Table of Contents
What is Diagnostic Insights?
Diagnostic Insights helps you make smarter diagnostic decisions by showing each student’s full diagnostic history and personalized recommendations.
With Diagnostic Insights, you can:
View a student’s complete diagnostic history — including diagnostics assigned by other teachers or in past school years.
See how students performed on previous diagnostics.
Get personalized recommendations for which diagnostic to assign next.
Track practice activity engagement and performance related to diagnostics.
Diagnostic Insights is free for all teachers. To protect student data, access is limited to verified teachers. If you’re not yet verified, you’ll be guided through the steps — see How to Access Diagnostic Insights for details.
My Diagnostics vs. Diagnostic Insights: What's the Difference?
These two reports serve complementary purposes:
My Diagnostics focuses on the diagnostics you assigned during the current school year. It allows you to track completion, view detailed results, and assign practice recommendations based on student performance.
Diagnostic Insights gives you a complete view of each student’s diagnostic history — including diagnostics assigned by other teachers, in other classes or school years. It provides personalized recommendations for the next diagnostic each student should complete.
Use Diagnostic Insights to understand students’ broader diagnostic progress and decide what to assign next. Use My Diagnostics to manage your current assignments and follow up with targeted practice.
Tip: Diagnostic Insights is especially helpful at the beginning of a school year or semester — when you’re getting to know your students and deciding where each one should start.
How to Access Diagnostic Insights
You can access Diagnostic Insights by navigating to View Reports → Diagnostic Reports → Diagnostic Insights.
If you’re a new teacher or haven’t been verified yet, you may see a banner with next steps before you can access the report. See below for how to complete verification.
(a) Teacher verification steps
When first accessing Diagnostic Insights, you may see a banner indicating action is required. The steps required depend on your account status:
Select your school: You need to select a school to use this feature. Clicking “Select school” will redirect you to My Account where you can select your school.
Verify your email: You need to verify your email to use this feature. Clicking “Verify your email” will send you an email with a link to verify ownership.
Invite an admin (if needed): If your school doesn't already have a verified admin, you'll be prompted to invite one. Clicking “Invite an admin” will take you to Admin Access, where you can invite someone (or apply to become one yourself). It’s free and only takes a minute.
Request verification from your admin: Finally, you need to be verified by an admin as a teacher at your school to use this feature. Clicking “Request verification” will allow you to select which admin/s to send your request to. You’ll receive an email when you have been verified.
(b) How admins verify teachers
Admins approve teachers at their school to grant access to Diagnostic Insights. This ensures only authorized educators can view student data.
(i) Receiving and viewing requests
You'll be notified by email when a teacher requests verification.
In the Account Management section of the Premium Hub, you can see all teachers and their verification status:
“Approved”: The teacher has been verified and has access to Diagnostic Insights.
“Requested verification”: The teacher has requested verification and is awaiting an admin’s approval.
“Needs verification”: The teacher has not yet requested verification, but can be proactively verified by an admin.
“Denied”: The teacher's previous request was denied by an admin.
(ii) Responding to requests and managing verification
You can approve, deny, or proactively verify teachers:
Via email: Click the "Approve verification request" or "Deny verification request" links in the notification email.
Via Account Management (Premium Hub):
Individual teachers: Use the "Actions" menu next to a teacher's name to approve or deny an active request. If a teacher has not yet requested verification, or if you wish to change a previous denial to an approval, you can select "Verify teacher" to approve them.
Multiple teachers (bulk): Select teachers and use the actions dropdown to verify multiple teachers at once.
We recommend considering bulk verification for all your teachers at the beginning of the school year. This ensures everyone can benefit from Diagnostic Insights promptly and reduces the need for numerous individual verifications later.
Revoking access: To remove a verified teacher's access (e.g., if they leave the school), use the "Unlink from school" action. This resets their verification status for your school.
Teachers are automatically notified by email of your decision.
(c) Admin access to Diagnostic Insights
All verified admins can access Diagnostic Insights automatically. The admin verification process is separate from the teacher verification process. Learn more about becoming a verified admin.
How Diagnostic Insights is Organized
Diagnostic Insights has three main views, each designed to help you with a specific task — whether you’re reviewing a student’s history, identifying skill gaps, or looking at practice engagement.
(a) Filters (apply to all views)
Class — Choose the class you want to view. This defaults to your first class (alphabetically) and remembers your last selection.
Timeframe — Choose between:
All time (default)
This school year
Last school year
Note:
The "All time" timeframe starts on July 1, 2023 (the beginning of the 2023- 2024 school year).
Currently, it is not possible to set your academic year. You can upvote this feature request here.
(b) Views in Diagnostic Insights
History & Recommendations
Review completed diagnostics — even those assigned by other teachers or in past years — and get personalized recommendations for what to assign next.
This view includes a toggle to show ELL-specific diagnostics if applicable.
