I copied your thoughts in italics and responded below each topic/question.

I finished a third grade fluency intervention last week. the teacher gave a CBM to each child and they all improved since the fall benchmark CBM score.  So that is good news, but I was asked if that was because of the intervention, or just from the kids being in school for a month before we started the class wide intervention. I am not sure how to respond. 

The teacher makes a good point here if there was a lengthy gap between data points. In the future, it will be ideal to do a classwide intervention right after the initial data point was collected and then reassess right after. Another thing to look at is average growth and expected growth. What was the average growth of that class after the intervention? Did the class exceed the expected growth? If they did, you can probably attribute that to the intervention. If you aren't sure how to calculate expected growth, you subtract the fall target score from the winter target score and divide that by the number of weeks between the benchmarks.

For example: 

Fall Target: 45       Winter Target 65       Number of Weeks in between: 12     

Calculate Average Growth: 65-45 = 20   20/12 = 1.67 words per week is the expected growth

 Another teacher asked if we should be giving the student a pre-CBM test AND a post CBM test.  We did give the fall benchmark, but we did not get started with the class wide intervention until the second week of October.  So I am just wondering what you all think about that.  Also, I may have another classroom that would like to implement this intervention.  They did qualify by fall benchmark standards, but not sure about this time of year.  Would it be best to wait until after winter benchmarks?  Or to try that pre-CBM test first? 

If the teacher is open to the idea, it would be great to get one started one now instead of waiting until January. Ideally, it would best to do a quick 1-minute CBM-R before the classwide begins and another 1-minute CBM-R after the classwide intervention.

If anyone has any additional thoughts or similar experiences, please add them to this post.

Thank you!

Kathy

So  it was 4 weeks from the start of school that we started the intervention.  Then after the intervention it was 6 weeks.  Therefore, would I take the students fall benchmark score, and their score after the intervention, subtract them and divide by 6 to get each student's  growth?  Then would I average all of those scores? I haven't thought about all  this before so it is very interesting .  Each student's score did go up.  In fact, the class median was 104 and the median for 3rd grade about his time of year is 103(if I did my calculating right). So they did meet that.  In the fall they were about 20 points lower than the fall benchmark.  

I am wondering about expected growth when students are significantly below the benchmark. Is it reasonable for students to grow 4+ words every week over a series of 12-14 weeks?

I'm just wondering what others are experiencing. I do see this growth sometimes but not with all of our intervention groups. 

Carol, 

It sounds like the class made great progress and exceeded the expected growth, so that's a good data point to share. Let's talk more about this in person next Friday in regards to target scores 6 weeks into the school year. You may want to shift that target score for the group since it was about a month after benchmarking

-Kathy