STANDARDS BASED IEPSStrategies for the Elementary School Teacher

CASE ConferenceAlabama State Department of Education

Special Education Services

February 25, 2014

Ms. Melanie Falconer, M.A.Crestline Elementary, Mountain Brook City Schools

Ms. Heather Brand, M.Ed. Cherokee Bend Elementary Mountain Brook City Schools

Susan Goldthwaite, M.Ed. ALSDE, Special Education Services

Clark Waggoner, M.Ed. ALSDE, Special Education Services

Acknowledgements-we are grateful to the following individuals who provided expertise, guidance, and materials to assist in the development of this presentation:

2

Cynthia Mayo, M.Ed.Education Specialist

Special Education ServicesAlabama State Department of Education

DaLee Chambers, Ph.D.Education Specialist

Special Education ServicesAlabama State Department of Education

Reproductions of the slides and/or information from this presentation should be credited to:

Alabama State Department of Education,

Special Education Services

P.O. Box 302101

Montgomery, AL 36130

speced@alsde.edu

334.242.8114

Developing Standards-Based IEPs

The IEP Team must be familiar with the general education curriculum and standards;

Consider the student’s grade level standard and determine the intent of the standard;

Where is the student performing in relation to the grade level standard?

A statement of the child’s present levels of academic achievement and functional performance, including how the child’s disability affects the child’s involvement and progress in the general education curriculum (i.e., the same curriculum as for nondisabled children); or for preschool children as appropriate, how the disability affects the child’s participation in appropriate activities.

IDEA 2004

Collect and examine materials for making data-based IEP decisions. Courses of study and/or curriculum guides Current assessment data

State assessments Classroom assessments (curriculum-based) Eligibility data (if current and related to

learning) Student work samples Previous year’s IEP Other information (e.g., grades, discipline

referrals, attendance reports)

Use data to summarize the present level.

The present level answers the question:

What is the student doing now?”

Components Strengths Needs How the student’s disability affects

performance in the general education curriculum (for preschool children, how the disability affects the child’s participation in age appropriate activities)

Present Level

Strengths

Must be individualized

For academic goals, must be based on data related to the standards

Are specific to each goal and are not typically repeated in more than one Present Level

Ask…What have we learned about this student’s strengths?

Present Level

Needs

Must be individualized

For academic goals, must be based on data related to the standards

Are specific to each goal and are not typically repeated in more than one Present Level

Ask…What prerequisite skills/knowledge does the student need to close the gap between his/her present level and the grade-level content standard or the functional achievement expectation?

Present Level

Case Study “Johnny Smith” Johnny is an adorable 7 year old, in the 1st grade, who attends Anytown Elementary School. He lives at home with his mother, father, and two older siblings.  Johnny consistently identifies the beginning, middle, and ending sounds in words and can manipulate phonemes within CVC words. He has been participating in multi-sensory strategies for reading and phonemic awareness and is utilizing those strategies across settings (i.e. spelling tests, writing activities); they do seem to have helped his ability to "hear" the individual sounds within words. While Johnny has made excellent progress overall, sight words and decoding strategies continue to be extremely problematic for him. Johnny has learned many sight words at the consistent/mastery level but at times acts like there are words he has never seen (even though we have been working on them daily); this seems to be a recall problem but is very inconsistent from one day to the next. He also has trouble with sight words in the context of sentences or phrases; the words that he does seem to know at the mastery level, he cannot recall at times when they are surrounded by other words in a sentence format.  Johnny has made improvements in his handwriting ability. He can write most all upper and lower case letters without prompting and can write several CVC words independently. He holds his pencil correctly and exhibits good fine motor skills with the ability to write legibly with appropriate letter-line placement. Johnny does not currently use appropriate spacing between letters and words and often uses capital letters in the middle of words, including his name. He has the ability to verbalize complete sentences with detail but in a written format, many of his words would not be decipherable to an outside reader; if teachers do not watch him write something, they, too, can often not decipher it and have to ask Johnny what it says.  Mom and Dad state that Johnny’s overall success and improvement this year is his biggest strength; he has made improvements in reading, math, and writing as well as naming and recall. Johnny continues to show a delay in the area of phonemic awareness and is unable to automatically recall all of the letters and sight words that have been taught in Kindergarten. Johnny is able to communicate using basic language skills but continues to show a delay in expressive language skills. He does have trouble with recall and naming - he uses non-descriptive terms and doesn't recall the names of objects/items easily.

Case StudyAfter reading the attached case study, identify Johnny’s strengths and needs.

