CIRCLE Progress Monitoring Toolkit

The CIRCLE Progress Monitoring System (formerly known as C-PALLS+), is a user-friendly, technology-driven tool that enables a teacher to quickly assess a child’s progress in a particular skill area. This simple yet reliable data collection prompts teachers to focus on lessons that target their students’ least developed skills.

The CIRCLE Progress Monitoring System:

• is on the current Commissioner’s List of Approved Prekindergarten Progress Monitoring Instruments
• is available at no cost to Texas public prekindergarten teachers and programs eligible for the TSR Online program
• provides significant flexibility in administration, including choice of measures and timing of assessments
• provides links to CIRCLE activities that target specific skills based on assessment results
• includes a wide range of reporting features instantly accessible
• demonstrated high reliability and validity in multiple research studies

Your first step is to register your account on CLI Engage:

• New to CLI Engage? View our registration video for information.
• See our matrix to find which CLI Engage package is the best fit when you sign up for access.
• Most CLI Engage users log in using their Google Account. If you do not have a Google account, you can create one using your existing email account or create a Gmail account by going to our Account Set-Up How-to-Guide page.
• Refer to Uploading Teacher and Student Data to learn about several options available for uploading data into CLI Engage. Click here to download a how-to guide on finding schools in CLI Engage.
• You can integrate CLI Engage with existing Clever, ClassLink, Okta, or Microsoft login. Submit a help ticket on CLI Engage with any questions, or to get started with these integrations.
• If a user has forgotten their login information, administrators can reset their account so they can login to CLI Engage again: Reset Account How-to-Guide

The CPM User Guide is a comprehensive guide that includes “need to know” information about the administration of CPM in pre-K classrooms.

CIRCLE Progress Monitoring User Guide

The Pre-K and Head Start Classroom resources page provides extensive information about how to use the tools and resources on CLI Engage in classrooms with 3- and 4-year-olds.

Comprehensive training for CPM is available in the Online Courses section of CLI Engage. Users can earn certificates for the completion of each course.

• CPM Introduction (20 minutes)
• CPM Assessments Components (20 minutes)
• CPM Administration Guidelines (20 minutes)
• CPM Assessment Measures (2.5 hours)
• CPM Overview for Administrators (1 hour)
• CPM Assessment Resources: Data & Reports (30 minutes)

When logged in, access the courses directly here: CPM Self-Instructional Assessment Training Course

• How to Access Self-Instructional or Facilitated Online Courses

CPM offers scoresheets, and each are available for all three waves (BOY, MOY, and EOY), if applicable.

Scoresheets in Spanish and English include:

• Rapid Vocabulary
• Story Retell Instructions &Scoresheet
• Story Retell Instructions & Scoresheet
• Book and Print Checklist (English only)

Access the scoresheets on our webpage: CPM Scoresheets

Utilize CLI’s resources for alternative administration functionality and protocols for CPM. Visit our detailed webpage to access teacher’s guides, webinars, and visual schedules to support teachers as they administer assessments remotely: Remote Assessment Administration

The offline assessment feature can be used to assess students when an internet connection is not available at the time of administration. The offline feature for CPM can be accessed from the assessment practice area (for practicing the offline feature) or directly from the class view in CPM (when conducting the assessments): CPM Offline Assessment

The CPM Facilitation Guides have specific training facilitation information for school staff who will be facilitating training on CPM with their teachers:

• CPM Training Facilitation Guide Module 1: Introduction
• CPM Training Facilitation Guide Module 2: Administration Guidelines
• CPM Training Facilitation Guide Module 3: Reporting Features

Interested in becoming a CPM Facilitator? Receive access to facilitate online courses and award certificates directly on CLI Engage: Facilitator Application Form

Learn about the various reports available on CLI Engage and find how-to guides along with support resources for pre-K programs.
Many of the following reports can be generated at the class, individual student, class, schools, and community/district levels.

• Completion Report
• Growth Report
• Summary Reports
• Percentile Rank
• Custom Score Report (for Literacy and Dyslexia Screening)
• Grouping Reports (class level only)

Learn more about all the levels of CLI Engage Reports.

The CIRCLE Activity Collection: Pre-K to Grade 2 Collection (log in required) includes the following in each lesson:

• A description of the activity, the learning domains the activity supports, and an appropriate grade level
• Materials needed for the activity
• Activity instructions and soft scripting for implementation
• Helpful hints, including tips to create variations, related books to read aloud, and ways to scaffold children’s learning
• Applicable alignments to the prekindergarten guidelines

Resources for data driven instruction can also be found on our beginning, middle, and end of year specific pages. These pages were curated to meet the needs of educators across the span of the school year:

• BOY Assessment Resources
• MOY Assessment Resources
• EOY Assessment Resources

The CIRCLE STEM Lab Collection is a virtual laboratory that hosts video segments from PBS Learning Media and hands-on STEM activities to be completed independently by your child. These interactive activities integrate video segments with hands-on activities and can be used independently by students or as a teacher directed activity.

