The Inventory
Understand learning across dimensions and levels.
A student may demonstrate advanced understanding in one area while needing substantial intervention in another. An overall score can flatten those differences into a single result. The True Progress Inventory examines twelve dimensions of ELA or math across learning levels, helping specialists and teachers understand uneven profiles of strengths and needs when a deeper assessment is warranted.
The Inventory contributes detailed learning evidence to Visibility, the first driver of the Student Success System. Educators interpret the profile alongside classroom work, the student's experience, and what they know about previous intervention to develop a fuller understanding and decide what should happen next.
SUBJECTS
ELA and math, assessed separately
COVERAGE
Twelve dimensions in each subject
FORMAT
Adaptive assessment across learning levels; can span several sessions
See an Inventory profile in use
This overview follows a math specialist investigating a student's classroom difficulties and declining Screener results. The Inventory reveals stronger learning in some dimensions and substantially earlier learning in others. It shows how an uneven profile can help a specialist investigate the student's needs and plan focused intervention while preserving appropriate classroom challenge.
Twelve dimensions within each subject
The Inventory adapts within individual dimensions to examine learning across levels. This allows educators to consider each area in its own right and then look at the pattern across the subject.
Math
- Concept of Number
- Measurement
- Geometry
- Data
- Graphs
- Algebra
- Place Value
- Fluency
- Applications
- Operations
- Mathematical Language
- Patterns
ELA
- Decoding Nonsense Words
- Decoding Real Words
- Grammar
- Listening Comprehension
- Reading Comprehension Informational (Inferential)
- Reading Comprehension Literature (Inferential)
- Reading Comprehension (Surface)
- Segmenting Syllables
- Sight Words Recognition
- Spelling
- Vocabulary
- Writing
Read the pattern and examine the evidence
An Inventory profile helps educators investigate where learning is well established, where substantial gaps appear, and how those patterns differ across dimensions and levels.
Interpreting the profile requires a clear distinction between evidence from questions the student actually answered and estimates generated by the assessment model for questions the student did not see.
| What the profile shows | How educators use it |
|---|---|
| Learning across dimensions and levels | Recognize strengths and difficulties that may be less apparent in an overall result or an assessment at one level. |
| Questions answered correctly or incorrectly | Examine the student's demonstrated responses to the assessed material. |
| Projected responses to questions not presented | Use the assessment model’s estimates to understand the broader pattern within the dimension while keeping them clearly separate from evidence based on questions the student actually answered. |
| Differences among dimensions | Develop questions for further investigation and identify priorities for teaching, intervention, or greater challenge. |
In the report, solid green and red markers represent questions the student actually answered correctly or incorrectly. Lighter markers represent projected responses to questions the student did not see.
Projected responses are estimates, not observed student answers. Specialists use them to understand the pattern across a dimension while grounding their interpretation in actual responses, classroom evidence, and what they know about the student.
The Inventory describes learning. It does not, by itself, establish why a difficulty occurs.
The profile moves with the student
The Inventory's value develops through what educators do with its findings. A shared learning profile can help a team plan a response and carry forward important understanding across teachers, specialists, classrooms, and school years.
Plan intervention and challenge
Specialists and teachers identify priorities, consider how demonstrated strengths can support learning, and plan focused intervention alongside appropriate challenge.
Build shared understanding
The profile gives educators and families specific findings to discuss. They can consider strengths and difficulties together, relate the findings to what they have observed, and agree on questions or next steps.
Maintain continuity
Educators can carry forward the findings alongside strengths, effective approaches, current learning aims, and questions that remain unresolved. That knowledge can inform a new teacher’s planning, a transition to another grade, or the move from admissions into enrollment.
When a deeper learning profile is useful
Choosing the depth of assessment
Most students need only periodic screening. A Diagnostic provides detail about skills at a selected level. The Inventory is useful when a student's learning is sufficiently uneven or complex that assessment at one level leaves important questions unresolved.
A specialist may already know from the student's history or classroom work that this deeper investigation is warranted. Students do not have to move through Screener, Diagnostic, and Inventory in a fixed sequence. The depth of assessment should follow the question educators are trying to answer.
Allowing time for the student
The Inventory covers more ground than the Screener or Diagnostic, and the time needed varies. It can be completed across several sessions, with progress saved between sittings.
Short sessions of around 15–20 minutes allow educators to organize the assessment around the student's attention, stamina, and school day. Specialists plan administration and interpretation with the student's needs in mind.
Bring us the learning profile your team is trying to understand
Bring us a student whose learning profile your team is trying to understand more fully.
The question may involve substantial strengths and difficulties existing together, a classroom concern that is not explained by an overall result, learning that spans several levels, or a student whose previous intervention has left important questions unresolved.
We can consider whether the Inventory would add useful evidence, what the patterns across dimensions mean, and how the resulting learning profile could inform intervention, challenge, and shared understanding among educators and families.
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