Step 3: How to Write IEP Goals

How to Write an IEP Goal Step-by-Step

Here’s the short version: ​

Step 1: Identify an area of need or a barrier to the student’s education at the present level of performance.

Step 2: Identify the specific skills and behaviors the student needs in order to overcome the barrier. We will call this “the behavior.” 

Step 3: Determine when the student will need to use the skill. Under what circumstances? This will be the “condition.”  It sets students up to use the behavior. For example: when they’re frustrated, when given a reading passage, or when transitioning. 

Step 4: Examine the data you have related to this barrier. (You may need to collect some.) Using the student’s current performance, determine how well they should be performing the skill in one year. This is called the “mastery criteria.” It’s typically written as a percentage, like “with 90% accuracy”. 

Step 5: Determine what type of data collection you will use to monitor progress. 

Step 6: Put it all together in a neat little goal, and add the date. It will look something like this: 

Given (CONDITION), the student will (BEHAVIOR), with an accuracy of (MASTERY CRITERIA) as measured by (TYPE OF DATA COLLECTION) by (DATE). ​

Now, different schools and divisions will have variations of this formula- so don’t go ignoring what your administrator says to use, but this is a great way to really master how to write these things. 

To walk through each step of this process, we’re going to use an example. In our last post, Lindsay’s present level described how she was struggling with some testing anxiety. Let’s write a goal focused on this deficit. 

Step 1: Identify an Area of Need or a Barrier in the Present Level

Lindsay’s teacher reported that she struggles to begin assessments due to some anxiety. Her present level stated: 

“Lindsay is often capable of doing the work, but when she believes the task is too hard, she will avoid working. This is most often true when she is given a test or quiz. She will sometimes ask to go to the nurse with a stomach ache before an assessment. She often puts her head down, and she has been heard to make comments about being stupid under her breath. This most often happens in math class.”

So we’ve covered Step 1: Identify an area of need or a barrier. ✅

This is clearly a barrier for Lindsay that we need to address for her to be successful in school. It’s meaningful– because not only is she going to struggle with test taking, but her anxiety could impact her ability to retain new information. It could also impact her attendance and performance later on. 

Step 2: Identify Skills and Behaviors the Student Needs to Overcome the Barrier

Sometimes this step is easy. If Lindsay were struggling with tying her shoes, we could pretty quickly identify the skills she needs to overcome that barrier. 

But here, she’s struggling with some testing anxiety. At the foundation, we want Lindsay to manage her anxiety. But, if we write an IEP goal saying “Lindsay will manage her anxiety,” we will find ourselves in a pickle when it comes time to measure that goal.

We need to find behaviors that are observable, measurable, and objective.

✅ Observable– I can look at the student and say “yes they are clearly doing the behavior” or “no, they are clearly not doing the behavior.” 

✅ Measurable– I can easily count how often a behavior happens or time how long a behavior lasts. 

✅ Objective– If three different people are watching the student at the same time, and they will all agree that the student was or was not engaging in the behavior. 

Examples	Non-Examples
The student will…	The student will…
1. Answer test questions correctly	1. Manage their anxiety (Not observable, measurable, or objective)
2. Remain seated	2. Understand how to _______ (Not observable or measurable)
3. Correctly read X number of words per minute	3. Think positive thoughts (Not observable)
4.Stay on task for X number of minutes	4. Be nice to peers (Not objective)

Back to Lindsay: 

What can we see Lindsay do that’s measurable and objective? Lindsay is putting her head down, making negative comments, and asking to go to the nurse. 

Now, we could write a goal focused on decreasing these behaviors. But, it’s generally better to write what you want the student to do rather than what you want them not to do. 

This is for two reasons: 

1. It’s much more clear and positive, and 
2. If we take data on her NOT doing those behaviors, she may instead be screaming or sleeping, and her data will look like she’s making progress on the goal. Which isn’t very helpful. 

Remember the point of Step 2: Identify Skills and Behaviors the Student Needs to Overcome the Barrier

Instead of setting the goal around the barrier, it’s better to set the goal around the behaviors that will overcome the barrier.

In this case, Lindsay needs to learn coping skills so she can manage her anxiety and get her assessments done. 

