Precision Teaching Series – Part 3 of 5: Common Conventions of using the Standard Celeration Chart

The Precision Teaching Series

This series of 5 blogs will introduce you to the Precision Teaching Method created by Ogden R. Lindsley for data collection, data analysis and decision making.

• Part 1: Precision Teaching – What is it?
• Part 2: Benefits of Precision Teaching
• Part 3: Common Conventions of using the Standard Celeration Chart
• Part 4: Exploring the Standard Celeration Chart
• Part 5: Summarizing Our Findings

Common Conventions of using the Standard Celeration Chart

Here are some simple rules for understanding and using the Standard Celeration Chart. When I ran my private school, my teachers, Annie, Pam and I would teach these rules to the students so that they could chart their own progress. Here is a shorthand version of the rules we taught them. If you are as smart as a fifth grade special ed student, you can easily learn to chart.

The 1 Line

• Look down the left hand side of the chart until you find the number 1 in the margin. It marks a horizontal line which has a count of 1 per minute. The Standard Celeration Chart does not have a zero, because zero time only occurs in sports events.
• The ordinate of the chart counts the frequency per minute of whatever you are counting. Put your finger on the chart where it says Count per Minute. Now put your finger back on the 1 line.
• Anything that happens more than 1 time in 1 minute is charted above the 1 line.
• Anything that happens less than one time per minute is charted below the 1 line.
• Anything that happens exactly one time per minute is charted on the 1 line.

Vertical lines on the Standard Celeration Chart (SCC)

Day Lines

• Lines that go up and down are day lines. Touch a line that goes up and down. It is a day line. There are 140 day lines on the chart.

Sunday Lines

• Fat Lines that go up and down are Sunday lines. Touch the very first line on the left hand side of the chart. That is a fat line. It is printed wider than the other day lines. It is a Sunday Line. Find another fat line that goes up and down. What do you know about it? 
• What day follows Sunday? Monday. So what day line follows a Sunday line? A Monday line. Put your finger on the first Sunday line on the chart. Touch each line as you say the days of the week. Su, M, T, W, TH, FR, Sa. The next line is a fat line. It is the next Sunday line. Find another Sunday line anywhere on the chart. Count the day lines from Sunday through Saturday. Now you know how to find any day on the chart

Horizontal lines on the SCC

• Lines that go across are counting lines. Touch the number 1 in the left hand margin. Follow the line across the chart. That is a counting line. It counts a score of 1.

Big Numbers in the Margin

• Find the number 1 in the left hand margin. Now count the horizontal lines as you go up the chart until you find the number 5. Notice that the number 1 is printed larger than the number 5. Keep counting the horizontal lines up the chart until you find the next “big number” which is 10. Big numbers are printed larger than other numbers in the margin.
• “Big numbers in the margin that start with 1.” The numbers 1, 10,100 and 1000 are in larger print in the margin.
• “Big numbers in the margin that start with 1, tell you what to count by and what to count from.” In the left hand margin, touch the first big number that starts with 1. It is the number 1. It tells you to count the horizontal lines by 1s and to count from 1as you go up the chart. Stop when you reach the next big number that starts with 1 which is 10.
• The next big number in the margin that starts with 1 is the number 10. The rule tells you to count the horizontal lines by 10s and to start from the number 10. Stop when you get to the next big number that starts with 1 which is 100.
• The rule tells you to count the horizontal lines by 100s beginning at 100. Stop when you reach the next big number, 1000. Now you know how to read any score on the chart as well as which day it was recorded.

Entering Data on the Daily Standard Celeration Chart

If you were having a student read a list of words from a word list, you could time their effort for 1 minute and know the frequency of correctly read words and any errors. You could then enter those scores on the SCC. If today were Monday, we would place a dot on the Monday line to signify the number correct. We would place an “X” on the 3 line on Monday to signify 3 errors. If the student read 53 words in one minute and made 3 errors, we would first deduct the errors and have a score of 50 correct, and 3 errors for a total of 53 words read in one minute. On Tuesday, after more instruction and practice, we could do another 1 minute timing to see the effect of our teaching.