical for both Phases. The Growth Chart has been modified to include an indicator of the percentage of students that have progressed to Phase 2. A new chart with different colour balloons is available to monitor Phase 2 progress.
Updated Phase 1 chart with new indicator of students that have moved on to Phase 2.
Phase 2 chart with different colour balloons and an indicator of the students remaining in Phase 1.
Classroom view of Phase 1 – note that Silver and Gold have 6 challenges while Platinum has 3.
Classroom view of Phase 2 – note that all benchmarks have 5 challenges each.