Coping skills can include everything from deep breaths to asking for help, to using calming tools like fidgets. It’s great in IEP goals to give multiple examples, rather than limit the goal to just one type. This allows the student flexibility if they find another coping skill that works better. 

We don’t just want Lindsay to use the coping skill and that’s it. We want her to use them effectively and be able to continue to participate in school by starting her assessments. So we can include this in the goal as well. 

So, for Step 2, we can start filling out our goal template with the behavior:

“Lindsay will use a coping skill, such as positive self-talk or taking deep breaths, and begin her assessment within 3 minutes.”

Adding the three minutes time frame in there makes it much more measurable, observable, and objective. The IEP team can discuss if 3 minutes is an appropriate amount of time for Lindsay and make adjustments if needed. 

Step 3: Determine When the Student Will Use the Skill

This is often called “the condition.” And, lots of IEP goal templates require that you have a condition. 

Again, it’s often pretty simple to come up with the condition for a behavior. They usually sound something like: 

• When given a grade level reading passage
• Given a frustrating situation
• During silent sustained reading
• During whole group instruction
• When transitioning to a non-preferred task

In Lindsay’s case, the condition is pretty straightforward. She most often engages in work avoidant behaviors when she’s given a math test. 

We could expand it to the rest of the day, and just say “when given an assignment” but that opens us up to taking data all day. We don’t have to do that! We’re way too busy to take data all day on every goal! We need to focus our time on when we’re most likely to see the behavior, and here, that’s math class.

So, for our condition in Step 3, we can say:

“When given a math assessment, Lindsay will use a coping skill, such as positive self-talk or taking deep breaths, and begin her assessment within 3 minutes.”

Step 4: Examine Relevant Data to Determine the Mastery Criteria

Our IEP goal is already looking great! Now is time to review any data we have and think about the mastery criteria. This is how well we want the student to perform the skill before we consider it “mastered.” In most cases, it’s a percentage. But it doesn’t have to be. 

Usually, mastery criteria involves some combination of:

• with ___% accuracy
• in ___ out of ___ opportunities 
• for ___ consecutive trials
• over ____ consecutive marking periods

Just one of these criteria may be sufficient for a goal. But they can also be combined to be more specific. 

For example, if a goal says a student will score 75% on a spelling test, do they only have to do that once? What if they just got lucky? Do we count the goal as mastered and move on? If we want the student to be more consistent with the skill we might clarify and say the student will score at least 75% on three consecutive spelling tests. That would show the student had a firmer grasp on the spelling words. 

But, setting the mastery criteria can be tricky for another reason. You need to estimate a reasonable amount of growth that the student can make by the end of the IEP, which is usually one year out. That can be challenging. 

Often, people default to 80% for IEP goals, but that’s not always best. Every student is at a different starting point and grows at different rates for different skills. So, you have to use your best judgment here to give your estimate. 

Luckily, you’re just writing the draft! If you feel good about 75% of the time based on what you know about the student and the data you have, then go with it! Then, discuss the percentage with the rest of the IEP team and get their input. You can always adjust it based on the team discussion. 

Now, for Lindsay’s goal. We need to set some criteria around how well we expect her to use a coping skill and start working. And, we have some data great from Lindsay’s present level to go off of: 

“During two weeks of observation, Lindsay put her head down, made a negative comment about herself, or asked to go to the nurse for 60% of assessments she was given. Most commonly, Lindsay did this in math class- where she asked to see the nurse for both of the Friday Fluency quizzes and put her head down or made a negative comment about herself 6 times over the two weeks. Lindsay did not put her head down or ask to go to the nurse during reading class or any of her specials classes (PE, music, etc).” 

Now we can add mastery criteria to Lindsay’s goal for Step 4: 

“When given a math assessment, Lindsay will use a coping skill, such as positive self-talk or taking deep breaths, and begin her assessment within 3 minutes, in 3 out of 4 assignments over two consecutive weeks.”

