Special Education

Resources for Writing IEPs Aligned to Common-Core Standards

By Christina A. Samuels — December 16, 2013 1 min read
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A few weeks ago, I hosted a chat on writing standards-based individualized education program goals aligned to common core reading and math standards. The guests, Barbara Van Haren and Carol Kosnitsky, did a great job answering questions from our audience, but one inquiry that came up over and over was from educators looking for clear examples of just what a standards-based IEP goal would look like.

In the context of an hour-long webchat, we weren’t able to link to all the information out there on this topic. I’ve gathered some resources from educators and my own research for this blog post, with an eye out to resources that offer as many examples as possible.

This list is not meant to be exhaustive; it’s just a place for educators to start their own research.


  • In the chat, both Carol and Barbara endorsed Goalbook, an online toolkit that guides special education teachers through the IEP-writing process. Carol is a member of the team of academic advisors working with the company. Goalbook also has an online slide show that walks teachers through examples of how to get to the essence of an academic standard, which is one of the first steps in writing a meaningful IEP.
  • This Powerpoint presentation from Barbara and one of her colleagues, Nissan Bar-Lev, offers an overview of the philosophy of standards-based IEPs and an example of a standard written for an IEP reading goal connected to a common-core standard.
  • For a 2012 meeting of the Alabama Council of Administrators in Special Education, Carol wrote a 30-page document on IEP-writing strategies.
  • The Connecticut State Education Resource Center created a multimedia presentation on common core-aligned IEPs. The presentation features a lecture as well as slides.
  • Illinois teachers can take advantage of the resources at the IEP Quality Tutorial, a project of the University of Illinois and Urbana-Champaign.

Readers, please offer your own suggestions on writing IEP goals in the comments. (To keep it relevant, let’s stick to the topic of IEP goals and common core, not the common core in general or common core-aligned lesson plans.) Let’s keep this conversation going!

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A version of this news article first appeared in the On Special Education blog.