Zoe's score on the DIBELS subtest Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF), Words Recoded Correctly, was a score of 23, placing her in the strategic support range. At this meeting, we will be writing her IEP for one year from now.

Here is the current performance of our student example: For our purposes, we will just write the phonics goal. Remember our student example? We already identified the goal areas of phonemic awareness and phonics. What are the steps needed to achieve the grade level standards? What are the lagging skills needed to achieve the grade level standards? This will be your goal or goal areas! What standards or skills are required? Look at the student's current abilities - or present levels of data. How is the disability impacting the ability of the student to access the general education curriculum? Look at that qualifying educational disability again. Specifically, what does the student need to achieve in order to improve the identified lagging skill areas?įirst, think BIG, and then, narrow it down to the specific skill that is required! SMART is a well-established mnemonic acronym that we can use to plan and achieve all kinds of goals, including IEP goals. SMART = Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results-Oriented, Time-Bound Make sense? Okay, so our next step is to write the goal!įor this step we will use the SMART acronym: You can read more about how I choose my goal areas HERE! So, for this student, the goal areas would be phonemic awareness and phonics skills. An accommodation of text to speech or access to audiobooks would allow the student to “read” the grade level material - independently! In looking at the example I gave you, the lagging skills of my fake student are in phonemic awareness and phonics. The better question here is - can an accommodation be put in place to remove the hurdles of the curriculum for a student, allowing the student to independently access the grade level material? The simple answer here (based on our example) is no. So does this mean that the student needs a goal for Mathematics or Social Studies or Science? However, we just said that the student cannot read grade level material because of their educational disability. The student also has strong listening comprehension skills. While the student was unable to read grade level expectations on evaluations, the student demonstrated strong reading comprehension skills at their independent reading level.

Evaluations have shown that the phonemic awareness and phonics skills of the student are lagging. This causes the student to be unable to read grade level materials across all content areas. Specifically, the student's decoding skills are about 2 years below grade level. The skill areas that you identify are most likely to be the goal areas.įor example, let's say a student has been identified with a Specific Learning Disability in Reading. What impact does the disability (or disabilities in some cases) have on the education of the student? Once you have identified the educational disability that is impacting the ability of the student to make effective progress in the general education classroom, you must then ask the next question. You should check with your state mandates for their educational disability areas.)

(Note: States can choose how they want to assign disability categories, as long as they cover all of the federal disability terms and definitions. Under IDEA, or AKA the Special Education law, there are 13 educational disability categories: What is the student's qualifying disability? Students qualify for Special Education services when they have a qualifying educational disability that impacts the student's ability to effectively make progress without the student receiving Specially Designed Instruction and/or related services like Speech or Occupational Therapy.

It's actually quite simple once you get the hang of it - oh, and you obviously have the ever-important, all-knowing data!īut that's easy for me to say as I sit here writing this blog and not an IEP.Ĭonfession time - I don't actually ever dread writing an IEP, and that is because I use my super simple SMART IEP Goal Formula. IEP goal writing does not have to be stressful. Writing an IEP can feel downright overwhelming. Special education teachers groan and mumble that they have to go do it as they procrastinate by chatting with a fellow educator. Special Education Teachers will do anything we can to avoid the paperwork part.Īnd we all dread it. we don't always love the paperwork.ĭo you do everything you can to avoid writing IEP goals? Copy papers. Sure! We love working with students with disabilities, getting to teach them and watch them grow and achieve from our instruction. Special Education Teachers love their jobs, right? Wait! Before you start reading this blog, if you have NOT chosen your goal areas yet, read THIS blog first!

Iep writer steps