Performance Insights
Explore skill-level proficiency across your class or for individual students. Helpful for spotting strengths and areas that need support.
Practice Insights
See student activity and performance on practice work tied to diagnostics, including time spent and success rates.
History & Recommendations
This view shows each student’s full diagnostic history — including diagnostics assigned by other teachers or in previous school years — and provides personalized recommendations for which diagnostic to assign next.
(a) How recommendations work
Students are recommended the next diagnostic level based on a structured progression — typically Starter → Intermediate → Advanced — to help build skills systematically.
To be recommended the next level, a student must demonstrate full proficiency in most skills, which means:
Scoring 100% on at least 80% of skills.
On either the Pre or Post version of a diagnostic.
(e.g., on a 5-skill diagnostic, a student must get all questions right on at least 4 skills)
In some cases, a student may complete a higher-level diagnostic (e.g., Intermediate or Advanced) before completing a previous one. If they haven’t demonstrated full proficiency in most skills on that earlier level, the system will recommend returning to it. This ensures foundational skills are fully covered before moving on.
While the system provides a clear, structured path, teachers can always override recommendations and assign diagnostics in a different order if they prefer.
If a student has already demonstrated full proficiency in most skills on all available diagnostics, no further diagnostic will be recommended. In these cases, teachers may still assign another diagnostic if they choose, but we encourage exploring additional Quill content — such as targeted practice activities from the Activity Library, or other learning tools like Reading for Evidence — to continue challenging the student and supporting their growth
(b) “By Class” view
The “By Class” view gives you a quick summary of diagnostic completion and next-step recommendations for every student in the selected class.
(i) “History” tab
This tab shows which students have completed each diagnostic — and how far they got.
You’ll see columns for Starter, Intermediate, and Advanced Diagnostics (or ELL equivalents if you’ve toggled on ELL mode).
Each cell includes a diamond icon representing a diagnostic attempt:
◇ Unfilled diamond = student completed the Pre-Diagnostic only.
◆ Filled diamond = student completed both Pre and Post-Diagnostic.
✔ Check mark = student demonstrated full proficiency in most skills on either the Pre or Post diagnostic — which qualifies them to be recommended the next diagnostic in the sequence.
You can hover over any icon to see the completion date and any related practice activity details.
(ii) “Recommendations” tab
This tab shows a recommended diagnostic for each student, based on the proficiency logic described labove.
Recommendations follow a structured progression, but you can override them at any time.
Recommendations are pre-selected — you can “Select all” or “Deselect all”.
Click Assign Diagnostics to assign the selected diagnostics — no additional steps required.
Once assigned, you’ll see a ✓ Assigned status in the relevant column.
When the student completes the diagnostic, a View Results button will appear.
(c) “By Student” view
The “By Student” view shows a detailed diagnostic summary for one student at a time. It helps you understand their individual progress and decide what to assign next.
You can switch between students using the dropdown menu or the “Previous student” / “Next student” buttons.
This view includes two sections: Diagnostic Recommendation and Diagnostic History.
(i) “Diagnostic Recommendation” section
This section shows all three diagnostics — Starter, Intermediate, and Advanced (or ELL equivalents, if toggled on).
For each diagnostic card, you’ll see:
Whether the diagnostic is currently recommended.
Whether you’ve already assigned it in the current class.
A button to assign, preview, or view results, depending on status.
A ✔ label appears on any diagnostic where the student has demonstrated full proficiency in most skills.
(ii) “Diagnostic History” section
This section shows a timeline of the student’s diagnostic journey — in reverse chronological order — whether assigned by you or another teacher.
Each diagnostic entry provides a self-contained view of the student’s experience with that diagnostic — including their performance on the Pre, any linked practice, results on the Post (if taken), and follow-up practice. This gives you a clear, unified picture of the student’s learning progression for that specific diagnostic.
Each diagnostic entry includes four cards:
Pre Diagnostic card — shows completion date, skill proficiency results, number of questions correct, and a donut chart. Hover over the chart to view specific skill names.
Pre Practice card — shows activities completed (including any replays), time spent, and performance breakdown for any practice related to the Pre Diagnostic. The color coding of activity results (i.e. green, yellow, and red) matches the Activity Summary report.
Post Diagnostic card — the same as the Pre practice card, and also includes skill proficiency levels specific to the Post Diagnostic (e.g. “Gained Some Proficiency”). Learn more about these skill proficiency levels here.
Post Practice card — same as the Pre Practice card, but reflects practice related to the Post Diagnostic.
Performance Insights and Practice Insights
(a) How data is organized
These two views give you a deeper look at how students performed on individual skills — and how they engaged with practice tied to diagnostics.
Performance Insights helps you spot which skills your students are strongest or weakest in. It shows the best proficiency level each student reached for each skill on a selected diagnostic version.
Practice Insights shows how students performed on the practice activities linked to those diagnostics — including how much they completed, how long they spent, and how well they did.
