The District Said My Child Met Her IEP Reading Goals, But I Doubt It. What Now?

If the district tells you that your child met her IEP goals, but you don’t believe that actual progress has been made, there are many ways to confirm whether appropriate progress on goals has been made. We share some of those ways below.

When a parent is told at an IEP meeting that a goal is met, we encourage parents to immediately ask for the data supporting the determination that the child met the goal. We like parents to do this for each goal discussed. Many times parents are told that a goal is met but there is no data. Rather, it is just a knowing or feeling on the teacher's part that the goal was met. If this is the case, the parent can then ask how the teacher decided the goal was met. If the teacher refers the parent to school work, the parent should ask the teacher to see the work they relied upon so they can understand how the child progressed over the year.

In addition, the parent might ask the district for any supporting data from over the course of the IEP year, or from any other assessments (even the reading level assessments if still in elementary school) to confirm the teacher’s findings. Sometimes, when the district does not have the needed data, the special education or general education teacher might agree to do such an assessment upon our request and share it with the team. Such an assessment not only provides good data on the current IEP goals but can also serve as a baseline for the new goals. If the baselines are specific, the goals can be specific. Of course, we would suggest the parents arrange to meet with the IEP team again after the assessment to review the progress and use the data to create or modify the new IEP goals and baselines.

Whenever possible, we suggest the parent understand the student's skill levels at the time of the prior IEP before the next IEP meeting. This way when a reading or other level is shared, the parent will know the baseline, along with the grade level equivalent as a result of some research, and can decide for themselves if appropriate progress was made over the prior year. A close search of the prior IEP may be helpful in identifying present levels at the time that IEP was created. The parent may find the information in a specific section of the IEP, in the baselines, or in the IEP notes. Maybe, a parent will be able to find emails or progress reports from the prior year’s teachers that confirm the child’s levels at points throughout that school year. Or, the parent might reach out to the current and/or former teachers and ask for help in figuring out how to find the information about the child’s assessment results during the prior school year. Some parents will begin to chart the data to help them maintain a full understanding of their child's progress and continue to do so over the years.

If the parent cannot find the information in advance, then during the IEP meeting it would be fine to ask for the student's level at this time last year. With such information, the parent can then ask reasonable questions at the IEP meeting. For instance, the parent might ask, "what grade level does that equate with, what was her reading level last year at this time (or I believe her reading level last year at this time was H), and at this rate how long will it take her to get to grade level?"

If the goals were written in such a way that the child can reach the goal without improving her reading skills, the parent can easily understand why the child met his IEP goals and still made no improvement in reading. Of course, the parent would then want to ensure better goals were designed and agreed upon in the future so that progress on the goals means actual reading progress. SMART IEP goals are essential to avoiding these types of issues, and you can read more about goals in our other articles, but parents tend to only discover the need for SMART goals after such issues arise.

If the child actually met the goals at issue, but the parent still suspects limited skill development, the parent might also consider whether the goals were appropriately ambitious in light of the child's circumstances. As an example, for many dyslexic students in upper elementary and beyond, a reading program should take about two to three years to bring a child up to grade level. So, if a child's goals are not on target to bring a child to grade level within such a time, we would not consider them to be appropriately ambitious. Likewise, learning one math skill a year by way of one math goal, would never bring a child up to grade level in math. So, we like to focus on all the common core skills required to advance a student a grade level or two when it comes to math goals, focusing on those skills that are an area of weakness for the child.

Moreover, sometimes the goals are indeed appropriately ambitious, but the teacher doing the progress monitoring assessment does not understand the significance of the goal's wording. The goal might state “after reading a grade-level informational text and given a written question about the text (e.g., who, what, where, when, how), the student will write …” But, in such a situation, the teacher may be erroneously using the student’s reading level (which is sometimes years behind a grade level text), and not a “grade-level informational text” as required by the goal, in determining the child has met or exceeded his goal. So, if the child is not reading a grade-level text, and then performing accordingly, the goal is not met.

The trick here is to get the information needed to understand how the progress was reported by the teacher. In such a situation, the parent might ask the teacher to explain how she determined the goal was met. The parent should also get a detailed picture about what the assessment looked like and how it was given, including information about whether it was a grade level text or a reading level text or involved a practiced or never seen before texts, as it gives so much insight as to whether it was an actual assessment or whether the teacher was just guessing (which, as noted above, they do sometimes).

If the child had appropriately ambitious goals, which could be measured independently, and the parent still does not believe the reported progress, then we often recommend that the parent have the student privately evaluated to see whether they met their goals. We have had a case where the reading teacher said that all the goals were met, and then we had a private reading expert in the program being used by that teacher assess the student. The private progress monitor discovered that the student did not actually meet the very specific reading goals. The reading teacher did not dispute the results and so the parent continued with the appropriately ambitious goals along with the private progress monitoring.

No two situations are the same, but the point is to investigate the progress reporting and to ensure actual data supports the progress reports on the goals.