Writing an Individual Educational Plan: Easy Steps

New teachers sit in countless meetings, sometimes for hours, learning how to write an Individual Education Plan. The No Child Left Behind Acts and the Individuals with Disabilities Educational Act both mandate that all children needing special education services, should have a completed education plan. Writing an IEP takes time and effort, but when broken down into simples steps, is not as difficult as it sounds.

An IEP takes into account the child's past scores, grades, any problems he might be having, and his specific learning disabilities. All of this information is put together to create an education plan specific for that child. It includes things such as his current level of functioning, the effects of his disabilities, his strengths, his goals, and modification that needs to be made in order to educate the child. That is a lot of information to be included, but with a few simple hints and rules, writing an IEP is easy.

1) The first thing is to look at the child's present level of functioning. This is called the PLOP> Simply think of it as how does the child do in school at the current time. For example, ' Johnny is not on grade level due to his reading difficulties"

2) The next thing is to consider what the child's strengths are. Maybe you have noticed that Johnny is able to listen and learn better than by reading. So you might write" As evidenced by observation, Johnny learns best by auditory means."

3) The third step is to include what his weaknesses are. This can be confusing to a new teacher, but the weakness area sometimes looks very similar to the PLOP, it however goes into a bit further detail. It might read, " Johnny is having difficulty comprehending reading passages on grade level as evidenced by standardize test scores.

4) Next is the objective which is a broad statement of goals the student needs assistance with. There are a few simple rules. The goal must be able to be measured. " Johny will do better in reading" Is not a good goal. It must also have a time frame and how many time we expect the student to perform the objective. For example, " Johnny will improve his comprehension skill as evidenced by his scores on a standard comprehension test. He will score 80 percent, 3 out of 4 times, by the end of the school year. "

5) The next step is to break the goal down into smaller parts called short term objectives. We might say something similar to " Johnny will score 60 percent on one test before the end of the first semester. " Then the next short term objective would state" Johnny will score 70 percent on 2 out of 4 test by the end of the second nine weeks.

6) The final step is sort of a plan of how we are going to get the student to the goal. How do we plan on helping them. Will we provide graphic organizers to teach him how to pay attention to text better? Will we provide after school tutoring to help improve his scores? I always list at least four things that will help the student achieve his goal. These are called benchmarks.

There is no need to sit in four days of training on how to write an Individual Education Plan. With a few simple steps such as these, the process is really simple. The only way to improve writing IEP;s to to practice. As with any skill, "practice makes perfect".