Question from a parent: What can I do to track my child’s progress? Specifically, how often should the District communicate progress towards a child’s reading goals? No matter the methodology used, you must be able to objectively measure the data. One way the school can monitor your child’s progress is with the Dynamic Indicator of Basic Early Literacy Skills (Dibels) or Aimsweb. Both are norm-referenced benchmark assessments and provide both age and grade equivalencies for progress monitoring. It is important to note that DIBELS and Aimsweb are only “indicators” of a student’s overall reading status, and are not intended to be in-depth or comprehensive measures of reading. They are not to be considered diagnostic reading assessments for identifying a child’s specific areas of strengths and weaknesses or determining any difficulties that a child may have in learning to read and/or the potential cause of such difficulties, and do not help to determine possible reading intervention strategies and related special needs. This should be done annually! (More on this in a later post!).

Both Dibels and Aimsweb offer one-minute assessments for oral reading fluency, providing for rate and accuracy and report in words read correctly per minute. When used as progress monitoring tool, the school may complete at least one of the individual DIBELS tests as often as once a week!

If your child has a reading goal(s) on his or her IEP, it is important to request and receive this reading data weekly. You want to have this documented (in writing) in your actual IEP. Often, a school will respond that they cannot probe weekly. This is untrue. Each DIBELS probe takes approximately one+ minute to complete. The close monitoring of this progress is very important because it will help determine the effectiveness of the methodology and allows appropriate course-correction. You will know within 2-3 weeks whether or not your child is making progress as you should see a rate of 1 - 2 words gained successfully per week (per grade, see graph). Using the ORF CBM norm, you can graph and track your child’s progress. By using your child’s scores and your IEP goal, you can track the rate of growth by the number of weeks of instruction. Visual representations of your child’s progress (or lack thereof) are extremely effective tools in an IEP meeting. [**Disclosure: I am not a reading specialist, however I am an advocate who loves data, charts, and graphs. The visual proof demonstrating an undebatable lack of progress creates a deafening silence in an IEP meeting.]

---

I have been contacted several times this week regarding Parents’ Independent Evaluations, so I wanted to shed some light on the topic. 

“Within ten school days from the time the school district receives the report of the independent education evaluation, the Team shall reconvene and consider the independent education evaluation and whether a new or amended IEP is appropriate.” This is very simple. This means, ten schools days from receipt of report, the Team is *required by law* to reconvene, consider, and make an eligibility determination. The district cannot ignore this report and send you a consent form for their turn to evaluate, or tell you what they feel is “best,” or perhaps what they would like to do next and therefore, delay the determination of eligibility. Can the team request further evaluations? Yes (and, your consent to this is optional), but this consent does not negate their legal obligation to read, review, and appropriately agree/counter/or deny your proposals. Now, I want to repeat a word - the Team must meet and "consider" the evaluation results. The Team may meet, “consider,” and disagree with your report. However, by failing to meet and ignoring your report, they have essentially predetermined their rejection of the recommendations without a glance.

So, as a parent and EQUAL team member, what can you do? Leave little to question. Be proactive. How? Take this report from consideration mode to a proposal/s. Proposals require an answer. Put pen to paper and transform these recommendations into direct, concrete proposals prior to your meeting (in writing!). Next, request these proposals at your meeting triggering Prior Written Notice. Prior written notice must contain a comprehensive description of the action proposed (or refused) by the school system. According to IDEA, the notice must include:

1. a description of the action proposed or refused by the school;

2. an explanation of why the school proposes or refuses to take the action;

3. a description of each evaluation procedure, assessment, record, or report the school used as a basis for their decision;

4. a statement that the parents of a child with a disability have protection under the procedural safeguards and, how the parents can obtain a copy of them;

5. sources for parents to contact to obtain assistance in understanding these provisions;

6. a description of other options that the IEP Team considered and the reasons why those options were rejected; and

7. a description of other factors relevant to the school’s proposal or refusal.

The team must make a decision based on this evaluation. They can develop a full or partial IEP. If your child is found eligible, they are to immediately develop an IEP. Private evaluations can be extremely expensive. Don’t allow this resourceful, thorough document be ignored by the school. Please reach out if you have any questions regarding your rights!