Curriculum-Based Measurement

Terms and Definitions

Benchmarks refer to the three times a year (fall, winter, spring) administration of CBM probes.

Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) is a method of monitoring student progress through the direct, continuous assessment of basic reading and math skills. 

Early literacy skills are reading readiness skills (letter naming, letter sounds) upon which beginning reading is built.

Early numeracy skills (oral counting, number identification, missing number) are math readiness skills upon which beginning math is built.

Norms are a set of scores that describes the performance of a specific group of students, for example third grades in the Knox County School District on a task or test; these scores are used to interpret scores of other pupils who perform the same task or take the same test.

Probes are brief, timed samples of reading/math/early literacy/early numeracy taken from that particular student’s grade.

ROI - Rate of Improvement

Standardized testing indicates that the probes will be administered with the same procedures and instructions for each student assessed.