No.
The reading goals of struggling readers should emphasize only what they must learn to make meaningful, important progress. Having only a few important reading goals that must be emphasized during reading and related instruction increases the odds that teachers will devote an adequate amount of instructional time to overcoming the struggling reader’s specific reading difficulties. Too many goals lead to diluted, unfocused instruction.
If struggling readers get little instruction in what’s important, they make little progress. If instruction emphasizes everything, it emphasizes nothing. When it gives equal time to everything, that which is most important gets little time. Thus, an IEP’s reading goals should emphasize only that which the struggling reader must master to make important progress in reading. As Gregory Harper and his colleagues noted more than a decade ago, “Academic achievement is related directly to the amount of time students spend actually thinking about and working with important instructional content. Student involvement, in turn, is influenced by … allocated time-amount of time scheduled for a particular subject, topic, or skill; [and] engaged time-amount of time students are actively engaged with [the] academic content”
Here’s a sample IEP goal. It’s personalized, deals with only what’s important, and is measureable:
“Word Recognition Goal: Given 200 of the 200 sight words that Sue did not know when tested with the Dolch Word List in the second week of school, Sue will correctly pronounce each of these 200 words when they’re individually presented on flash cards. She will correctly pronounce each word within one second of exposure, on five consecutive school days, by the end of the 4th marking period.”
Because a goal like this is readily measurable, it allows you and your child’s teachers to easily monitor progress and, if it’s poor, to quickly make whatever instructional changes are needed.
You can find this goal and related instructional objectives in the forthcoming book, Reading Disabilities: Beating the Odds, by Howard Margolis and Gary Brannigan.
Reference: Harper, G. F., Maheady, L., & Mallette, B., 1994. The power of peer-mediated instruction. In J. S. Thousand, R. A. Villa, & A. Nevin (Eds.), 1994. Creativity and Collaborative Learning. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing, pp. 229-241, p. 231, italics added.
HM
Howard is not only an outstanding advocate of children with reading disabilities, he is also an extremely generous, kindhearted man. If not for his tireless, selfless efforts, my son would have been trapped in a self-contained classroom in a public high school system that completely refused to address his dyslexic needs.
An IEP lacking goals and objectives as described in this book is like a carpenter building a house without a measuring tape. One can imagine that the result would be a poorly constructed house that could not pass a building inspection and would not be issued a certificate of occupancy. So too would the child lack the foundation needed to sound out letters to form words and become a fluent reader Every parent with a special education student should buy this book for the entire Child Study Team of their child’s school, including the principal and superintendent.