Decisions, Decisions, Decisions: Using Data to Make Instructional Decisions for Struggling Readers

Students with reading disabilities (RD) require intensive, individualized instruction in order to make measurable gains in reading achievement. The hallmark of intensive intervention is a customized approach in which the teacher uses data to adjust instruction to meet each student’s learning needs on an ongoing basis. The process of data-based decision making (DBDM) relies on progress monitoring for indicating when effective programs should continue or ineffective instruction needs to be adjusted and customized. Unfortunately, many educators—both in general and special education—find it challenging to collect, synthesize, and interpret data in a meaningful way. As such, the goal of this article is to provide guidelines that will facilitate and improve teachers’ use of data for instructional decision making. We provide detailed guidelines for and examples of how to implement four critical steps in gathering and interpreting data. These steps include selecting progress monitoring tools, deciding on frequency of progress monitoring, establishing student outcome goals, and graphing student data to make instructional decisions.