Each IEP you write is individualized, that’s the purpose of an Individualized Education Program (IEP) for our students with special needs.
When you are writing IEP goals, you shouldn’t be using one standard measurement for skill mastery. The IEP goal trials also don’t have to be one specific amount of problems or questions per progress monitoring session.
Let me explain. For example, let’s pretend this is your student’s IEP goal:
The active scenario – we are back in the classroom waiting to begin Guided Reading, but students are still coming back from specials. This transition time is a great quick minute or two to assess a student on the given IEP goal above.
I grab a sticky note to keep data (learn how to collect sticky data in this training) or I write on the back of the flash card, how many words the student got correct… but we did not have time to have the full IEP goal trials of 20 flash cards. We only got through 13.
No big.
Out of the 13 sight words, the student was able to identify and fluently read 11 sight words. That’s 11/13.
I turn the 11/13 into a fraction, which I then can turn into a percent.
Once I have the percentage… which would be 85% for these IEP goal trials, then I will look to see if that meets the mastery criteria of the goal. In the example, the mastery criteria is 75%, so with 11/13 the student would have met the mastery criteria for that set of trials.
On the student’s Progress Monitoring Data Ring, I would also write on the back of that specific IEP goal sheet that this specific trial included 13 flash cards. This is important information that can skew overall data because of how the IEP goal is written (20 flash cards). This information would then be mentioned when it comes time to write progress reports for the marking period or semester.
Want more on data collection? Here are a few additional blog posts on the topic:
And here’s a free training on different data collection methods for special education teachers:
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!
© The Intentional IEP. 2025. All rights reserved.
