As we know, IEP goals must be measurable. We collect data and report on IEP goals that we have assigned levels of mastery to. But how do we determine if a goal is “mastered”? What criteria must a child meet before we determine that there has been goal mastery?
One of the big needs for IEP goal writing is to ensure that the goals and benchmarks are measurable. This means that we can actually measure success, or mastery, of the skill. This is how we will know if the student met their yearly goal.
Believe it or not, this little yet crucial detail of the IEP can be complicated.
Without a very clear sense of mastery, it can be really hard to prove that a student has mastered a skill. If it’s too loose, Teacher A can think that the student mastered the skill, while Teacher B might think they still have some work to do.
We need the wording of our goals to be SO clear, that if the student moved to a new school and had a new case manager, they would absolutely understand the mastery criteria the exact way you intended it to be read.
When we write IEPs, it is important to carefully consider how a child will master any goal that we set for them. The common “80% accuracy in 4 out of 5 trials” will not work for every student. However, we need to be sure that IEP goals are rigorous and have the student demonstrate true mastery. How do we strike a balance between rigor and what a student can realistically do? Here are some tips for determining percent mastery and mastery criteria.
The first step in determining IEP goal mastery is first choosing the skill for the IEP goal or objective. There’s nothing to measure or track if you don’t have a skill. In this video, I walk you through the 7 steps to determining an appropriate IEP goal for a student.
To dive deeper into IEP goal writing, attend our free IEP Goal Writing 101 Masterclass.
What mastery looks like will be different for every skill that you teach. If you are teaching a child to count from 1-20, you want, and need, students to know every single number all of the time. It won’t be a mastered skill if the child skips multiple numbers as they’re counting, right? So we know, for this skill, the mastery criteria must be 100%.
If you’re teaching a student to look both ways and cross the street safely, we also absolutely need a student to do this correctly ALL of the time; this is a foundational skill. If we made our mastery criteria ⅔ times, or with 75% accuracy, that means they would still master the skill if they didn’t cross the street safely a few times. No way! We need that goal mastery criteria to be 100%. Foundational skills need 100% mastery, not “80% mastery is 3 of 4 trials“.
If you feel a student needs some additional supports built in to their mastery criteria, try adding in prompts to your benchmarks. Have the student’s yearly goal show that they will complete the task independently with 100% accuracy, and their benchmarks can include completing the task with 100% accuracy, but with 3 verbal prompts. This allows that 100% accuracy to still be the focus (we want real mastery), but with support as they learn to do this independently.
The first thing to keep in mind when setting mastery criteria for IEP goals are the present levels of functional and academic performance found either in the child’s evaluation report or in informal testing. Carefully consider the student’s present levels, re: the child’s baseline data.
If you are writing a phonics goal asking the student to decode words with vowel teams and the student can only read short vowel words right now, consider where they might progress to in 1 year. Think about making the goal less comprehensive (for example, only reading the vowel teams -ea, -ie, -ou, and -ee) and assigning a higher mastery percentage, rather than trying to hit all of the vowel teams in 1 year and not obtaining a high level of mastery.
You will also want to consider the area of skill being assessed. In general, academic goals lend themselves to percentages and behavioral goals lend themselves better to trials.
Think about what is easier to measure:
“Jaya will interact in a positive way with his peers 80% of the time”
or
“Jaya will interact with his peers in a positive way in 4 out of 5 trials.”
On the flip side, “Santino will demonstrate mastery in 4 out of 5 trials in math calculation” is less specific than “Santino will earn 80% in 4 out of 5 trials in math calculation”.
Try to be as specific as you can when writing an IEP goal, but also take into account how to measure anecdotal evidence.
When possible, base IEP goal mastery criteria on grade level standards. For example, if a second grade math standard dictates that students add and subtract across 4 place values with regrouping, write the IEP goal as such. Then, take the year to work on this skill, rather than just the few weeks that the rest of the second grade takes to work on it. Set the mastery percentage to something that would be a passing grade, such as 70% or 80%.
Whether you love or hate data, we know it is a huge part of being a special education teacher.
Data sheets, data binders, data, data, data. The mastery criteria of an IEP goal drives the data collection. If you write an IEP goal too vaguely, it will be so tricky to know how to collect data on it. We want to ensure that the way that we write a goal and create criteria lends itself to easy and efficient data collection.
Additionally, think of WHO will be collecting data. If you write the IEP goals and the mastery criteria, you’ll likely understand the purpose enough to collect data in the intended way, but a paraprofessional or a different special education teacher may not.
Clarity is KEY and should be at the forefront of your mind as you create the mastery criteria for your students’ IEP goals and benchmarks.
Keep it clear and specific, and ensure that mastery criteria really does show complete skill mastery.
In my book, The Intentional IEP, there’s an entire chapter on data collection before and after the IEP meeting. You’ll learn more about the different data collection methods, as well as the importance of analyzing data.
IEP goal writing and choosing an IEP goal’s criteria takes brain power, but once you have a system in place for determining a goal’s criteria – it gets easier and quicker. It also helps in those moments when you inherit an IEP with terribly written goals or when an IEP goal isn’t working because you’ll have a game plan to amend the IEP and rewrite those goals.
Using a goal bank is a great addition to your new IEP goal writing system, too! Try our free IEP goal bank with PreK-12 grade goals.
IEP writing shouldn’t feel like guesswork! Inside The Intentional IEP, you’ll get access to the expert-led trainings you should have learned in college—covering everything from data collection to goal writing and implementation. Pair that with 10,000+ pre-written, standards-aligned goals and time-saving resources, and you’ll finally have the clarity and confidence you need to write strong, effective IEPs. Join today and start learning what they didn’t teach you in school!
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