Strengths

Needs

Case Study “Johnny Smith” Johnny is an adorable 7 year old, in the 1st grade, who attends Anytown Elementary School. He lives at home with his mother, father, and two older siblings.  Johnny consistently identifies the beginning, middle, and ending sounds in words and can manipulate phonemes within CVC words. He has been participating in multi-sensory strategies for reading and phonemic awareness and is utilizing those strategies across settings (i.e. spelling tests, writing activities); they do seem to have helped his ability to "hear" the individual sounds within words. While Johnny has made excellent progress overall, sight words and decoding strategies continue to be extremely problematic for him. Johnny has learned many sight words at the consistent/mastery level but at times acts like there are words he has never seen (even though we have been working on them daily); this seems to be a recall problem but is very inconsistent from one day to the next. He also has trouble with sight words in the context of sentences or phrases; the words that he does seem to know at the mastery level, he cannot recall at times when they are surrounded by other words in a sentence format.  Johnny has made improvements in his handwriting ability. He can write most all upper and lower case letters without prompting and can write several CVC words independently. He holds his pencil correctly and exhibits good fine motor skills with the ability to write legibly with appropriate letter-line placement. Johnny does not currently use appropriate spacing between letters and words and often uses capital letters in the middle of words, including his name. He has the ability to verbalize complete sentences with detail but in a written format, many of his words would not be decipherable to an outside reader; if teachers do not watch him write something, they, too, can often not decipher it and have to ask Johnny what it says.  Mom and Dad state that Johnny’s overall success and improvement this year is his biggest strength; he has made improvements in reading, math, and writing as well as naming and recall. Johnny continues to show a delay in the area of phonemic awareness and is unable to automatically recall all of the letters and sight words that have been taught in Kindergarten. Johnny is able to communicate using basic language skills but continues to show a delay in expressive language skills. He does have trouble with recall and naming - he uses non-descriptive terms and doesn't recall the names of objects/items easily.

How the Student’s Disability Affects Performance in the General Education Curriculum

Based on characteristics of the student that are a result of his or her disability.

Might be repeated in more than one Present Level depending on the nature of the standards being addressed

Present Level

Case Study

How does Johnny’s disability affect his progress and participation in the general education classroom?

Remember…

The present level of academic achievement and functional performance sets the stage for developing IEP goals!

Present Level

A statement of measurable annual goals, including academic and functional goals, designed to meet the child’s needs that result from the child’s disability to enable the child to be involved in and make progress in the general education curriculum and meet each of the child’s other educational needs that result from the child’s disability. For children with disabilities who take alternate assessments aligned to alternate achievement standards, a description of benchmarks is also required.

IDEA 2004

Annual GoalsStudents with Mild Disabilities

Academic

• Standards-Based Instruction (Alabama College & Career Ready Standards)

• Intervention Programs Functional

• Communication Skills

• Study Skills

• Organizational Skills

• Social SkillsAges 16 and Older

• Transition Skills 

Alabama Curriculum Guides

• Designed for students who are not performing at grade level

• Include objectives that are prerequisite to the standard and/or break the standard down into smaller instructional units.

Write Annual Goals.

Purpose• To describe what a student can

reasonably expect to accomplish in one school year

• Annual Goals answer the question

“What should the student be doing?”

Academic goals are based on:

–Alabama content standards listed in the Alabama College & Career Ready Standards(and Curriculum Guide Objectives and/or Essentials Course Objectives) or

–Alabama Extended Standards (for students with significant cognitive disabilities)

Annual Goals

Measurable annual goals must include the following:

Who?…will achieve?

What?…skill or behavior?

How?…in what manner or at what level?

Where?…in what setting or under what conditions

When?... By what time or an ending date?

Annual Goals

Annual GoalsAnnual goals are related to needs resulting from the student’s disability that directly affect involvement and progress in the general education curriculum.

Annual Goals Consider content standards

– Look at all grade-level content standards

– Discuss intent of standard

– Determine which standards are most important for each student (based on progress in the general education curriculum)

– Compare standard(s) with student’s areas of needs and the impact of the disability

– Use data to determine the areas the student will find difficult without additional supports

Annual GoalsIf a large number of needs are identified in

the present level, the IEP Team must consider how each need impacts the students’ progress in the general education curriculum.

Select the need that has the greatest impact on progress, and develop a goal to address that need.

Case StudyBased on the needs you have identified, what goal areas do you think should be addressed on Johnny’s IEP? Using the 5 components write a goal for Johnny.

Goal Areas

Goal

 

 

• (RF.1.3 & RF.1.4) By August 2014, Johnny will decode and encode words within text with automaticity in order to support a fluency rate of 40 words per minute within Level J books.

• (W.1.5/W.1.6 & L.1.2a/L.1.2b) By August 2014, Johnny will write a paragraph containing at least 6 sentences weekly (understandable to an outside reader and with appropriate capitalization and punctuation) to complete “Writing Workshop” activities for a minimum of 3 weeks.

• (SL.1.4) By August 2014, Johnny will utilize 60 new vocabulary words to name, describe, or add detail to nouns/people/events with 80% accuracy across 3 weeks.

GOAL EXAMPLES

(RF.1.3 & RF.1.4) By August 2014, Johnny will decode and encode words within text with automaticity in order to support a fluency rate of 40 words per minute within Level J books. By November 2013, Johnny will decode and encode 20 words within text

utilizing multi-sensory strategies in order to support a fluency rate of 30 words per minute within Level J books.

By February 2014, Johnny will decode and encode words within text utilizing multi-sensory strategies in order to support a fluency rate of 30 words per minute within Level J books.

By April 2014, Johnny will decode and encode words within text utilizing multi-sensory strategies in order to support a fluency rate of 35 words per minute within Level J books.