To keep this data accurate, both Performance Insights and Practice Insights are grouped by diagnostic version. That’s because the set of skills, questions, or scoring for each diagnostic may change slightly between years.
The current version appears by name only (e.g., Starter Diagnostic)
Older versions include the year (e.g., 2023 | Starter Diagnostic)
Use the Diagnostic filter to choose which version you want to view.
It’s important to note that, while Performance Insights and Practice Insights are version-specific, the History & Recommendations section works differently. In that view, all versions of a diagnostic level (e.g., any Starter Diagnostic) are treated as equivalent for determining proficiency and recommending the next diagnostic. For example, if a student demonstrated “full proficiency in most skills” on the 2023 | Starter Diagnostic, that’s sufficient to recommend the Intermediate Diagnostic. This is because diagnostics at the same level are designed to be broadly similar over time, even if specific skills or questions change slightly.
(b) Performance Insights
(i) Overview
The Performance Insights view helps you see which skills students are strongest in — and which may still need support — on a selected diagnostic.
This view summarizes each student’s best performance per skill during the selected timeframe, based on their results on either the Pre or Post Diagnostic. You can view data by skill (for a class-wide summary) or by student (for a skill-by-skill breakdown of individual performance).
These insights make it easy to spot class trends, target instruction, and group students by skill needs.
(ii) What’s the difference between “By Skill” and “By Student”?
At the top of the Performance Insights view, you can toggle between:
“By Skill” – Shows all skills from the selected diagnostic as rows. Each column represents a proficiency level, showing how many students reached that level for each skill. Hover over a cell to see which students it includes.
“By Student” – Focuses on one skill from the selected diagnostic. Students are grouped into columns based on their proficiency level — so you can quickly see who demonstrated full, partial, or no proficiency.
(iii) Filters
You can narrow down what you’re seeing using the filters at the top:
Diagnostic – Choose which version of the diagnostic you want to view (e.g., Starter Diagnostic, 2023 | Starter Diagnostic).
Timeframe – Choose from “All time,” “This school year,” or “Last school year”.
(iv) Proficiency levels explained
Performance Insights uses four levels to summarize student performance on each skill:
Full Proficiency (green): The student answered all questions for this skill correctly on at least one Pre or Post diagnostic completed in the selected timeframe.
Partial Proficiency (gold): The student answered some questions for this skill correctly on at least one Pre or Post diagnostic completed in the selected timeframe.
No Proficiency (light gold): The student did not answer any questions for this skill correctly on any Pre or Post diagnostic completed in the selected timeframe.
No Data (no background color): The student has not completed the selected diagnostic in the selected timeframe.
These levels are based on the best performance the student showed on either the Pre or Post Diagnostic during the selected timeframe.
(c) Practice Insights
(i) Overview
The Practice Insights view helps you track student engagement and performance on practice activities linked to a specific diagnostic version.
For the selected diagnostic and timeframe, this view summarizes:
How much practice students completed.
How long they spent.
When they last practiced.
How well they performed.
You can view data by skill (to see how much practice happened across the class) or by student (to see what each student worked on and how they did).
Metrics include any replayed activities completed during the selected timeframe.
(ii) What’s the difference between “By Skill” and “By Student”?
At the top of the Practice Insights view, you can toggle between:
“By Skill” – Shows skills from the selected diagnostic as rows. For each skill, you’ll see the total activities completed, total time spent, last practiced date, and a Results summary showing how many completed activities fall into each scoring band. You can view data for all students (default) or filter by a specific student.
“By Student” – Shows students as rows, with each row summarizing their practice engagement and performance across skills from the selected diagnostic. You can view data for all skills (default) or filter by a specific skill. For each student, you’ll see the total activities completed, time spent, last practiced, and a breakdown of their results across the scoring bands.
(iii) Filters
You can narrow what you’re viewing using filters at the top:
Diagnostic – Select which version of the diagnostic you want to view (e.g., Starter Diagnostic, 2023 | Starter Diagnostic).
Timeframe – Choose from “All time,” “This school year,” or “Last school year.”
(iv) What the results colors mean
The color coding of activity results (i.e., green, yellow, and red) matches the Activity Summary report.
Each colored square represents the number of completed practice activities that fall into a specific scoring band:
🟩 Green (83–100%) – The student completed the activity, frequently demonstrated the relevant writing skill, and earned a percentage score of 83–100%.
🟨 Yellow (32–82%) – The student completed the activity, sometimes demonstrated the relevant writing skill, and earned a percentage score of 32–82%.
🟥 Red (0–31%) – The student completed the activity, rarely demonstrated the relevant writing skill, and earned a percentage score of 0–31%.
These counts include all completed practice activities linked to the selected diagnostic during the selected timeframe — including any replays.
Have more questions?
Please feel free to send us a message through the green message bubble on the bottom right corner of the screen or email us at support@quill.org.