My Child Got An IEP. Am I Done?

So many parents think their job is over once they get an IEP. This is not true. We tell parents that their job has just begun and now is the time to ensure the IEP is appropriately remediating your child’s reading and other areas of need through progress monitoring. Oftentimes, the IEP is not properly designed to remediate the reading disability, whether through improper goals and/or through inappropriate services.

So, we ask parents to engage in progress monitoring as soon as the IEP is implemented. This means the parents must have a method to monitor the student’s reading or other progress and that it is done in a way that any related progress, or lack thereof, can be tracked using a chart. We want the parents to use actual numbers and not rely on a teacher’s comment that the student is making very good progress, is on track to meet his goals, or already met his goals. We do not tend to announce to the school team that we will be doing this, but we make sure it is done.

If a parent can afford it, we suggest the parent hire an outside reading expert to monitor the student’s reading or other area of weakness every three months, starting at or around the time the IEP is implemented if the private progress monitor plans to use a different progress monitoring tool than used in the school’s psycho-educational assessment (we like to compare apples to apples). This reading expert should have appropriate suggestions for how to track such progress. If we have good data over the first year confirming that the student is making appropriate progress with the remediation offered by way of the IEP, we may then decide to expand the outside progress monitoring to every six months or every year.

Sometimes finances prevent such outside monitoring and, in such cases, we explore other options. We may ask the parents to track the student’s reading levels, to find out how often the student is assessed in the classroom (often 3 times a year), and to ask the teacher to share all reading level assessment results with the parent. In such cases, the parent needs to ask for the name of the assessment program used, what is involved in the reading level assessment (fluency, accuracy, comprehension, phonological awareness, etc.), and for all of the results of each assessment done over the school year (we like the skills breakdown and not just the overall reading level when available). We suggest the parent confirm the same by researching the program identified by the teacher and what is involved in the reading level assessments. Next, we suggest the parent research on that same website, the grade level equivalent for each reading level so they can understand its meaning.

Other times, we might suggest that the parent ask the school to reassess the student after one year, using the same reading assessment that formed the basis for IEP eligibility. Although a school only likes to perform these assessments every three years, the IDEA allows for the school to occur no more than each year but no less than every third year. We usually have the parent point out this section of the IDEA when they make an email request for such a re-evaluation after one year. We also like them to provide a solid basis for making such a request, such as if we are concerned that the IEP may not be appropriate because my child’s reading level has not changed over the last year, his reading progress is extremely slow, or the program is not allowing my child to close the reading gap between her and her peers.

Sometimes the remediation program that is being used by the school has an assessment tool. We find the school may not always use those assessment tools, but you can always ask the reading specialist what reading program is being used, if there is a regular progress monitoring or end-of-unit assessment, and how often those assessments will be provided to your child as required by the program’s guidelines or protocols. If approached in a friendly and cooperative fashion, the reading specialist may even be willing to do some regular progress monitoring in the form of the DIBELS or otherwise.

There are lots of ways to monitor progress. And, as a parent, you must have a progress monitoring plan. Sometimes you just need to be creative in figuring out how to develop one.