What in the Gobbledygook? How to Write IEP Goals that Everyone Can Understand

Sometimes we know exactly what a student needs to work on, but we struggle to find the right wording for the IEP goal.

In addition to being appropriately challenging and ambitious, the IEP goals we write need to describe:

• a specific, measurable target behavior,

• the timeframe and conditions under which the behavior will be demonstrated, and

• the criteria of acceptable performance.

The trouble is that once we cover all those bases, we often end up with a goal that reads like word salad.

Why Word Salad Goals Don’t Work

Let me put on my Captain Obvious cape for a moment so I can shout it loud and clear:

We cannot faithfully implement goals that we don’t understand!

If a teacher has to read a goal three times while squinting, how is she supposed to plan effective instruction, let alone measure progress toward that goal?

Furthermore, if the certified special educator struggles to make sense of an IEP goal, imagine how the child’s family must feel.

Most of the stakeholders around the IEP table are normal human beings without juris doctorates or advanced degrees in mathematics. So, it's important to write goals that the average person can understand.

In fact, as a middle school math teacher, I aim to write goals that can be understood by the students themselves.

But how?

K.I.S.S. those IEP Goals

First of all, at the secondary level, we need to keep in mind that the topics we teach are often mystifying to those who don’t have a background in math.

Let’s face it, even our own administrators often don't follow when we ramble on about things like multiple representations of linear relationships.

As paid professionals, part of our job is to communicate about mathematical ideas in a way that doesn't befuddle our committee. To do that we have to K.I.S.S. - keep it simple and specific.

In other words, we isolate one particular skill and describe it in the plainest language possible.

So, to stick with our example, instead of saying "the student will use multiple methods to represent linear relationships between two quantities” we could say "the student will graph a line from an equation." Does that make sense?

Furthermore, simple, specific goals are also the easiest to measure.

It's hard to observe the extent to which my students can “interpret linear relationships given a variety of representations,” but I can easily do a quick assessment to see how well a student can write an equation from a verbal description.

Though it may be tempting to sound formal or fancy, if you ask me, kids (and colleagues) are better served when the IEP goals are crystal clear.

The Shortcut to Writing Good Math Goals

Once you’ve identified a target skill that you can describe in plain language, it’s time to craft an IEP goal.

Over the years, I’ve developed a sentence stem that I use as the basis for all of my IEP goals. It goes like this:

“Within (time frame), when provided with (supports), (Student Name) will (perform skill), improving accuracy from a baseline of (x%) correct to an average of (x%) correct over (x) data collections.”

I love this sentence stem because it’s a simple, straight-forward way to tick all the boxes without starting from scratch.

So, for an 8th grader who needs to focus on Pythagorean Theorem, I might say:

Within 36 instructional weeks, when provided with a graphing calculator, Josiah will use Pythagorean Theorem to solve for the hypotenuse of a right triangle, improving accuracy from a baseline of 0% correct to an average of 60% correct over three data collections.

If I have a 7th grader working on calculating the area of circles, I might say:

Within 36 instructional weeks, when provided with a four-function calculator and a formula chart, Lucy will find the area of circles, improving accuracy from a baseline of 0% correct to an average of 75% correct over two data collections.

If I’m working with a 6th grader who is learning about the coordinate plane, I might say:

Within 36 instructional weeks, when provided with a graphic organizer, Anthony will use ordered pairs to describe the location of points on a coordinate plane, improving accuracy from a baseline of 20% correct to an average of 80% correct over four data collections.

Starting to get the idea?

Now for the Good Stuff!

I wanted my sentence stem to be even easier to use, so I took to Google Sheets to create an Interactive IEP Goal Bank and Template for Middle School Math.

This time-saving tool will help you craft personalized IEP goals for your middle school math students without having to re-invent the wheel every time.

Let me show you how it works:

What questions do you still have about writing goals for middle school math? Be sure to reach out and let me know!

Thanks so much for hanging out, and happy goal writing!

For the love of math,

Dayna