*Side Note*

If we didn’t already have this data, we could pause writing the IEP in order to collect some. Although, this isn’t always an option due to timing in real life. While this step is ideal, I recognize it isn’t always reality. Sometimes we end up writing IEPs for students we don’t know or haven’t had time to collect data for. And in these cases, IEP teams have to go with a bit of gut and adjust the goal later if the data shows it was too high or too low. But, having this level of data is so helpful for Steps 4 and 5. 

Step 5: Determine How You Will Collect Data to Monitor Progress

You might think this is premature. But, if you don’t think about how you’re going to collect data while you’re writing the goal, you might set yourself up for frustration later. And, I want you to be prepared for the rest of the year after writing the IEP! 

The nice thing is that if you already have data collected as a part of the present level, you can often just continue the same kind of data collection you began with. 

Firstly, the data collection that you use needs to make sense with the behavior in the goal. 

Data for Academic Goals: 

Academic goals tend to be more straightforward for progress monitoring. Most often, data collection for academic goals include:

• Percent correct on an assessment or worksheet
• Oral reading fluency on a passage
• Scores on a rubric for writing tasks

These are things that most teachers already know how to assess. 

Data for Behavioral Goals: 

Behavioral goals can be more tricky to monitor. For things like being on task, avoiding physical or verbal aggression, following routines or transitions, we need other types of data collection. These are most often:

• Frequency data
• Duration data
• Latency data
• Opportunity data

But there are lots of other types of data collection.

Let’s walk through Lindsay’s goal. 

Lindsay’s goal is based on her behavior, not academics. It’s easy to jump to frequency data here. That’s where we would just count the number of times she uses a coping skill. 

But, when we collect frequency data, we need to think about the condition and if every day or week will have the same number of opportunities to perform the behavior. 

Basically, will Lindsay have the same number of math quizzes and tests every week? No! We know as teachers that everyday is different. She might go a whole week without a formal math assessment. So comparing the frequency week-to-week wouldn’t be very helpful.

In this case, opportunity data would be more meaningful.

Opportunity data is similar to frequency data (because it’s just counting- nothing fancy). But instead of counting how many times Lindsay uses a coping strategy in general, you would only count when she’s given an assessment. This gives a percentage of opportunities that she successfully used a coping strategy, which is what we used as the mastery criteria. When we say “3 out of 4 assessments,” the assessments are the opportunities.

To monitor this goal, the teacher will note if she used a coping strategy and got to work within 3 minutes or not each time they pass out an assessment. This will give us something to compare each marking period to see her progress. 

Her teacher might also note other behaviors, like if she asks for the nurse or puts her head down. This step wouldn’t be required, but it would give some nice data to discuss. 

As we move to our final step, let’s add Step 5 to the goal: 

“When given a math assessment, Lindsay will use a coping skill, such as positive self-talk or taking deep breaths, and begin her assessment within 3 minutes, in 3 out of 4 assignments over two consecutive weeks as measured by opportunity data.”

Step 6: Put it All Together in a Neat Little Goal

Ahhh, we made it! And, we’ve actually been doing this step the whole time. So there isn’t much left to do. Mainly, we need to add a date and check that our goal is in fact a SMART goal.

First the date:

Definitely the easiest blank to fill in. The date is always the end of the IEP. 

If you’re creating an initial or annual IEP, that’s one day short of a full year from the date the IEP gets approved. So, you can pop in the date of the IEP meeting minus one day for the following year. For example, if the IEP meeting is scheduled for September 2, 2024, the IEP will end September 1, 2025, and that will be the date you enter into your goals. 

If you’re writing these goals as part of an IEP amendment, meaning you’re just making changes to the current IEP, use the same end date of the IEP. So the new goals will have the same end date as the goals already in place. 

Now, we put it all together in our template and we’re ready to go!

Given (CONDITION), the student will (BEHAVIOR), with an accuracy of (PERCENTAGE) as measured by (TYPE OF DATA COLLECTION) by (DATE). 

“When given a math assessment, Lindsay will use a coping skill, such as positive self-talk or taking deep breaths, and begin her assessment within 3 minutes, in 3 out of 4 assignments over two consecutive weeks as measured by opportunity data, by September 1, 2025.”

🤩 Look at that IEP goal! Not a thing out of place! The goal is clear and ready to be shared at the IEP meeting.