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Functional reading skills, which are critical for independent living skills, are sometimes difficult to write goals for the Individualized Education Program ( IEP ).  Reading is something that needs to be used.  Even students who are not book readers can often learn single sight words that can impact their functional life skills.

We need to make sure that our students have the ability to function as independently as possible. That includes functional literacy skills like being able to read functional print like signs, grocery lists ads, and menu words.

The Thanksgiving Menu Math ,that I talked about in an earlier post, is an example of a task that includes both math and some functional reading.  Focused on using a menu to answer questions about a restaurant, those activities are great for augmenting community-based instruction for the special education students.

In this post, I will use my Functional Reading Task Cards as an example of a tool for teaching functional reading IEP goals in the special education classroom.  

Functional Reading Task Cards

Essentially these task cards  are sightword multiple-choice task cards. The students can use a dry erase marker, pen, or clothespin to choose the word that matches the picture.  There are also answer sheets if the students can use them instead. The multiple-choice options can be a word bank the students use.  The answer sheets can also be used by the teacher for data collection on the student’s performance and provide feedback.

The idea behind them is to provide practice in reading comprehension of sight words beyond what a sight word, functional or environmental print curriculum would provide.  They are intended to be used for either explicit instruction with the teacher or other staff and/ or for independent work systems.

The student might work with the teacher to learn these skills and become fluent at using them. When teacher observation and data indicate the student has mastered the vocabulary in their instruction with the teacher, these cards are a great tool for independent work systems. This way the teacher can work with other students and this student will be practicing for fluency or generalization. And of course independent work systems are useful for increasing independence living skills for special education students.

Functional Reading Task Cards

Community Signs & Environmental Print task cards focus on reading functional community signs. Functional Reading Task Cards: Food Words are a supersized set of words related to the grocery store or restaurant.  

Some task cards have words on the pictures (e.g., mayonnaise label on a jar) for visual supports, and some do not. I’ve set them up so that they are are differentiated across the set and explained that in the instructions.  This makes it easy to use them in a variety of life skills classes.

IEP Goals for Functional Sight Word Reading

So, what do we think about when planning IEP goals and objectives for functional reading? Typically we are addressing acquisition of the reading skill, comprehension of the written word (e.g., seeing a picture and identifying the word with these cards, and fluency in reading and responding to the word. Then we want to look at meaningful life skills tasks that allow the student to generalize their reading skills.

These specific task cards focus on comprehension by identifying the word that matches the item. But you can also use them to work on fluency of reading and comprehension together.  And, you always want to make sure you are generalizing the skills, and I have some IEP goals with ideas for how to do that below as well.

Finally, remember that you write the IEP goals and objectives based on the present level of the student’s performance. So how you use them might differ from student to student.  And each goal could be used as a goal or an objective depending on how they are written and what the student needs.

IEP Goals

Accuracy & Comprehension IEP Goal

Sarah will read and match the written word to 25 common signs in the environment with 90% accuracy for at least a 2-week period.

*I put the mastery criteria somewhat high because this is a basic skill.

Or Sarah will identify the written word associated with 25 common signs in the environment with 90% accuracy for at least a 2-week period.

These goals focus simply on matching the word to the sign and working memory and recall. But mastery of this goal will help to make the student more independent in the community

Reading Fluency IEP Goal

Sarah will read and match the written word for 25 common grocery words in 3 minutes with 95% accuracy over a 2-week period.

Obviously with this goal, you want to make sure the student is accurate in their completion of the cards. But increasing the student’s fluency with the words makes it more likely they will impact their performance in reading tasks in the special education classroom and in the community.

You could implement this goal with a peer as well where students time each other and record how many cards were completed in a specific time period along with how many errors.. The mastery criteria, including the time you choose for the window for them to demonstrate the skill (i.e., 3 minutes) can be shifted to match an average. With another adult you see how many words you can each complete on the cards within the same time frame and use that as your comparison or your goal.

Generalization IEP Goals

You would work on these skills after the task cards were mastered.  You can use the task cards or other materials for them. 

• Given a grocery ad, Sarah will match pictures of 25 grocery items to their words in the ad with 90% accuracy weekly for at least 2 weeks.
• When given a menu of known and unknown grocery words without pictures, Sarah will state why she could eat for a meal in that restaurant with 100% accuracy for 2 weeks with each of 3 menus in the classroom.
• When going to a restaurant, Sarah will order a meal by reading the menu, determining what is available and ordering the meal independently with 100% accuracy over 5 community-based outings.

Hopefully those goals will give you some measurable goals (or objectives) to make writing IEP goals a little easier this school year.

Interested in purchasing the Functional Sight Word Task Cards? Click on the pictures below to check them out in my store.

Until next time,