Specific Goals and Learning in English Language Arts Content Area
The student’s goals are to increase reading fluency to 100 words per minute and improve written responding to comprehension questions with 80% accuracy in four out of five trials. These aims are to complete within an academic year and enable the teacher to develop both group and individual modifications to help the learner to improve their performance in English Language Arts. The classroom setting should consider the need to enhance the student’s reading capabilities, and, as they benefit from using visual and graphical assistance, they should provide sufficient recourses. In the English Language Arts content area, the goals are to learn more efficiently through the better proceeding of new information, develop abstract and critical thinking, and apply writing skills. The curriculum is based on these objectives; thus, the student’s need to improve their reading pace and ability to respond to comprehensive questions should also align with them. According to the achievement tests, the student has proficient performance in mathematics and science; consequently, their well-developed capability of using logic will be applied to improve their reading as well.
Although the English Language Arts have a relatively strict curriculum and a complex scope of objectives to complete by all students, an individualized plan can still be developed and implemented. The student’s annual goals related to reading pace and responding in writing to comprehension questions are to be achieved through specially designed services, such as teacher’s corrective feedback and repeated practice. A student can also improve fluency in the classroom setting by paired reading and expanded choice of materials to read. The teacher’s aim in helping a student achieve their annual goal should be based on considering the IEP components, timely implementing accommodations, and addressing the English Language Arts learning difficulties.
Instructional Strategies
In the English Language Arts classroom, students are encouraged to improve their literacy, reading, writing, and critical thinking; thus, the instructional strategies should be based on these activities. The IEP identified that the student has a slow reading pace, uses context clues to understand the material, and does not apply the decoding strategy of segmenting words into familiar patterns. These problems inevitably affect other academic areas and can be solved by following the individualized English Language Arts curriculum.
The instructions to address the student’s goal to increase reading fluency to 100 words per minute by the end of the school year include direct, experiential, and interactive approaches. As the skill improvement requires consistence practice; thus, a straightforward task of reading a given text for one minute should become at least a weekly exercise. The experiential strategy can be applied by enabling students to read a book about animals they like or with a scientific theme at which they demonstrate proficient knowledge. The task is to read it and prepare a classroom presentation by a fixed deadline, and the benefit from completing it would be the increased interest in reading combined with improving information structuring and analysis. The interactive strategies would be especially efficient when performed in groups because the student displays good performance through cooperative learning in science classes. Listening to how teammates read is helpful for self-assessment and better information perception.
Another goal of demonstrating comprehension of the material by accurately responding to questions in writing can also be achieved through experiential and interactive instructional strategies. Indeed, the former approach includes essay-based tasks, quizzes completion, multiple-choice tests, and graphic representation of the reading material. The interactive process can be based on collaborative work between the student and teacher as the written assignments receive feedback, are updated, and then all difficulties are explained and discussed.
Specific Modifications
The modifications to be made in individualized lessons and activities should address the aim to increase the student’s academic achievement level in reading. Moreover, the IEP includes accommodations, such as graphic organizers, reading-based tests, audiotapes, and presentation tools. With the help of these materials, modification to alternate the books necessary to read by the curriculum can be adjusted to the student’s interest in science and animals. Motivation to complete a reading and dedicate more time to studying a preferred subject is helpful to succeed in achieving the annual goals because it is vital for developing a habit of learning. Furthermore, test completion should be updated and include more open-ended questions to enable learners to analyze texts and improve their writing skills. The student’s predisposition to visual perception and good performance in group activities can be addressed by modifying the assignments’ requirements and adding the presentation-based activities. These exercises and updated assessment rubric will increase the chances of achieving the goals by demonstrating to the learner that they can improve their weak points.
Classroom Teacher’s Role
The student’s IEP is useless without the classroom teacher’s willingness to put the information about a learner’s performance and goals into practice. Aside from direct intervention and providence of additional tasks to help a learner achieve their annual goals, the educator is also responsible for arranging the appropriate environment. The interest in the curriculum’s topics is important in the English Language Arts content area and enables the teacher to adjust their facilitation strategies. Educator’s role in supporting the student who needs to improve their reading skills is based on maintaining the consistent practice and motivation to learn.