Morgan is a 9 year, 3 month-old girl.  She is a monolingual English speaker currently enrolled in fourth-grade.  A descriptive assessment conducted on ______ utilized multiple activities and procedures which provided an authentic picture of Morgan's abilities and indicated that she qualified for language intervention.

Assessment of Morgan's learning and language abilities has revealed several strengths that will greatly aid her in meeting the objectives outlined in her IEP.  Morgan has a strong awareness of her needs.  She knows her weaknesses and tries to mask them by making use of her interactions with others.  This is particularly evidenced through the way she independently seeks help from her teacher, tutor and classroom peers.

Morgan's ability to perceive strengths and weaknesses extends beyond herself.  She has a close network of friends who she influences and is influenced by.  She is conscientious of other's needs and is concerned about how she is perceived by them.  For example she is keenly aware of instances when her sister is in trouble yet her attitudes and reactions to events typically mirror that of her friends.  An additional strength of Morgan's is her capacity to function as a leader with in her peer group.  Quite often she is called upon to act as the decision maker for group activities.

While Morgan's awareness of her difficulties functions as a strength there are times in which it hinders her learning.  Specifically, because she often tries to hide he academic problems there are many times when Morgan makes mistakes on assignments that she does not recognize.  This is particularly evident when she is working on reading assignments involving expository texts.  Often Morgan fails to identify and understand important concepts while reading thus compounding her difficulty with assignments designed to evaluate her comprehension.  Morgan does not appear to learn the necessary information when reading assignments require independent work.  Because Morgan is aware of her struggles with reading she does not read for pleasure and refuses to even discuss her reading assignments with her parents at home.

Morgan has great difficulty following classroom lectures and instructions in general.  As a result she constantly is calling on her friends to provide her with the information discussed in class.  It appears to her teacher that Morgan is often not paying attention during class discussion and therefore ends up needing to copy homework.  The difficulty that Morgan has with following the instructions and discussion that occur in the classroom is seen in her poor organization as well.  Morgan is a messy writer which combined with her poor organization of classroom notes and the problems she has with effectively organizing her assignment journal, makes it hard for her to successfully complete her assignments independently.  Morgan's parents report that organization is also a challenge for her at home.  They report that her room is always disorganized.

It is important that Morgan's therapy goals utilize her strengths while working on her literacy and overall comprehension and organizational abilities.

Speech and Language Goals and Objectives:

Annual Goal #1: By 06/03, Morgan will increase her comprehension abilities during academic tasks, especially comprehension of class lectures and textbook material.

Baseline: Morgan is not able to appropriately and independently complete classroom assignments.  She constantly asks her friends for assistance and fails to recognize her mistakes on homework.

Benchmark: By 06/03, during 3-fifteen minute class activities using a pre-post measurement scheme, Morgan will demonstrate increased use of more efficient clarification requests when she does not understand the discussion or instructions.  The number of "needs for repetition", "inappropriate responses", and "message inaccuracies" will be reduced through intervention as measured using the Systematic Observation of Communicative Interaction (SOCI).

Benchmark: By 06/03, Morgan will use comprehension strategies in all contexts as evidenced by an increased numerical grade in Language Arts and increased appropriate product completion.  She will demonstrate knowledge of confirmation techniques with each paragraph the at she reads.  "Think Aloud to Assess Comprehension" and evaluation of subject specific portfolio assessment.

Benchmark: By 06/03, Morgan will target unknown vocabulary for extra attention during reading assignments as evidenced by her reduction of incorrect "general definitions" of new vocabulary.  Improvement will be monitored through the use of three pre-post measurement probes that focus on providing accurate definitions of words from Morgan's social studies and science textbooks.

Benchmark: By 06/03, Morgan will increase the appropriate use of problem-solving strategies when she does not understand lecture, instruction, or material through her increased use of Comprehension Remedies and Guided Comprehension techniques while completing assignments.  Success will be monitored through "think alouds" used while working on assignments in science and math.

Annual Goal # 2:    By 6/03, Morgan will increase her organization of class notes and study materials.

Baseline: Morgan has difficulty following the organization of lectures.  Additionally her assignment journal, notes and study materials are poorly organized.

Benchmark: By 06/03, Morgan will increase her ability to recall and organize important information presented in both written and oral form.  Improvement will be measured through improvements over time in her production of assignments take from Language Arts, Social Studies and Science Portfolios.
 
 

Specific Instructions: Objectives will be addressed using a "whole language" approach with in-classroom collaboration between Mr. Damico and the classroom teacher incorporating the mediation of learning strategies of Guided Comprehension, Comprehension Remedies, and reciprocal reading both during in-class reading assignments and with homework assignments during "speech study hall", Script Building techniques, and increased scaffolded instruction.  During language arts, cooperative learning groups focusing on Round-robin and Literature Study Grouping after "read alouds" will be used to supplement in-class assignments.  She will review new content for class reading assignments with her peer-tutor during morning prep time and during speech study hall.