 

GOAL & BENCHMARK EXAMPLE

The four critical components of a well-written goal are:

Timeframe is usually specified in the number of weeks or a certain date for completion. A year is the maximum allowed length for the timeframe.

In 36 instructional weeks…

By November 19, 2014….

By the end of 2014/2015 school year…

Conditions specify the circumstances that prompt the child’s performance of an observable behavior. Conditions are dependent on the behavior being measured and involve the application of skills or knowledge.

When presented with 2nd grade level text…

Given a mixed 4th grade level math calculation probe….

Given a story prompt and 30 minutes to write…

Conditions may also integrate a related service:

Given appropriate equipment……..

Given assistive technology……..

Given a pencil grip……….

WHERE

WHEN

Behavior clearly identifies the performance that is being monitored, usually reflects an action or can be directly observed, and is measurable.

Sarah will read…

Claude will write the correct solutions…

Mary will score…

Jane will indicate her wants and needs…..

Chris will write……

Criterion identifies how much, how often, or to what standards the behavior must occur in order to demonstrate that the goal has been reached. The goal criterion specifies the amount of growth the child or youth is expected to make by the end of the annual goal period.

96 words per minute with 5 or fewer errors.

85% or more correct for all problems presented.

Earning 4 or better when graded according to the 6-trait writing rubric.

Nebraska Department of Education, IEP Technical Assistance Guide, February 2011)

WHAT

HOW

Annual Goals

Remember…!

The IEP goal is NOT the content standard

The IEP goal is part of a plan to make the content standard immediate and individualized for the student.

Do not copy the content standard word for word to become an IEP goal.

Annual GoalsStudents with Moderate and Severe Disabilities

Academic

• Standards-Based Instruction (Alabama Extended Standards)

• Intervention Programs Functional

• Communication Skills

• Adaptive Behavior Skills

• Daily Living SkillsAges 16 and Older

• Transition Skills 

Alabama Extended Standards

• They are extensions of the state academic content standards for each grade level.

• They are designed to allow students with significant cognitive disabilities to access the general education curriculum.

Dana is a student in the 2nd grade with spinal bifida. She uses a wheelchair for mobility which she can operate independently but struggles to navigate around obstacles in the classroom. She is currently receiving special education in the eligibility area of developmental delay. She is dependent on school staff for most of her physical needs. Recent assessments show that her cognitive abilities are below the pre-kindergarten level in reading and math. However, her expressive and receptive language is consistent with that of her typically developing peers. Recent classroom observations reveal that she is able to sit quietly and listen as a story is read aloud to her from her teacher or a peer. She was able to answer the who question in identifying the main character. She did have trouble navigating to the reading area, despite the large area. She is following the Alabama Extended Standards for her academic program. Her parents have stated that they have concerns about Dana’s ability to function independently in the classroom.

Case StudyAfter reading the attached case study, identify Dana’s strengths and needs.

Strengths

Needs

How does Dana’s disability affect her progress and participation in the general education classroom?

 

 

Strengths: Based upon teacher observation Dana participates during reading class by listening to the teacher read a story aloud. She is very quiet and attentive as a story is read. After listening she is able to look at the pictures from which she identifies one of the characters that was in the story. (R.ES.1.1 (2))

Needs: However, when asked about the events in the story she is unable to identify if a particular event occurred at the beginning or the ending of the story. She needs to increase her reading skills to identify the ending of a story that is read aloud to her.

How the student’s disability affects performance in the general education curriculum: Dana’s limited reading skills negatively affects her participation within the general education curriculum in the area of reading

Benchmarks• For children with disabilities who take

alternate assessments aligned to alternate achievement standards

• Measurable

• Minimum of 2 per goal

• A logical breakdown of the major components of an annual goal

• Required for all goals, not just academic goals, regardless of whether it is a testing year or not

Benchmarks Benchmarks may be:

Sequential (crawl, then walk) or Parallel (decode accurately and

understand what is read)

Case StudyBased on the needs you have identified, what goal areas do you think should be addressed on Dana’s IEP? Using the 5 components write a goal & benchmarks for Dana.

Goal Areas

Goal

Benchmarks

 

 

Who DanaBehavior will identify the ending of the story Condition following a story read aloud by her peers or teacherCriterion with 90% accuracyTime frame by the end of the fourth nine weeks.

Dana will identify the ending of the story following a story read aloud by her peers or teachers with 90 % accuracy by the end of the fourth nine weeks.

Q&A, Standards-Based IEPs

docs.alsde.edu/documents/65/QandA_Standards-Based_IEPs.pdf

• www.alsde.edu

• Click on Offices

• Click on Office of Learning Support, Special Education

• Click on Standards

• Scroll down to find QandA_Standards-Based_IEPs

Teacher to TeacherMs. Melanie FalconerCrestline Elementary, Mountain Brook City SchoolsFALCONERM@mtnbrook.k12.al.us

Ms. Heather Brand Cherokee Bend Elementary, Mountain Brook City SchoolBRANDH@mtnbrook.k12.al.us

Thank YOU!

www.alsde.edu

Please email your Questions and Commentsto your SES contact person...

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