Focus on The IEP Goal — That Gets Your Child’s Reading Comprehension to Grade Level or Above
On The IEP Goal That Will Make The Difference for Your Child
Amanda Morin wrote a valuable article for Understood that focuses on What to Double Check on Your Child’s IEP. We want to add what we believe is The IEP Goal that can change your child’s life — getting your child’s reading comprehension to or above grade level.
An IEP is an Individualized Education Program for students receiving special education in public and charter schools in the United States. There are several major barriers that prevent The IEP Goal — of setting a BOLD Goal to get a child’s reading comprehension to or above grade level and agreeing on the necessary programs and support to achieve the goal:
- Sometimes this goal is not achievable within a year. We recognize this reality. In these cases we strive to close the gap.
- A big hurdle comes when school’s use reading fluency as a substitute for reading comprehension. Reading fluency is a combination of a student’s reading speed and accuracy. We have seen cases where a student’s reading fluency is 2, 5 and even 7 years below the student’s silent reading comprehension. There is no substitute for measuring reading comprehension. For our clients, we always suggest that we do a reading comprehension assessment prior to a meeting
- School’s will often say they do not set reading comprehension goals. I do not accept this answer and insist we set one, when the present level of performance is an issue
- Schools will often point out that the suggested level of services will not allow the student to achieve grade level reading comprehension. Before lowering the goal, I suggest we explore what level of services can get the child’s reading comprehension to grade level
- Far to frequently the focus is on improving reading fluency and not comprehension. I am comfortable with two goals, but never believe it is right to not have a reading comprehension goal, when comprehension is an issue
- Programs that schools and school districts use are often not focused on comprehension — the available programs are often fluency focused
Hitting The IEP Goal Will Take Parental Support and May Require Outside Services
Parental support is almost always needed to achieve a BOLD Reading Comprehension Goal. Reading daily will help. It also helps to build your child’s vocabulary — and quality dinner and other family conversations can help.
five factors that may impact your child’s ability to achieve The IEP Goal. These include:
- Your child is a visual learner and the school’s do not teach to his or her strengths
- Your child’s eyes do not track well when reading
- Your child loses focus when reading
- School’s do not often have the reading software that makes this possible, and/or they do not use it as well as an individualized program could
- No school we have seen puts this all together
If you would like help, you can:
- Take our no cost Success Assessment with your child. You will get immediate feedback and you can then call for a no cost Stress to Success Strategy Session
- Call us for an in-office Focus Assessment that assesses your child’s reading speed and comprehension and whether your child has an attention and/or an eye-teaming issue
- Contact us at 561-361-7495 and we can discuss your child, our Parent advocate effort or helping your child achieve his or her full potential
The post Focus on The IEP Goal That Will Make The Difference for Your Child appeared first on 3D Learner.