What are CBM Probes?

What are CBM Probes?

CBM stands for Curriculum-Based Measurement. It is the process by which a student’s general learning is measured, with repeated administrations of equated probes. When used for progress monitoring, Curriculum-Based Measurements should have the following characteristics:

  1. Brief and easy to administer

  2. Assess the same way each time, either a specific content domain or sample of the year-long grade-level curriculum.

  3. Administered the same way every time

  4. Incorporate automatic tests of retention and generalization

  5. Offer reliable and valid scores

  6. Scores are graphed for teachers to use to make decisions about instructional programs and teaching methods for each student.

  7. Highly prescriptive and standardized

  8. CBM measures any instructional approach, making no assumptions about instructional hierarchy for determining measurement.


Classworks offers two types of CBM Progress Monitoring:

  • Curriculum Sampling

  • Global Indicators

CBM is the gold-standard accepted methodology for progress monitoring. There are two types of CBM: Global Indicators and Curriculum Sampling. Both are indicators of student progress on the general curriculum and the overall effectiveness of the intervention.

Within Classworks, both types of progress monitoring automatically inform the student’s individualized learning intervention. Teachers can easily choose between these two approaches for each student when they activate progress monitoring within Classworks.

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