Benchmarks are the minimum performance levels students are expected to reach by certain points of the year to indicate skill understanding. The CPM Benchmark table displays the cut scores for benchmarks and is helpful in analyzing your data.

Review CPM Benchmarks

Each CPM measure is directly aligned to Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines. View the Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines (published 2022) in English and Spanish, as well as related resources, on the Texas Education Agency’s website.

Learn about how CPM aligns to the revised benchmarks by visiting our CIRCLE Progress Monitoring-Texas PKG Alignments:

• CIRCLE Progress Monitoring-Texas PKG Alignment
• Alineación del sistema de monitoreo del progreso CIRCLE con las pautas actualizadas de prekínder de Texas

CPM is also aligned to the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework: CIRCLE Progress Monitoring-Head Start Alignment

ECDS is part of the Texas Student Data System (TSDS). Visit our ECDS Uploads for Pre-K Data webpage to learn more about the ECDS pre-K required measures and how to upload your data!

Teachers using CPM can share individual student reports with families by printing reports or by providing a personalized identification number (PIN) for families to view results online. Teachers can also send families activities that are designed to support skill development at home.

Refer to Understanding Your Child’s Assessment Results to assist families in becoming more knowledgeable about progress monitoring and supporting learning at home.

When sharing assessment results with parents, refer to our Family-Friendly Description of Assessment Measures.

Teachers can collect valuable information on their student’s development by sharing these forms with families and asking them to give feedback about their child. Each form is aligned to the CPM measures to support the integration of family information into instructional planning. Family Observation Forms are available in English and Spanish.

Along with Family Observation forms, parent reports are available to help teachers communicate assessment results with families. View how-to guides for printing parent reports and viewing results online:

• Generating Student Reports for Parents
• Printing Parent PIN Pages

CLI Engage provides a CIRCLE Activity Collection specifically designed to support children’s skill development at home with their parents and families. The CIRCLE Activity Collection: Family can be accessed on mobile devices and does not require a login. This collection provides a variety of hands-on activities that families can do at home. This collection is organized around seven learning domains: Language & Communication, Reading & Writing, Math, Science, Social & Emotional, Physical Development, and Art & Sensory.

CLI’s family engagement resources make the most of procedures you already have in place, such as progress monitoring, homework, parent-teacher conferences, and open houses.

• Family Engagement Teacher Strategy Checklist (Pre-K/K) can be used to self-assess where you are in your family engagement efforts and to set goals for practicing new strategies.
• Pre-K/Kindergarten Family Engagement Bag is a CLI-created engagement resources that can be folded into district-level family engagement plans: Download English Booklet | Download Spanish Booklet
• Family Engagement Bag Materials is a list that families can use to complete the activities in the family engagement bag booklet: Download Family Engagement Bag Materials List
• Family Engagement Bag Message lets parents know you would like to partner with them to support their child’s learning at home by sending this message with their Family Engagement Bag: Download Family Engagement Bag Message English | Download Family Engagement Bag Message Spanish

Assessment windows are decided by each district, please contact your district leadership to find the specific dates for your district. Guidance on assessment windows can also be found on TEA’s website; see “PK-2nd Grade Assessment Calendar Key Dates and Requirements” calendar.

The supporting resources for CPM administration have been updated to reflect any changes needed with the updated Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines.

It’s important for all educators to keep in mind that assessment tools, such as CPM, do not explicitly evaluate each of the PKG items. Valid and reliable assessment tools like CPM are aligned to state or national standards however will not explicitly measure every single standard or guideline. The reason for this is that standards and guidelines change, therefore assessment tool vendors and their researchers and statisticians work hard to create bell curve models to help us understand where students may typically land within the scope of skills that are measured in the tool, which align to the standards and/or guidelines. This reduces the desire to “teach to the test,” and instead gain an accurate, reliable snapshot of where a student is in their academic development based on data gathered through research.

CPM was designed and validated as a criterion-referenced assessment. Criterion-referenced means that we are referencing how scores compare to a criterion such as a cut score or a benchmark. CPM is a standardized, criterion-referenced tool that relates well to established standardized tests and is sensitive to growth in children’s skills over time. In other words, CPM assesses the whole child in alignment to the updated guidelines and while taking state standards into consideration. We can ensure that given the nature of our criterion-referenced measures, CPM continues to align with the updated Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines.

Assessment as part of the teaching and learning cycle reveals a starting point for planning instruction. There will certainly be students in your classroom that may already have proficient skills in content that has not yet been introduced. In these cases, assessment is useful for higher level scaffolding extensions. The results of the assessment will also be a guide for planning more targeted interventions for those students that need additional support.