Assessment
Circle offers a variety of thoughtfully researched and developed assessment tools to help teachers assess children for progress in skill areas, school-readiness, early reading skills.
Infant and Toddler
Developmental Milestones Checklists
Comprehensive
The Infant and Toddler Developmental Milestones Checklists provide a structured way to observe and document children’s growth from birth to 36 months. These age-specific tools cover key developmental domains, including physical, cognitive, language, and social and emotional skills. Designed for use by both educators and families, the checklists offer a clear view of what children typically do at various stages, supporting learning and healthy development from the very beginning.
Insightful and Easy to Use
These checklists are simple, observation-based tools that require no formal testing. Educators, caregivers, and families can use them in everyday settings to track developmental progress. The straightforward design makes it easy to identify emerging skills and areas where additional support may be needed. They can also be used to document growth over time and guide planning for individualized care and instruction.
Family Input Matters
Families are essential partners in supporting early development. The milestones checklists encourage meaningful conversations between caregivers and educators, helping everyone involved understand a child’s strengths and needs. When shared with families, the checklists provide a common language for celebrating progress and identifying next steps, fostering collaboration and continuity across home and educational settings.
Research-Based and Reliable
Developed by early childhood experts at the Children’s Learning Institute, the checklists reflect current research on child development and align with widely accepted developmental guidelines. They are part of the broader suite of tools available on the CLI Engage platform, supporting a consistent, high-quality approach to early assessment and instruction across the birth-to-five continuum.
Pre-K
Progress Monitoring
Circle Progress Monitoring (CPM) is a user-friendly, online tool to assess prekindergarten children’s progress in various developmental areas. This simple yet reliable data collection prompts teachers to focus on lessons that target their students’ least developed skills.
Comprehensive
CPM includes both direct, teacher-administered assessments and observation-based assessments, covering domains such as literacy, math, science, social studies, social and emotional behaviors, and physical health. CPM provides teachers with valuable data to identify areas where children need additional support or more challenging instruction. CPM helps teachers tailor their instruction to meet children’s individual needs, ensuring comprehensive skill coverage and fostering a supportive learning environment.
Insightful and Actionable Reporting
CPM offers easy-to-access reports that provide clear, visual snapshots of student progress—at the individual, group, class, school, and district levels. Color-coded indicators highlight students below benchmarks, helping educators quickly identify areas of need. Built-in grouping tools and links to recommended activities make it simple to plan targeted small group instruction, turning data into action with just a few clicks.
Family Input Matters
Families play a key role in understanding children’s development. Our aligned family forms mirror the learning domains of CPM and can be added to student portfolios, offering a more complete picture of each child’s growth and progress.
Research-Based and Reliable
CPM is a standardized, criterion-referenced tool proven to track children’s skill growth over time. Backed by years of research from the Children’s Learning Institute, its reliability and validity have been confirmed through studies in preschools and childcare centers across Texas, Maryland, Ohio, and Florida.
K-2
Progress Monitoring
Circle Kindergarten Progress Monitoring (KPM) provides teachers with a comprehensive understanding of students’ learning, enabling them to design differentiated instruction to better meet students’ unique needs and share information with families.
Flexible
KPM provides multiple implementation options to school districts and charter schools in English and Spanish. The KPM user guide provides information for these implementation options:
- Dyslexia Screener (EOY)
- Three-wave progress monitoring tool (BOY, MOY, EOY)
- One-time kindergarten entry assessment (BOY)
- One-time literacy screener (BOY)
Comprehensive
KPM offers a complete picture of each child’s development across key learning domains, right from the start of the school year. Designed for ease of use by kindergarten teachers, KPM helps identify individual strengths and areas for growth, enabling differentiated instruction that meets every learner’s needs. When used throughout the year, KPM provides ongoing, actionable data to guide instruction, support student progress, and foster meaningful family engagement, laying the foundation for long-term academic success.
Insightful and Actionable Reporting
KPM empowers educators and administrators with meaningful data that drives informed decisions and supports student success. With a suite of robust reports, users can explore insights at the individual student, classroom, school, and district/community levels.
Family Input Matters
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 KPM measures to support the integration of family information into instructional planning.
Research-Informed and Aligned with Best Practices
The KPM is a research-based, reliable tool developed by the Children’s Learning Institute, the Texas Education Agency, and the U.S. Department of Education. It helps kindergarten teachers assess key areas of child development at the start of the school year. KPM provides a well-rounded view of each student, supporting differentiated instruction and family communication.
License
CLI Engage is an online platform that provides a rich set of online resources, including child progress monitoring, eCircle professional development courses, supplemental curriculum, and classroom observation tools. Most of these resources are available to anyone with a CLI Engage account. Visit CLI Engage to create a free account.
Access to progress monitoring assessments is limited to select CLI Engage accounts. Licenses to access these tools can be purchased by an individual or organization.
Administrator
$75
A single Administrator License provides administrative access to Circle Progress Monitoring assessments on CLI Engage for one year to an unlimited number of district/school staff members. Administrative users are those who need access to the system but do not conduct student assessments.
Teacher
$175
A Teacher License provides access for one year to district/school staff to administer Circle Progress Monitoring assessments to students. A separate Teacher License is required for each classroom.