Setting IEP goals

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• How IEP teams set annual goals

  As a team, you and the school will prioritize which skills your child will work on over the next 12 months. These are the annual goals, and the IEP provides specially designed instruction to help your child meet these goals.

  As a parent or guardian, you're a member of the IEP team too, and together you'll talk about three key things that go into setting each goal: 

  • The first is looking at your child's present level of performance. The team needs to know what your child can do right now.

  • The second key part is setting the annual goals or targets to reach a year from now. The team will set annual goals that are ambitious but attainable. We want to aim high but also be realistic. We look at where we want your child's skills to be a year from now. Then we plan the steps to help your child reach those goals in this time frame.

  • Third big part of setting IEP goals is specifying benchmarks or short-term objectives to help the team measure your child's progress over the course of the year.

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• How you can help set annual goals

  It's OK if you're not an expert in education. You're an expert in your child. You're also an equal member of the IEP team. Here are some ways you can help set annual goals:

  • You can suggest different kinds of goals. Getting organized, managing emotions, replacing negative behaviors — these are all common goal areas in IEPs.

  • As you're thinking about which goals to prioritize, keep in mind that there is no maximum number of goals. The trick is finding the right number for your child. You want a number that's manageable and not overwhelming.

  • Ask how you can help at home. You and the school can also look for ways to help your child enjoy what they're learning. To try to keep it fun and feeling like these goals are reachable. 

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• Ask about SMART goals

  SMART is an acronym for:

  • Specific,

  • Measurable,

  • Attainable,

  • Results-oriented, and

  • Time-bound.

  Setting SMART goals can help avoid vague or hard-to-measure goals. SMART goals are precise. For example, here's a SMART goal for reading fluency: "By June 1st, Ariana will read 115 words per minute with 95% accuracy on four out of five tries."

  You can help by using the SMART acronym to ask questions like "Is this goal specific enough? Is it measurable?," etc.

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• Are the goals high enough?

  "Are my child's IEP goals aiming high enough?" This is a really tough question. In the SMART acronym that we just talked about, the A stands for "Attainable." But writing attainable goals can feel a little like Goldilocks and the three bears. It can be tricky to make the goals not too easy, not too hard, but just right.

  There are two things to keep in mind when it comes to setting goals that are aiming high enough but are attainable:

  • First, your child's IEP goals must be tied to the standards of their current grade level.

  • But there's still some flexibility. Just because a child’s IEP goals are tied to fifth-grade standards doesn't mean they have to achieve grade-level reading this year. They just need to show steady progress towards achieving grade level.

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